Persistent Myths in Photography

Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 10 June 2025 at 00:42  | reply

Another myth is that you absolutely have to screw a UV filter onto your lens to protect the front element. A good lens hood provides better protection. A cheap UV filter does more harm than good to your photos.

Nice angle, Nando. And good that you bring it up. A lot of nonsense is told, not just about photography. Indeed, the UV filter is a persistent one too.

Thanks Nando for these tips, never too old to learn.

Ehhh JW Genuit, that seems like a factual truth to me, not an 'untruth'. What is RAW and what is JPG? Which contains more information?: RAW! Just think about highlights.

Actually, a quick question: does working with a manually set white balance produce better results, even when shooting in RAW, or is this also a myth

The statement regarding high Iso that a good exposure in dark conditions is better than the noise inherently produced by it is absolutely true. But what unfortunately isn't mentioned, and is actually even more important here, is that by increasing the iso you first and foremost avoid motion blur (both from yourself, but equally from the moving object) as much as possible. All the more so because -at least for me - motion blur (even with app AI sharpen Topaz) can only be remedied in a very rudimentary way, and then simply makes your photo worthless.

Meanwhile, also a classic: Full Frame is better than APS-C - if you want to photograph seriously, you have to use FF.
1-the artistic/creative side of the photo is not primarily determined by the camera
2-both systems have pros and cons

Good piece again, and some of the reactions show well how deeply these myths have penetrated.

Isn't it gradually time to define a lens by angle of view instead of focal length?
With all the different sensor formats, that would eliminate a lot of confusion.

APS-C came about because Full Frame was too expensive for hobbyists. Meanwhile, Full Frame has become affordable. But in the film era, it was only Full frame on a 35mm camera. Both systems have their pros and cons, but give me Full frame where 50mm really is 50mm. Looking through the viewfinder is also a big difference. My first camera was a Canon 60D, an ASP-C and I had a 17-50 ASP-C lens for it. Best lens ever for ASP-C! with, for example, Fujifilm, they only have ASP-C and medium format and then you still have Micro 4/3-sensor format, which also has its advantages. You can keep going like this of course.

In the analog days there were also multiple cameras with a smaller image, the half-small-image cameras, mainly the Olympus Pen, of which even a single-lens reflex exists. The only problem was that the film was a bottleneck, which has not been an issue since the sophisticated sensors. An APS-C sensor can deliver images that are exactly just as good as an FF, the only disadvantage is the greater depth of field, nice "bokeh" is difficult.
The Dx format only has advantages otherwise, the lenses can namely be quite a bit smaller, tele is 1.5 times as long in terms of reach, my Sigma 150-600 is effectively 900 at the longest setting, try that on FF. And on the wide-angle side you don't miss anything, the shortest for FF is an 11, for Dx 8, which corresponds to 12, negligible, only that 8-15 weighs just 600 grams. That 11_22 mm I think, at least a kilo.

And the Kodak Instamatic 26x26, I believe.

Also still quite persistent: Full Frame has larger pixels (with the same number as APS-C) SO you get less noise. That may be true at infinity, but at shorter distances where you consciously choose a limited depth of field, with APS-C you can open up the aperture further (because you are working with a shorter focal length) and then choose a lower ISO. Comparing at the same ISO is not always relevant

Example: FF 35 mm at 5.6 has approximately the same depth of field as 23 mm at 4 for APS-C. At the same shutter speed, you can therefore choose your ISO a factor of 2 lower with APS-C

In my opinion, M mode is the same as Av mode, unless you use a separate light meter.

That you have to use FF (read: buy) because you get more noise with APS-C. The assumption here is that you use the same ISO, but with APS-C you can use a lower ISO in the same situation. So the sales pitch "With APS-C you have more noise than with" is not correct (to zeroth order).

Lol, I still have a German Revue FTM lying around here (a variant of the Agfa). Funny, by the way, that what we now call Full Frame was called 35mm back then. My Yashica 44 used 127 film. I still very occasionally use it with 135 film.