Those who follow my Blog know that I have a hobby collecting different cameras. I enjoy shooting with a lot of different equipment especially that which is Older, strange, or just otherwise an "Underdog"/somewhat underappreciated camera that most "want to be Pros" would write off as rubbish.
But from time to time, I will get a new camera, a new lens that is "better" then what I had before and start to pixel peep. I'll find an image that was shot at really high ISO, under less then ideal lighting and then be blown away by how sharp it is on the pixel level, like being able to see fuzz on an insect, individual hairs on an animal's fur or strands on a plume of a bird's wing.
I've tended to notice as of lately I've become this way around one subject in particular, Nature photography. Constantly zooming in to pixel level to see how much noise or lack thereof and detail is there. Finding myself asking "why is this camera/lens inconsistent? Is there something wrong with it? Getting really high pixel level detail shots like these:
Then comparing those shots to other photos, taken with a lower or even "Native" ISO and wondering "Okay why do these look so much worse?"
Some of this is for sure due to the lens or the sensor. Some of it is due to the distance the subject is from the camera, lighting conditions, etc. So when you hear people talk about "Low ISO= Low Noise" well its a general and not absolute.
Same goes with focusing. A lens/sensor combo which can be tact sharp and spot on with the focus in one situation may really struggle in another.
This is, in large part why I take so many photos. I will often double tap to make sure I got "one good shot" even when using my most modern, most expensive camera system. Its a hard habit to break.
Even with doing that, I will still get plenty of photos that are "almost good" that at the time will look fine when I export it, but then I look back and go "dear god why did I post this photo online?" a few weeks later.
Then I flip flop, and when I zoom out and am not "pixel peeping" the photo looks fine. Even the "bad photos" I posted above look great on my phone which, lets be realistic, is where most people viewing my photography are going to see it from. They are also not likely to be as picky as me.
However, the biggest take away is when I am no longer peeping at the pixels on photos I worked to "save" and then just got frustrated and said "That's good enough, I'm going to post them anyways" at full resolution, without looking at the pixel level they look a lot better:
Before we get into "Well you wouldn't be unhappy with Pixel Peeping if you shot a $5000 full frame body and $3000 lens!!!" let me just quash this right now by saying I've got some really incredible shots on cheap-entry level gear then struggled with having "quality issues" on photos from my higher end stuff.
When I get really nice sharp photos on older gear, I'm happy and impressed, and when I get less perfect photos off the same camera I'm not as concerned about it.
But when I shoot with a $600 body and $1200 lens (which to me is a LOT of money. That is on the absolute limit of what I can afford) and get a few images that are terrible to mid at best; then I question if there is something wrong with that camera or lens.
Maybe the lens has a haze issue, maybe the AF sensor in the camera is on the fritz, maybe the lens' focus motor itself is starting to die, etc and begin to visualize what this photo would have looked like had I made a different decision and had invested my hard-earned money in something different instead.
I've traded in lenses for this very reason only to find out later that the new lens really made very little discernable difference in the consistency of my photos from that camera; remaining to be "some photos are very good, some photos are still bad".
So yes, it very much becomes a rabbit hole with no bottom. Unless you are extremely wealthy, there will always be a better camera out there then the one you are using.
There will always be "better" lenses too. However even those cameras and lenses can still take photos that are just as terrible or in many cases worse then the photos you are pixel peeping and wishing it was less noisy, details weren't so smudged, or it wasn't just a hair out of focus.
As a photographer its hard not to Pixel Peep. But you need to remember: "Artists are often their own worst critics".
This applies wholeheartedly to Photography as well. A photo you are pixel peeping that you think is blurry, not tact sharp or has other issues on the pixel level that looks "perfectly fine" zoomed out to what you are displaying on a phone screen may become your most popular, liked and most commented on photo you've taken; over the photo of a frog where you can see every bump on its skin.
It can, and does happen.
