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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

New Toy!

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I don't think so. I think that recent cameras are designed for people who do not take the same pictures as I do, so their new features get in the way instead of helping.

Jerome,

Looking back and discovering what you bought doesn't work so well for you, do you have any notion of what kind of work these cameras would work best for.

I can give you examples from my cameras: the Ricoh cameras I love, the GXR and its modules are slow to focus. So it's limited to slow type of work. Knowing that, I can be happy as the quality, with the APS-C sensor is great and the menu is one of the most logical I've seen. So folk could copy my and get one, only to be disappointed by the focus speed. With sports, they'd miss the key moments!

So where did your cameras fail you, or it's just the gestalt of it and you are somehow incompatible?

Asher
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
Glad to hear that it is not only me Jerome. I have never felt the same level of attachment for the Nex7 nor for the D800 as I did for my old 5D Mk II. D800 was OK in all respects but it did not stir my emotions when I used it. Same for the Nex7/6. Now I should say that the A7 has caused some ripples of excitement though. It is too soon to tell now but I hope that it will become a permanent resident here.

Obviously I have no passion, no emotion, no A7. I stood at my camera cupboard right now and had a look to see how excited I could get. Nothing. I'm dead. No. I checked for a pulse. Still there. I looked at the latest Camera House glossy brochure. No centerfold to surge the urge. I took some pictures of my grand daughter on her 10th birthday. The camera did nothing for me. But Oh the subject. Now that's a different story.


_DSC7615 by tom.dinning, on Flickr​
Gentlemen, you have lost the plot. Seek medical assistance immediately. Go give someone a hug before its too late. Take a photo of the one you love. If the camera still matters then I'm afraid all is lost. Tomorrow there will be an A8, then a 9 and so on. The things that should excite you will grow old and weary, waiting for you to notice them.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief

_DSC7615 by tom.dinning, on Flickr​


As expected, you cheated and photographed a cute, delightful, huggable grandchild! If this was a court-case, you'd have the jury eating out of your outback rough, calloused workingman's hands as if you were feeding them wine from the holy grail itself!

You cheated because mountains, sheep and folks at a paid event with security guards checking who's coming in, want pictures under circumstances that might not fit in with your digicam's capabilities.

But, from grandfather to grandfather, you did steal the show and she's really adorable!

Asher
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
It's a universal ploy, Asher. When you think you don't have a chance and you know no one is listening, bring out the cake and tea. Everyone has a soft spot for something sweet.
She is cute?
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Your granddaughter is certainly a beautiful and lovable girl, Tom, we never doubted that. But what is the point? That we should be more interested in our children and grand children than in our cameras? Well: of course we should. I don't have grandchildren but I have children and I can assure you that I love them more than whatever camera I own.

However, this is a photography forum, not a forum dedicated to child raising or family life. It would thus seem that discussing cameras, photographic technique, composition, pictures and generally the processes by which impressive pictures are sometimes created is appropriate on this forum. Or do you know better?
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
So where did your cameras fail you, or it's just the gestalt of it and you are somehow incompatible?

I'll give you an example. The D800 has Nikon wonderful AF system. It is so advanced it works almost like magic: it has an array of sensors all over the frame which not only see shape by also color. It will find a face, follow it while the person is moving and focus on the eyes. If one is shooting sports or children moving around, there is nothing better.

Except that I do not shoot sports and my children are teenagers (so, in the famous words from Calvin to Hobbes "they don't move, they just hang around"). I mainly shoot static subjects. If there is no face to be recognized and the subject does not move, the Nikon system will chose a subject which is rarely the one I want.

Furthermore, the camera insists on drawing little grey rectangles all over the picture to tell me where it thinks the subject is (there is a story about that, if you are interested). I find that distracting, I would rather not have rectangles pop all around my frame when I am trying to visualize a composition. That feature cannot be turned off. The previous camera just briefly lit red points and these were a lot less distracting. The NEX-7 is even worse, it insists on drawing bright green rectangles all over the frame and these do not go away.
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
...Gentlemen, you have lost the plot. Seek medical assistance immediately. Go give someone a hug before its too late. Take a photo of the one you love. If the camera still matters then I'm afraid all is lost. Tomorrow there will be an A8, then a 9 and so on. The things that should excite you will grow old and weary, waiting for you to notice them.
I don't think I have lost the plot Tom. Of course the does camera matter. I am not comparing cameras with my family or friends, just with other cameras. Those more valuable things still do excite me. That I care about my shooting experience does not mean that the other things have been wasted on me. They are not mutually exclusive.

...However, this is a photography forum, not a forum dedicated to child raising or family life. It would thus seem that discussing cameras, photographic technique, composition, pictures and generally the processes by which impressive pictures are sometimes created is appropriate on this forum. Or do you know better?
I think that Doug will agree wholeheartedly with you Jerome. As a matter of fact, I do too.
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Painters discuss their brushes and colors; sculptors discuss chisels, hammers and the grain of stone; dancers discuss steps and rhythm; musicians discuss instruments, microphones, chords and harmonic theory. This is not limited to "arts", creating something out of raw material is just the same: woodworkers discuss table saws and planes; metalworkers discuss welding machines and plasma cutters; fashion designers discuss fabrics and sewing machines; etc...

Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that photographers discuss camera, lenses, films or processing software.

I'll grant you that most of them would probably learn more if they discussed composition, color theory or the history of arts. Which we also do, even if not often enough.
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
Of course a camera matters. It is the primary ( crayons is a distant second ) tool I use to make images, some of which I post here.

Posting pictures of lovely grandkids does not change that.

I shall go away now and give my Leicas a big hug each.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
I hate it when I have to explain satire, sarcasm and irony. Its even worse when I have to explain it to you lot.
So I won't.
Never the less, is my point of view, as cynical as it may seem to some, and as humorless as it may seem to others, valueless in the face of such passion for gear?
I am aware that each of you have an opinion on gear and its place in the art, hobby, pass-time, profession, whatever. So do I. You have read it above. I, personally, have no attachment to my gear. Sure, I bought it to do a job, I was also aware at the time that there were many other cameras that would do the job that I wanted to do just as well, maybe even better. I bought what I could afford and fitted into the genre I had already set myself into, again, for economic reasons.
Sure, we can discuss cameras, although I do wonder how deeply we need to go. Sure, we can compare models, although that seems to be a never ending process of catch up. Sure, we can tell our stories about swapping and changing and being indecisive or (un)satisfied.
I was just offering, in my own inimitable manner, another viewpoint which, I'm sure, is shared by at least one other member of this planet.
If not, I stand alone.
 

James Lemon

Well-known member
I just like looking at the pictures! I have a light sucking vampire camera that can take pictures in

total darkness, even with the lens cap on.
 
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