Technology Advances

[William W]

In my experience YouTube and to a lesser extent Vimeo tutorials range anywhere from excellent to downright garbage. . . Unfortunately, less knowledgeable viewers will be taken in . . . There's not much one can do about it . . .

Misinformation is everywhere. As to not much we can do about it - we can try; though it doesn't work if the reception is switched to "Off".

[Indulge me, please]
We walk every morning. Many folk in our neighbourhood do and they always say hi and sometimes engaged in chit chat. Our reward is excellent coffee.

We have extensive pollution due to smoke haze from many bush-fires which surround our vicinity as well as bush-fire being a major problem in two States.

Yesterday the sun was simply a red ball set on thick translucent smog of grey brown – all day: it was commonplace to see people point their phones and cameras skyward to make photos. It was a good scene, photographically, one could make some eerie images I am sure.

This morning the air is clearer: we were stopped at the intersection waiting for the pedestrian go sign. Two women were stopped talking to each other, standing next to us – paraphrasing “my photos just didn’t turn out, the sun wasn’t red, it was white, Jack (assumed husband/partner) said that I need a better camera, I don’t know . . .”

I said, “hello, do you want to know why your sun turned out white and not red? . . .”

She said quizzically and emphatically, “I do know, I need a better camera.”

I was shocked enough to asked my Wife – “Am I that scary and having an unapproachable manner?”

Funny isn’t it? At least I feel better telling you this strange happening to me this morning.

WW

[Tronhard]

Ted,

I had a feeling you were using an alternative OS, I tried to hang onto XP myself and the web browser issue was the deciding factor in upgrading, system was too slow online and kept getting too many popups. I use Firefox on my tablet as the Windows based browser is compatible with YouTube video for some reason.

You may find you are left with the same situation not long after January 14th, when all Windows 7 support ceases.

[rpcrowe]

In my experience YouTube and to a lesser extent Vimeo tutorials range anywhere from excellent to downright garbage.

There are some that are accurate and great learning while others are put together by people who don't understand the topic and are in fact supplying misleading and inaccurate information. People who understand photography and the science and technology behind it will likely see through the problematic ones quite quickly. Unfortunately, less knowledgeable viewers will be taken in. There's not much one can do about it.

In my experience some of the worst ones deal with subjects like sharpening, printing, composition, etc.

I agree totally. However, if I need to find out something like how to change the blade on an electric saw, YouTube is the first place I go for the info and I usually find it there...

[pnodrog]

What is an emoticon?

Please don't ask what a fix is? It is still usually acid based but it's no longer acetic even if often used in a rather dark room....

[DanK]

I agree totally. However, if I need to find out something like how to change the blade on an electric saw, YouTube is the first place I go for the info and I usually find it there...

The problem is that it is uncurated. Anyone can put whatever they want there. So just like elsewhere on the web, you can find a mix of good advice clearly expressed, good advice unclearly expressed, and stuff that is wrong. I suspect that the simpler and more concrete it is(changing a saw blade), the fewer the bad ones,


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[proseak]

Ted,

I had a feeling you were using an alternative OS, I tried to hang onto XP myself and the web browser issue was the deciding factor in upgrading, system was too slow online and kept getting too many popups.

FWIW, Opera still maintains security for XP. It's an old browser so short on newer features but still works on many sites.

[Shadowman]

FWIW, Opera still maintains security for XP. It's an old browser so short on newer features but still works on many sites.

Peter,

Thanks for the info.

[Shadowman]

You may find you are left with the same situation not long after January 14th, when all Windows 7 support ceases.

Trev,

Thanks for the info.

[Tronhard]

I think youtube is the best tutorial this time....

Personally I would vote for Lynda.com. I have access to it via my local public library (it's listed in the catalogue) and use the link to fill in my library credentials and have access to a HUGE host of excellent training on a myriad of subjects - including (obviously) photography. I often recommend that beginners look at the series of Photography Foundations with Ben Long - he is an excellent host. If you want to download the videos your can right click (for Windows users) on the video and select to save video. It works a treat. There are tutorials on technique, technology and post production. Well worth a look. For those who don't have access via their library, the first month is free.

[Manfred M]

The problem is that it is uncurated. Anyone can put whatever they want there. So just like elsewhere on the web, you can find a mix of good advice clearly expressed, good advice unclearly expressed, and stuff that is wrong. I suspect that the simpler and more concrete it is(changing a saw blade), the fewer the bad ones,

True, but even then one can find solutions that are suspect or liable to cause issues.

When it comes to subjects that are more complex or less clearly defined, the problem gets worse with people who clearly do not have a full understanding of what they are shooting making suspect advice. Curation would be a good idea, but who would do the curation?

[Manfred M]

Personally I would vote for Lynda.com.

In general I would agree with you because the posters are vetted as having a reasonable of expertise, but even here this is not 100% correct.

When I teach technical topics at local photo clubs, I often send out some information and will identify some Lynda.com videos for people to watch to get a better understanding of the topic. I recently put together a workshop and each of the videos I watched on the topic on that site had serious deficiencies and I recommended against watching them or at least ignoring particular sections of the videos.

[Tronhard]

In general I would agree with you because the posters are vetted as having a reasonable of expertise, but even here this is not 100% correct.

When I teach technical topics at local photo clubs, I often send out some information and will identify some Lynda.com videos for people to watch to get a better understanding of the topic. I recently put together a workshop and each of the videos I watched on the topic on that site had serious deficiencies and I recommended against watching them or at least ignoring particular sections of the videos.

I agree that their site is not 100% perfect - there are some presenters I prefer over others, but I would trust that site more than picking up something unverifiable off youtube. Certainly, I would not accuse them of sensationalism, which was one of the points of the original post I believe.

[Cantab]

You may find you are left with the same situation not long after January 14th, when all Windows 7 support ceases.

I'm another one still running W7. When W7 becomes untenable, I'll need to decide on a new desktop or buy another hard drive and see if I can rig up a triple boot. My desktop is currently a dual boot, from when I added a second hard drive so I could run W7 on my XP machine.

[xpatUSA]

Curation would be a good idea, but who would do the curation?

Aha! Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ...

[Tronhard]

I'm another one still running W7. When W7 becomes untenable, I'll need to decide on a new desktop or buy another hard drive and see if I can rig up a triple boot. My desktop is currently a dual boot, from when I added a second hard drive so I could run W7 on my XP machine.

I came across a chap at my local camera group still running a Windows 98 machine, and using Office 95... go figure.

[William W]

For a "dead" language, there is always and Latin phrase to suit every occasion. . .

[mugge]

What is an emoticon?

Whaaaaaat!

[xpatUSA]

I'm another one still running W7. When W7 becomes untenable, I'll need to decide on a new desktop or buy another hard drive and see if I can rig up a triple boot. My desktop is currently a dual boot, from when I added a second hard drive so I could run W7 on my XP machine.

Semi-good news. "
Writing drivers for Windows 7? You have our sympathy, and three more years

The end is nigh for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, with extended support coming to a screeching halt on 14 January 2020. However, with various paid options potentially keeping the lights on for another three years, Microsoft has reassured those unfortunates tasked with producing drivers for the legacy OSes that their toils can go on through January 2023."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/1...osoft_roundup/

FWIW ...

[Shadowman]

Semi-good news. "
Writing drivers for Windows 7? You have our sympathy, and three more years

The end is nigh for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, with extended support coming to a screeching halt on 14 January 2020. However, with various paid options potentially keeping the lights on for another three years, Microsoft has reassured those unfortunates tasked with producing drivers for the legacy OSes that their toils can go on through January 2023."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/1...osoft_roundup/

FWIW ...

Interesting indeed, we use temperature/humidity data loggers from a particular manufacturer and they haven't updated their compatibility software in years, when looking at the latest specification for their latest version, it stated compatible with Windows up to version 7, not compatible with 8.1 or 10.

[rpcrowe]

As Manfred stated - YouTube videos range from the excellent to the ridiculous! However, the PixImperfect videos on YouTube seem to be generally excellent.

There are usually several ways to accomplish anything using Photoshop. Manesh, in his Piximperfect videos, usually explains things in a way that I can grasp...