Amateur vs Pro Photography Challenge - Google Pixel 3 vs Fujifilm GFX

[nicklmg]

Buy the merch: http://lttstore.com

 

Buy: Fujifilm GFX 
Amazon: https://lmg.gg/8KV5Z
B&H: https://lmg.gg/bhgfxbody

 

Buy: Fujifilm GFX
B&H: https://lmg.gg/bhgfxlense

 

Buy Google Pixel 3 on Amazon: https://lmg.gg/8KV54

[ARikozuM]

Sorry, but if we gave Brandon an original iPhone iPod Shuffle he would still get better pictures than anything Linus could hope for. 

[TopHatProductions115]

Crap - the video's only available in 360p for me  I'll wait for HD...

[Ashiella]

@ARikozuM I think Brandon's pretty cute.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Ashiella said:

@ARikozuM I think Brandon's pretty cute.

I can neither confirm nor deny. 

[ChalkChalkson]

This video was freaking amazing on so many levels. Though seeing that you ended up going pretty deep on the talent show thing in the end, maybe you could have pronounced that more earlier on. Also I wish there was a little actual analysis in the end by Linus or Brandon. Honestly, I'd love to see a standalone video that is nothing but the two going through their pictures discussing where the better tool helped

[ChalkChalkson]

32 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Sorry, but if we gave Brandon an original iPhone iPod Shuffle he would still get better pictures than anything Linus could hope for. 

Have you seen the video? Linus took some really good shots! It's almost like doing videos all day for several years gives you some basic sense of shot composition :P

[Ein0r]

Do I want to watch a video about photography in 360p though? I did that many many years ago, so might as well...

 

Edit: Nevermind, complaining helped as it switched to HD right after I made this post.

[Egg-Roll]

7 minutes ago, ChalkChalkson said:

Have you seen the video? Linus took some really good shots! It's almost like doing videos all day for several years gives you some basic sense of shot composition

 

Ain't going to lie this video was actually really good  Linus did do very well considering he knew nothing about the camera, but the pics at least earlier on where just lucky imo.

[Ryz]

So I guess the lesson we learned is that better cameras DO you make you a better photographer.

[Egg-Roll]

11 minutes ago, Ryz said:

So I guess the lesson we learned is that better cameras DO you make you a better photographer.

Yes and no, there are people here that still use film and can produce far better pictures than almost any digital camera on the market. I my self don't think the camera itself makes you better, it's your ability as a person who is using the equipment. That said I'm sure Linus has played with simple setting cameras like P&S ones, but I still think his shots where all luck since he knew basically nothing about the cameras abilities, so he actually deserved to win due to having a far bigger handicap than I would ever thing should be allowed in such a challenge. Before I got my Canon RP I used either a Is S5, SX40 or the original digital Rebel which is a crop sensor, phone cameras produce great images considering the size of the sensor and the pixels packed in them, beyond that I would never suggest anyone to use one for long term images, professional shoots etc.

 

Not sure if that camera had a auto function, it probably does but he was likely not allowed to use it, but even the auto function allows many settings to be changed based on your environment, at which time yes a better camera would technically make you better but then you are no better off than a phone in your hand.

[Zodiark1593]

29 minutes ago, Ryz said:

So I guess the lesson we learned is that better cameras DO you make you a better photographer.

A good camera makes it easier to produce usable, and even good pictures. A practiced photographer can push said camera to it's limit however.

 

Both photographer and gear play their roles in producing excellent shots.

[Ein0r]

I am an absolute amateur. I can clearly see who has the skills of a photographer and who doesn't, just by looking at how most of the pictures were arranged. But I have a hard time identifying why the better camera makes for a better photographer, except for a few pictures here and there. Most notably for this are the pregnancy pictures.  Linus also has the advantage that he works very well under stress and pressure.

 

From my pov, I prefer Brandon's picture of the professional athlete James over Linus' picture.

 

The baseball caps are hard. Probably Linus > Brandon for me. Both pictures combined would make me buy the cap. Each on their own is lacking. One lacks the model, the other the logo. But damn, Brandon's picture looks sharp. I didn't like the hoodie photo. The water bottles are a clear win for Brandon. It was neat to see the trick he used so Colton would have a cheerful expression, by making him react to something he truly enjoys.

 

I was mostly excited on how they would use  that dog sculpture, but Linus had to use his signature skill and knocked it off the table. Thanks. Linus is the clear winner for me in this one. This was probably Brandon's worst photo in my opinion.. I get the impression of a photoshooting of a baby, surrounded by its toys. But the baby is a bowl of dog food. And the bowl looks like dry food where somebody did a huge dump on. But I would buy Brandon's dry food more than I would buy Linus' wet food.

 

The headshots were both good. If it weren't for that light reflection on the windshield I would prefer Linus' over Brandons. Maybe if both photographers had the same goal, besides a headshot, this might have ben a better comparison. Maybe a set expression of the model might have workded as well, This way I feel you compare apples to oranges.

 

The pre-natal photos are the ones were I as a beginner can clearly see the difference in cameras and the photopgraphers skills. Brandon's arrangement was great and if he had a camera that allowed him to better adjust to the colors of the sky and the grasses, his would have been infinitely better. I mean you can't really blame Brandon that his models weren't into it, looking like a sad couple that says farewell. But  Linus' picture of the walking couple is the winner for me on this last challenge. But also not because his camera was better but because he took the right photo at the right moment and his models actually looked like they enjoyed it and. My guess is, if Brandon had taken this photo he might have picked an version where you can see more of the blue sky, instead of completely grey one, that is fully covered in clouds.

 

I probably haven't enjoyed a video as much as this one for quite some time and hope to see more of or similar things like that. Bit of a shame with the upload- and resolution troubles.

 

 

[TempestCatto]

As soon as they were handed their first challenge in an envelope, my mind immediately went to Top Gear/The Grand Tour. I loved the format of this video. Sure it was a bit forced/cheezey at times, but when it was all natural, it felt fun and energetic. I hope to see more stuff like this in the future.

[CJMAXiK]

I would love to see all the pictures in hi-res

[Egg-Roll]

7 minutes ago, CJMAXiK said:

I would love to see all the pictures in hi-res

Based on the 360p video (thanks yourude), no you wouldn't.

18 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

As soon as they were handed their first challenge in an envelope, my mind immediately went to Top Gear/The Grand Tour. I loved the format of this video. Sure it was a bit forced/cheezey at times, but when it was all natural, it felt fun and energetic. I hope to see more stuff like this in the future.

Really? I got the scrapyard wars vibe which is a spin off from the popular reality tv shows, those cut ins are possible the worst parts of the video, a somewhat needed part but could have been done better.

 

49 minutes ago, Ein0r said:

Linus also has the advantage that he works very well under stress and pressure.

I'm sure both work well under pressure as while one yes runs the company next to making the calls etc he does have workers for a lot of the jobs. His roll is not stress free but I would not go out and say it's much more than any other top player at LMG including Brandon  That said both will work differently under different types of pressure, in this video you can actually see Brandon being more relaxed esp the pregnancy section where as Linus was almost always stressed but that is mostly due to the lack of knowing how the camera works more than anything else. Personally I would love to see another video similar to this but next time actually let Linus learn the basics of the camera over a toss and go for it method. Than actually compare photos right next to each other over asking which ones the best looking one based on the looks.

[Ein0r]

7 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

I'm sure both work well under pressure

I shouldnt have added that sentence or rewritten it, sorry.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, Ein0r said:

hard time identifying why the better camera makes for a better photographer

What the better camera does, is help compensate for the amateur using it (in some cases)

 

There is a good quote from Ansel Adams "The single most important part of a camera, is the twelve inches behind it"

I use a near 16 year old dSLR (Canon 10d) for my normal workflow, and I am published in several magazines with it. 

But I would never try to make poster-sized prints with it, the resolution limitation (a whopping 6 MP) would quickly become apparent. 

 

What I could do with a 50k digital Medium Format, would allow me to make *larger* prints, and possibly finer grained images, but since my prime work is in Infrared, grain isn't too much of an issue.

 

The video would have been a lot better if they had pitted two professional photographers against each other, and then printed out the shots at max size, you'd quickly see the limitations of the cell phone.

 

[Cyanara]

That was a marathon video, but amazing on so many fronts. I particularly loved the excellent use of supporting staff. I probably wasn't even a third of the way through before hitting the like button.

[PiGHamM3R]

I think this video should be moved to "Channel Super Fun" - as this video looked fun to do; almost as amazing as the Dildo Racing or Wine Rack video. I'm no photographer and have no ground to stand on when it comes to pictures, but wow; I want an in-depth tutorial on how to get my pictures to look like that from a little smartphone.

 

PS: Colton does have the best pores. (Wonder what those 2 ladies walking were thinking when you were filming this)

[harryk]

Fun video! Brandon really showed his skills as a photographer during the merch shoot; the way he directed Colton and made the shoot fun and varied.

 

I would've liked to see better judging though. Perhaps it was just the way it was edited but it almost seemed trivial. Would've been cool to anonymously post them to a photography community and see which got more praise. Also all the shoots were short and limited. Should've had one round which allowed 24 or 48 hours to do a landscape or freestyle photo; would've allowed them to really search and explore the abilities of the camera. I know this wasn't the point of this video but the shooting situation's were not applicable to really show the unique abilities of the GFX that only medium format provides.

[ninjaman5j5]

Welcome to LTT, take a funny video you make and actually use the photos on your website. Linus's went up for hoodie, brandon's the water bottle. Thanks guys that gave me a good laugh.

[Egg-Roll]

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

The video would have been a lot better if they had pitted two professional photographers against each other, and then printed out the shots at max size, you'd quickly see the limitations of the cell phone.

 

Yes, but I would have preferred if they actually gave Linus a chance with it, would have made the video more interesting. People go ooo aaa with phone cameras because of megapixels and fancy internal processing and funky AI naming scams (no I said that right), but imo I think the cellphones needs all the help it can get esp now with possible $1000 mirrorless coming into the scene in the next few months.

 

56 minutes ago, PiGHamM3R said:

I think this video should be moved to "Channel Super Fun" - as this video looked fun to do; almost as amazing as the Dildo Racing or Wine Rack video. I'm no photographer and have no ground to stand on when it comes to pictures, but wow; I want an in-depth tutorial on how to get my pictures to look like that from a little smartphone.

 

Fun to do? maybe. Many videos on LTT where fun to do (like unboxing all that lovely equipment) but this isn't CSF material, it falls along the lines of scrapyard wars.

 

You want my suggestion about getting good pictures from a cellphone? Don't bother, you could have mastered a camera by the time you can get it on a phone. That's why Brandon could get good shots, why I can if really wanted to get good shots, however shots from phones are bad jokes in comparison to actual cameras even some/many cheap point and shoot ones, mostly due to sensor size.

 

The picture below was done on the 12mp (not the 20mp one) camera on my Xiaomi Mi A2 and remember these cars are blazing fast even around the turn it was doing. It was zoomed 2x ish in because I was too far away and was the only chance I had to try to get a picture of them w/o waiting for more to show up. This was in optimal conditions much like how LTT took pictures.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Vs my RP at 10,000 ISO non optimal situation no flash dark areas tons of kids running around using a EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 etc (yes I'm pinning a cheap phone against a $1600 USD camera but similar results can be had from a $500 one) I've also posted my Stylo 2 Plus images here in the past and it produces some decent images but nothing to really to call home about.

 

 

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Ein0r said:

I shouldnt have added that sentence or rewritten it, sorry.

No worries

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

What the better camera does, is help compensate for the amateur using it (in some cases)

 

There is a good quote from Ansel Adams "The single most important part of a camera, is the twelve inches behind it"

I use a near 16 year old dSLR (Canon 10d) for my normal workflow, and I am published in several magazines with it. 

But I would never try to make poster-sized prints with it, the resolution limitation (a whopping 6 MP) would quickly become apparent. 

 

What I could do with a 50k digital Medium Format, would allow me to make *larger* prints, and possibly finer grained images, but since my prime work is in Infrared, grain isn't too much of an issue.

 

The video would have been a lot better if they had pitted two professional photographers against each other, and then printed out the shots at max size, you'd quickly see the limitations of the cell phone.

 

Medium Format film would be fun, and actually somewhat economical for occasional use. Given the size of the apertures available in medium format lenses, I'd imagine depth of field to be especially shallow (perhaps excessively so), even at a distance.

 

While larger sensors out-brute the pill-size sensors employed in smartphone cameras, automated exposure bracketing (HDR) and image stacking (noise reduction) allow tiny sensors to punch above their weight, provided there's enough light to use the shutter speeds required. Running the ISO up gets pretty grievous though. The latest iPhones top out somewhere at 2400 ISO, while my Canon G7X embarrasses it at the same setting. 

 

The flexibility of a variable aperture has also been quite valuable. Slower shutter speeds in well-lit areas would require an external nd filter on a smartphone.

[TheNamelessOne]

That was amazing, I haven't laughed that much in quite a while and I needed it. Thank you.

Now I ship James and Colton, who's with me?