regarding Photography is, to dig out the older digital RAW files, and converting them with today's tools in Photoshop. I mean the tools we have today - are remarkable. Compare that to a time of 2010 - where they were limited in terms of selective processing (to treat parts of an image by making it brighter / darker, taking care of noise, etc.). You could of course do it with the normal tools in Photoshop - no problem. But today you can do that in RAW with more precision, lifting or darken the sky, without affecting the other area in the photos. Just as a very simple example.
The AI noise reduction feature too - i find marvelous - taking care of the thousands of too noisy images in a way where it still looks really good after processing them (today). Back then, noise was always an issue, and not really that easy to correct without too much weird looks.
Then we've got Topaz, which can sometimes give excellent sharpness even in the finest details - albeit it tends to introduce weird artifacts in other areas, if you don't watch out - or do it to heavily. But such tools didn't exist back in 2010. Or why not year 2004 - where you barely had any really good tool for noise removal.
Those RAW files i can take care of today, with often excellent results !!
Or to lift people out of the shadows (meaning, that when people are a too dark against a brighter sky - one can lift the brightness of the people without affecting the surrounding area. By that give better balance to a photo.
I love that !!! I can spend many hours on re-correcting such RAW files that were taken 15- 20 years ago.
It doesn't really matter (to me) that these files only where from 8 MP (!) sensors, because for my Diary it still digs out large amounts of very fine details when i work with them. Then there is of course Gigapixel, which in some instances allows me to make a 3 MP photo from year 2001, twice as large and still looks convincingly good.
Many RAW files come from the Canon EOS 1D Mark II camera i used between 2005 and 2012. They are only 8 MP, but had a very good quality to them compared to the camera models from the mid 00s.
Canon EOS 1D Mark II (2005)
I think i threw that camera away in the past year... can you imagine ?! Sounds horrible now that I write it like that. Yet, i never used it - not for 10+ years. That's also because I still have the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV in my closet - a professional camera 2 generations newer. (Also that brick I am not using). But at least it had liveview - which the older 1D Mark II did not have - and made exact focus at night very, very tricky.
The older EOS 1D Mark II can today be had for around 140 € at eBay. I doubt however you'll find the battery charger for it...
Boy did i use that camera heavily... I absolutely loved it. The AF was way better (albeit not always spot on - but still miles better than the AF from my older Canon EOS 10D, or god forbid, the Canon EOS D30 from year 2000 - whose AF was so mediocre to say the least.
The files from the 1D Mark II were smooth and flexible. Giving me a huge leap in image quality because of that. And those RAW files, still hold up very well, with today's Photoshop tools.
But even if it was a professional camera, it too sometimes had issues with AF - so called adjustment issues. Simply said, it could go out of aligment. Back then it was a pretty common phenomen leading to blurry images where the focus wasn't at the right spot. Even with brand new Canon cameras ! I don't know how many times i had to give in a camera to service in order to get that fixed.
Ah. Those were the days... Daisy.
Yes, the Canon EOS 1D Mark II was certainly one of my most used cameras ever. I practically did everything with it. I failed to mention that it was a 1.33x crop factor camera, not entirely fullframe. Therefore - a 200mm ƒ 2 L IS lens turned into a 260mm ƒ2 lens.
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