5 Misconceptions

This week I’m going to talk about 5 misconceptions that some photographers have. These are caused by having an incomplete understanding of common concepts.

#1 – You can take a color image and desaturate it to make a good b&w image. You can’t. Desaturating an images is completely different that using an adjustment layer to do the conversion. Desaturating will damage the image and you will lose contrast and detail. Here’s a simple example of why this is:

A color images of yellow and blue panels.

The image below is the same image of yellow and blue panels, but was desaturated.

As you can see, you’ve lost all contrast between the panels. So, if this was a shot of an umbrella with alternating yellow and blue panels, then the desaturated photo would appear uniformly gray. Other colors will also start blending together.

#2 – JPGs look better than RAW images. Not really true. A JPG when properly exposed will sometimes look better than a RAW image. The reason being that a JPG has been manipulated by the camera. JPGs have the saturation, vibrancy, and other values exaggerated in camera. When compared to an unmanipulated RAW photo the JPG will be more colorful and brighter. However, the RAW image in most all cases can be adjusted to look better than a JPG. Another advantage of a RAW image is that there are more parameters that you can control (like white balance) that are difficult to control on a JPG. Shoot RAW when you can.

#3 – It’s better to spend money on a better camera when possible. Sorta. That’s true if you are already using top quality professional quality lenses. While the latest, greatest camera body may have an awesome sensor in it, you are depending on the light passing thru the lens to be able to keep up with the sensor. So if you are using a poor quality lens, even on an awesome camera, your images will have poor contrast, color and sharpness. I’ve heard people complain about their camera being inconsistently sharp, when really it was the lens. Some inexpensive zoom lenses produce inconsistently sharp images based on focal length and aperture. For instance, at 80mm and f/8 you may get a nice sharp image. But if you zoom out to 35mm, the image is less sharp at the same aperture.

#4 – If someone has lots of “likes” on a photo it must be good. Not true. When you look at social media, such as Facebook, there are wide variety of folks that participate. Many of them are simply not qualified to critically judge the quality of a photo. Most people judge photos by just looking at subject matter. A photo of a cute kitten will still be a cute photo even if it’s not in sharp focus or is underexposed. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a basis for judging someone’s photographic abilities.

#5 – If a light source is too harsh, then move it farther from the subject to soften it. Totally false. Here is the general rule: The larger the light source is the softer the light will be. The smaller the light source, the harsher it will be. When you move a light source further away, its size, relative to the subject, will decrease and the light will be harsher. Simple as that.

That’s it for this week and if you want to see some examples of some of my personal projects click here.

Thanks for reading.

-Ken