jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Aug 8, 2021 7:38:32 GMT -5
This Panasonic FZ camera is a sweetheart to use holajonathan. Thanks for the suggestions. In aperture priority mode the touch screen is so easy to make quick changes. Those are(better) great settings, I agree with your selections for richer still photos - ISO 125, the lower 180th shutter speed, f11(max for this camera for max depth) is easy to set and let the auto A-mode handle WB and other settings. Next session I will try these. It is difficult to tell the difference in photo grain quality when using ISO 125-400-800, credit modern electronics for this. Focus tricks are available on this camera. The real challenge. Auto focus is lighting fast but does not pick the desired focal plane location on many occasions(typical) so the manual focus is switched on. Focus bracketing not attempted yet... There is a switch setting on the camera that auto varies the focus a short distance over the subject's depth automatically. Like a 1 second video that allows you to select from several focuses. OK for still subjects. Favored focus method: These were manually focused - a magnified window enters the taking screen when adjusting the manual focus ring allowing very precision focus. Not only that there is a 'glare sheen' that lights up the focal plane on the subject in this window. This glare plane is amazing technology for identifying the focal plane and moving it to and from. Hard to describe this glare field but it is there. A visible focus plane - crazy. This manual focus window is best used where you have time to focus. Otherwise focus bracketing would work better for moving subjects perhaps. And the choice of photo stacking is available for still objects - not sure if hand held will work in stack mode, stabilizer is great but a tripod may be required when in stacking mode. 12 frame per second burst is yet another alternative. This camera has a lot of options. Testing the brain learning them...
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Post by nowyo on Aug 8, 2021 9:48:46 GMT -5
Setting up yesterday morning. Leaving shortly for todays action. So far they are doing their darndest to wipe m out again.
Russ
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Aug 8, 2021 9:55:04 GMT -5
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Post by jasoninsd on Aug 8, 2021 9:57:59 GMT -5
This guy was having a great time gorging on fallen plums in my orchard. Second picture...in the rocks between the spread is a face. My wife saw it immediately. LOL
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Post by holajonathan on Aug 8, 2021 13:42:01 GMT -5
jamesp I have taken tens of thousands of photos with Canon digital SLRs going back two decades and probably 75% were in aperture priority mode. If there is one thing you want to be able to quickly control between shots it is aperture. With the dragon flies you can keep it pegged at f11, but if you were to decide to take a frog portrait in between dragon fly shots, you might want to open the aperture up all the way to narrow the focal plane, blur the background, and thus draw all attention on the subject. Your camera is a good modern unit that looks to be a good size (large enough physically) which is important. One of the big advantages of a DSLR is the larger camera body which allows fingers to rest on control buttons and wheels when gripping the camera, giving you immediate access to f stop, shutter speed, and other controls. It's also easier to hold a larger camera steady. Higher ISO is not as limiting as it used to be. With film, you could always expect a lot of "noise" when processing ISO 800 or 1600 film. With digital cameras, increasing ISO does not produce the same result with all cameras, or at least not to the same degree. Your camera appears to have a large image sensor which would account for its good performance with higher ISO. I'm talking about the physical size of the image sensor, not the megapixel count. Generally speaking, the more sensitive you make the sensor to light (higher ISO), it picks up more extraneous light beams that are not reflecting directly from the object in focus to the sensor. The "noise" are the extraneous beams of light. A larger image sensor allows for more space between light sensing pixels which makes them better at capturing only the intended light beams. The other factor is in-camera noise reduction processing. Modern digital cameras are pretty good at removing ISO noise without simply blurring pixels together, which was sort of the old noise reduction technique. With any camera image processing you are going to lose a little of something in exchange for the noise reduction (sharpness, fidelity of colors, etc) but it could be so slight that you can't tell with the naked eye. Sensor size and lens quality tends to matter much more than megapixel count in determining image quality. Although tiny image sensors like those in my Samsung smart phone have made huge improvements in just the past few years, I would still take my 6 megapixel canon digital rebel from 2003 over any cell phone camera in terms of image quality and ease of manual control. These from the Louisville, KY zoo, fall 2003, with the original Canon Digital Rebel and 85mm prime lens. 18 years ago, the fact that a total amateur could take photos like this was revolutionary. If they no longer look that impressive in terms of image quality, it is because we have become accustomed to the amazing advances in affordable digital cameras.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Aug 8, 2021 15:09:23 GMT -5
My understanding of new and older cameras parallels your points closely holajonathan. The points you make are foundation facts that help people understand the path to beautiful photography. Digital introduces new capabilities no doubt. Evolution of digital has been interesting. Delving into new territory since this camera is way newer technology than my old Nikon D90 which still takes great photos. Having a good time exploring the new options.
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pizzano
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Post by pizzano on Aug 8, 2021 16:22:52 GMT -5
While talking about old/new digital camera photo quality........I dug up a few various examples (environments) of older photo's I took with my very first digital camera........an Olympus C-740 UZ, 3.2mp....a zoom, one of the first of it's kind, in a modest price range, 2002/2003....Specs can be found here....: www.dpreview.com/products/olympus/compacts/oly_c740uz/specificationsI added a Digital Optics 0.45x (macro) wide angle lens made specifically for the C-740, and a couple of different filters.......all of the pic's were taken in 2003/04 using the attachments.......as mentioned by jonathan, given optimum lighting conditions, low MP rate and decent size sensor will perform/reproduce quite well.....as the attached represent.....a little on the soft side and a bit of lens bend around the edges (due to the added filters and lens)......all in all, that little camera could out perform my abilities........it is small, being one of the reasons I eventually went full frame DSLR.....it still works and was a great introduction trainer moving up to DSLR......: F/3.2 -36mm, ISO-64, ET-1/250 F/4.0 - 6mm, ISO-64, ET-1/800 F/4.0 - 6mm, ISO-64, ET-1/125 f/3.2 - 14mm, ISO-64, ET-1/125 F/4.0 - 6mm, ISO-64, ET-1/650 a hazy morning F/4.0 - 10mm, ISO-64, ET-1/800 F/3.7 - 63mm, ISO-121, ET-1/800 F/3.7 - 63mm, ISO-200, ET-1/400 Given 18yr old technology.......not pro quality, but in it's day, it held it's own........lol
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Post by holajonathan on Aug 9, 2021 0:17:23 GMT -5
My understanding of new and older cameras parallels your points closely holajonathan . The points you make are foundation facts that help people understand the path to beautiful photography. Digital introduces new capabilities no doubt. Evolution of digital has been interesting. Delving into new territory since this camera is way newer technology than my old Nikon D90 which still takes great photos. Having a good time exploring the new options. Poor kids these days don't appreciate their digital cameras. (Or what life was like before cell phones.) I spent just a few years trying to take good photos with a 35mm camera, which made me appreciate the digital revolution much more. There were some real advantages to learning on a film camera. Just like hand-writing a letter makes you think more about what you want to say, when you had to pay for film and to develop it, and you couldn't see the result instantaneously, you thought a lot more about camera settings, photographic composition, etc, before hitting the shutter release. Slowing down and thinking about what you're doing gets harder with more technology and instant feedback, but is still necessary to achieve excellence at pretty much anything.
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Post by holajonathan on Aug 9, 2021 0:24:56 GMT -5
While talking about old/new digital camera photo quality........I dug up a few various examples (environments) of older photo's I took with my very first digital camera........an Olympus C-740 UZ, 3.2mp....a zoom, one of the first of it's kind, in a modest price range, 2002/2003....Specs can be found here....: www.dpreview.com/products/olympus/compacts/oly_c740uz/specificationsI added a Digital Optics 0.45x (macro) wide angle lens made specifically for the C-740, and a couple of different filters.......all of the pic's were taken in 2003/04 using the attachments.......as mentioned by jonathan, given optimum lighting conditions, low MP rate and decent size sensor will perform/reproduce quite well.....as the attached represent.....a little on the soft side and a bit of lens bend around the edges (due to the added filters and lens)......all in all, that little camera could out perform my abilities........it is small, being one of the reasons I eventually went full frame DSLR.....it still works and was a great introduction trainer moving up to DSLR......: F/3.2 -36mm, ISO-64, ET-1/250 F/4.0 - 6mm, ISO-64, ET-1/800 F/4.0 - 6mm, ISO-64, ET-1/125 f/3.2 - 14mm, ISO-64, ET-1/125 F/4.0 - 6mm, ISO-64, ET-1/650 a hazy morning F/4.0 - 10mm, ISO-64, ET-1/800 F/3.7 - 63mm, ISO-121, ET-1/800 F/3.7 - 63mm, ISO-200, ET-1/400 Given 18yr old technology.......not pro quality, but in it's day, it held it's own........lol There was a pro photographer a number of years ago who had a blog where he posted photos taken with his first generation iphone, which had a lousy camera. The photos were amazing, however, because of the subject matter, composition, use of light, etc... That was the point of the blog -- to show that you can take really great photos with any camera if you have a good photographic eye, skills, and experience. Of course if you are a sports photographer you pretty much have to have a camera lens that costs as much as my car. And to do good macro you need something more than an old iphone. But generally speaking, camera quality is real low on the list of where to invest time / money to take better photos. You see the same thing with musical instruments. Once you get to a "good enough" guitar, violin, etc, what you hear depends almost entirely on the skill of the musician and very little on the quality of the instrument.
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pizzano
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Post by pizzano on Aug 9, 2021 1:28:07 GMT -5
holajonathan........It's obvious you've got time & experience invested in photography.......lots of knowledge for sure. Learning on film SLR most certainly made my transition to DSLR much easier (other than the terminology & function application), which took/takes time to digest. So true, understanding & putting into practice composition takes the guess work out of many (less than capable) cameras, phone or otherwise......it's an art form for sure.
As for musical instruments, well crafted tools, even once one "masters" the physical/emotional attributes it takes to perform at a high level of competence, make a huge difference with reliability, expectation and repetitive performance......all critical to the the distinct tone, sound, composition all of us musicians strive for. It is true a competent musician, using a guitar as an example, (given the known genre), can make a $100.00 (made in Mexico/China) Fender acoustic sing.....for awhile, maybe only one session, maybe......but take that same genre under the same conditions, with a Taylor, Martin, Hohner Classic, any well crafted tool as such, that same musician will be able duplicate pleasantly, without disruption, over and over again........personal taste aside, it too is an art form that takes time to "develop"....just like it did waiting for our film to process.......lol
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Post by jasoninsd on Aug 9, 2021 1:35:02 GMT -5
holajonathan........It's obvious you've got time & experience invested in photography.......lots of knowledge for sure. Learning on film SLR most certainly made my transition to DSLR much easier (other than the terminology & function application), which took/takes time to digest. So true, understanding & putting into practice composition takes the guess work out of many (less than capable) cameras, phone or otherwise......it's an art form for sure. As for musical instruments, well crafted tools, even once one "masters" the physical/emotional attributes it takes to perform at a high level of competence, make a huge difference with reliability, expectation and repetitive performance......all critical to the the distinct tone, sound, composition all of us musicians strive for. It is true a competent musician, using a guitar as an example, (given the known genre), can make a $100.00 (made in Mexico/China) Fender acoustic sing.....for awhile, maybe only one session, maybe......but take that same genre under the same conditions, with a Taylor, Martin, Hohner Classic, any well crafted tool as such, that same musician will be able duplicate pleasantly, without disruption, over and over again........personal taste aside, it too is an art form that takes time to "develop"....just like it did waiting for our film to process.......lol Remember when Polaroid film first appeared...and at the time we felt that was "instant" film processing?! (Fanning it for five minutes to get it to develop! LOL) - Such a step up from getting the 35mm film developed at the local Walgreens! LOL
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Aug 9, 2021 5:32:12 GMT -5
You might as well go full manual mode, lower ISO down to 100 (or whatever the lowest is on your camera), and make shutter speed much lower to compensate. No need to have a 1/400 of a second shutter speed unless you are trying to capture the dragonfly in flight. If 176mm is the focus length of the photo, most people can pretty easily hand hold a camera steady down to 1/the focus length seconds. If you have reasonably steady hands, you should be able to hand hold at 1/150 of a second at 176mm. If the camera has optical image stabilization, you can at least cut that in half, and maybe cut it in half twice (1/70 or slower with decent image stabilization). This was a full auto photo having similar settings to your suggested Jonathan. AUTO chose low ISO and slower shutter speed. In this case subject lays almost flat so the auto chosen f4.5 gave enough depth for fully focused subject and blurred background. I had only shot older 6M and 12M D70 and D90 Nikons in past. Let's see how this new fan dangled point and shoot bridge camera performs with heavy cropping... My intent was to find out how much cropping can be done with a 1"/20MP sensor to maintain all fidelities with this much newer model camera. And it's auto focus performance and auto choice of light quantity. And the damage caused to photo when photo shop adjustments are made(only warmed the crops a bit). Biggest complaint was convincing the auto focus to capture focus on a small subject in the foreground so I started using manual focus.(auto focus nailed this one but this was not the norm). The fancy magnified manual focus technology easily solved the small-subject-in-foreground issue. Chose this photo No losses noticed at this crop some losses, a bit fuzzy ? bit noisy ? not sure, but some loss in quality. Crop limits established ! Me very happy with crop performance. My 6M and 12M would not have been able to crop heavily so well. For a camera that zooms from 28 to 480 mm I am impressed with these photos shot at 4 feet away using max zoom telephoto. Next test will be macro. Guessing it will not perform as well in macro...will see. ETA; About larger sensors, this camera has a quit big 25 x 25 mm and area 645 sq mm sensor. COPaste - "Nikon D850(45.6 MP !!!) has a Full frame sensor with dimensions of 35.9 x 23.9 mm and sensor area of 858.01mm2. Nikon D850's sensor is 86% larger than the average DSLR sensor in its class." Remember 2.25 x 2.25 inch format in film ? Curious if they will make 2.25 x 2.25 inch sensor at 3266 sq cm = wow.
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Aug 9, 2021 7:56:14 GMT -5
holajonathan........It's obvious you've got time & experience invested in photography.......lots of knowledge for sure. Learning on film SLR most certainly made my transition to DSLR much easier (other than the terminology & function application), which took/takes time to digest. So true, understanding & putting into practice composition takes the guess work out of many (less than capable) cameras, phone or otherwise......it's an art form for sure. As for musical instruments, well crafted tools, even once one "masters" the physical/emotional attributes it takes to perform at a high level of competence, make a huge difference with reliability, expectation and repetitive performance......all critical to the the distinct tone, sound, composition all of us musicians strive for. It is true a competent musician, using a guitar as an example, (given the known genre), can make a $100.00 (made in Mexico/China) Fender acoustic sing.....for awhile, maybe only one session, maybe......but take that same genre under the same conditions, with a Taylor, Martin, Hohner Classic, any well crafted tool as such, that same musician will be able duplicate pleasantly, without disruption, over and over again........personal taste aside, it too is an art form that takes time to "develop"....just like it did waiting for our film to process.......lol Remember when Polaroid film first appeared...and at the time we felt that was "instant" film processing?! (Fanning it for five minutes to get it to develop! LOL) - Such a step up from getting the 35mm film developed at the local Walgreens! LOL Ha, I remember that. We had the idea that somehow fanning the photo would help develop the image.
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Aug 9, 2021 8:02:43 GMT -5
Here's a Polaroid from 1964. That's mom and me with our pet coyote.
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Post by rockpickerforever on Aug 9, 2021 8:35:00 GMT -5
Remember when Polaroid film first appeared...and at the time we felt that was "instant" film processing?! (Fanning it for five minutes to get it to develop! LOL) - Such a step up from getting the 35mm film developed at the local Walgreens! LOL Ha, I remember that. We had the idea that somehow fanning the photo would help develop the image. My late MIL had one, I remember she would tuck the developing picture under her armpit . No idea why. It doesn't get cold here, so not like it needed to be warmed...
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Aug 9, 2021 9:05:04 GMT -5
Ha, I remember that. We had the idea that somehow fanning the photo would help develop the image. My late MIL had one, I remember she would tuck the developing picture under her armpit . No idea why. It doesn't get cold here, so not like it needed to be warmed... Maybe she thought it needed to be in a dark place to develop. I remember fanning those Polaroids. I believe we did it because when they came out of the camera they were damp with the sticky developing stuff still on them.
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Post by fernwood on Aug 9, 2021 9:18:32 GMT -5
My uncle got a Polaroid. Then he realized how expensive the film was. I think he purchased maybe 4 rolls of film total. Many years later I found the camera, still in box. I was able to get some film for it.
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Post by miket on Aug 9, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by holajonathan on Aug 9, 2021 14:07:36 GMT -5
holajonathan........It's obvious you've got time & experience invested in photography.......lots of knowledge for sure. Learning on film SLR most certainly made my transition to DSLR much easier (other than the terminology & function application), which took/takes time to digest. So true, understanding & putting into practice composition takes the guess work out of many (less than capable) cameras, phone or otherwise......it's an art form for sure. As for musical instruments, well crafted tools, even once one "masters" the physical/emotional attributes it takes to perform at a high level of competence, make a huge difference with reliability, expectation and repetitive performance......all critical to the the distinct tone, sound, composition all of us musicians strive for. It is true a competent musician, using a guitar as an example, (given the known genre), can make a $100.00 (made in Mexico/China) Fender acoustic sing.....for awhile, maybe only one session, maybe......but take that same genre under the same conditions, with a Taylor, Martin, Hohner Classic, any well crafted tool as such, that same musician will be able duplicate pleasantly, without disruption, over and over again........personal taste aside, it too is an art form that takes time to "develop"....just like it did waiting for our film to process.......lol I was a pretty serious violinist from around age 6 through 20 (the orchestra phase), and a pretty un-serious one (the Irish pub / folk music festival phase) after that. So I get your point about musical instruments. Of course high quality instruments have advantages. But those advantages matter mostly, as you suggest, to those who have mastered everything else. I recall being a 15 or 16 year old violin student. Although not a "master" by any means, I was quite competent for my age. I had a violin that cost around $1,500 in the mid-to-late 90s, and my teacher, a University of Michigan music professor, had what must have been a $50,000 violin -- a very fine 18th century German instrument. She sounded better playing my violin than I sounded playing hers. By a long shot. Not only was she more technically and artistically skilled than me, she could actually produce a better tone with my instrument than I could produce with hers. My $1,500 violin stayed in tune throughout 1 hour+ long orchestral pieces, was responsive enough to play technically demanding classical music compositions, and sounded plenty good enough for public performance in both the orchestral setting and the Irish folk music festival context. I guess this is what I meant by "good enough" in my prior post. Now if I had gone on to become a truly professional musician, I would have outgrown the instrument and needed something better. But it was plenty good enough for my skill level after many years of serious, rigorous, competitive training and practice. On a related note, once you get above a certain threshold, price has little or no relationship to sound, "playability," or anything else. Ever hear about the "double blind" studies that have professional violinist play both Stradivarius violins worth millions of dollars along side violins made by modern master violin makers? When neither the violinist playing the instrument (who is blindfolded) nor another professional violinist who is listening knows which violin is the Strad and which is the modern master, there is a clear preference for the modern instruments, both by the performer and the listener. That is the statical conclusion after the experiment was repeated many times, with different instruments and different individuals. The modern masters in the study, as I recall, were roughly $20,000 to $50,000 instruments. A lot of money, but a far cry from the $1 million+++ Strads.
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pizzano
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Post by pizzano on Aug 9, 2021 15:24:07 GMT -5
holajonathan........It's obvious you've got time & experience invested in photography.......lots of knowledge for sure. Learning on film SLR most certainly made my transition to DSLR much easier (other than the terminology & function application), which took/takes time to digest. So true, understanding & putting into practice composition takes the guess work out of many (less than capable) cameras, phone or otherwise......it's an art form for sure. As for musical instruments, well crafted tools, even once one "masters" the physical/emotional attributes it takes to perform at a high level of competence, make a huge difference with reliability, expectation and repetitive performance......all critical to the the distinct tone, sound, composition all of us musicians strive for. It is true a competent musician, using a guitar as an example, (given the known genre), can make a $100.00 (made in Mexico/China) Fender acoustic sing.....for awhile, maybe only one session, maybe......but take that same genre under the same conditions, with a Taylor, Martin, Hohner Classic, any well crafted tool as such, that same musician will be able duplicate pleasantly, without disruption, over and over again........personal taste aside, it too is an art form that takes time to "develop"....just like it did waiting for our film to process.......lol I was a pretty serious violinist from around age 6 through 20 (the orchestra phase), and a pretty un-serious one (the Irish pub / folk music festival phase) after that. So I get your point about musical instruments. Of course high quality instruments have advantages. But those advantages matter mostly, as you suggest, to those who have mastered everything else. I recall being a 15 or 16 year old violin student. Although not a "master" by any means, I was quite competent for my age. I had a violin that cost around $1,500 in the mid-to-late 90s, and my teacher, a University of Michigan music professor, had what must have been a $50,000 violin -- a very fine 18th century German instrument. She sounded better playing my violin than I sounded playing hers. By a long shot. Not only was she more technically and artistically skilled than me, she could actually produce a better tone with my instrument than I could produce with hers. My $1,500 violin stayed in tune throughout 1 hour+ long orchestral pieces, was responsive enough to play technically demanding classical music compositions, and sounded plenty good enough for public performance in both the orchestral setting and the Irish folk music festival context. I guess this is what I meant by "good enough" in my prior post. Now if I had gone on to become a truly professional musician, I would have outgrown the instrument and needed something better. But it was plenty good enough for my skill level after many years of serious, rigorous, competitive training and practice. On a related note, once you get above a certain threshold, price has little or no relationship to sound, "playability," or anything else. Ever hear about the "double blind" studies that have professional violinist play both Stradivarius violins worth millions of dollars along side violins made by modern master violin makers? When neither the violinist playing the instrument (who is blindfolded) nor another professional violinist who is listening knows which violin is the Strad and which is the modern master, there is a clear preference for the modern instruments, both by the performer and the listener. That is the statical conclusion after the experiment was repeated many times, with different instruments and different individuals. The modern masters in the study, as I recall, were roughly $20,000 to $50,000 instruments. A lot of money, but a far cry from the $1 million+++ Strads. Absolutely agree....."good enough" for the level of application, skill level considered....I always suggest to a serious up-and-comer, if cost isn't prohibited, "invest" in quality as defined by the pro's (masters). If cost is an issue, "invest" in what you can best raise your skill level a notch or two. You don't have to break the bank to satisfy your "need", (want's will have to wait) .......that way growing into the instrument actually accelerates confidence and sharpens tonal recognition.......trains the ear and provides a level of comfort through the leaning process.....we should never stop learning, I hope...!.........Having the "proper" tool(s) makes the desire to higher achieve that more pleasant and exciting.......IMHO....!
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