The Electrical Engineer

The Short Answer: I think part of the confusion is because of the word Log.  All Log refers to is the type of function applied to the input values before being stored. This function is a logarithm instead of the typical exponent used. And has the characteristic that even as the input value increases dramatically in size, the rate of increase for the output value grows slower. For example Log2 of a series of numbers counting from 0->1024 would result in numbers from 0->10 but Log2 of a number 0->256 would be 0->8. It grows slower as the numbers get larger which has the benefit of compressing bright parts of the image before clipping. And that's really all there is to the log part. But why is it flat? I think what most people actually wonder about is why does LOG look flat? The answer is basically made up of a couple pieces. We are going to start with an OOC version of a photo. (OOC means Out Of Camera, as it not edited by the user) It looks like a normal landscape photo....

(Note: I am giving Medium a try as I find the layouts look nice. It's here ) Film often gets the short sell. Digital came onto the scene and it no longer made sense for the vast majority of photographers and snapshot shooters to keep buying rolls. But often I observe digital shooters taking cheap shots at the medium. They mistake soft scans for a soft medium. And while the nature of film inherently lacks the sterile clarity of digital, much of that softness comes from a different source. Which is why I wanted to attempt a visualization the impact scanning can have. But before that comparison we need to understand that the resolution of a camera or a scanner are not all created equal. The Resolution in MP(megapixels) or dpi(dots per inch) listed on the box often isn’t a literal translation to what is resolved (the fine detail we can see).  Shooting digital it’s very easy to take this distinction for granted but it still applies. Am image from a 24MP camera might onl...

The cameras on the Lumia's are what made me switch from an iPhone, and has been a great pocket companion for the last couple years but as with any phone it started to show it's age.  The new 950 seemed like it was a reasonable replacement, but with fewer pixels and a smaller sensor I was curious if it would be too much of a compromise. So it seemed appropriate to go over the specs and see exactly how much of a change to expect. At first it seems that the 1020 still has an advantage. It has a larger sensor, with a higher resolution. But generally the rule is for all things being equal total light gathered is most important. So how much light do both of these cameras gather? The 950 has a larger aperture ratio and a lower base ISO. Allowing about half a stops more light to each pixel, but with less the half the total pixels. So if we assume the same final resulting size the 1020 still has half a stop advantage. But the 950 should allow t...

Generally there isn't too much exciting happening with films. Mostly the less popular ones go away, but the people at CineStill have done something fun. They've taken a few of the newest stocks from Kodak and did a good job repackaging it for normal color chemistry and use. The one that had the most interest to me was the  800Tungsten . It's pretty much the VISION3 500T stock use for cinema (You can see the 5219 markings on the negatives), but it's had the REMJET removed making it safe for C-41 processing. The question I had was what is it like to shoot, and is it worth the extra expense a roll. I had a hard time finding details of the sorts of quirks of this film, so I thought I would share my own experience. ISO 800 or ISO 400 First I would say I am not sure I agree with the speed rating. The very first roll I shot at 800 and felt generally the results were on the underexposed side. It doesn't make or break a shot, but generally shooting at ...