[clackers]

One of the guys I was involved shooting beside in the park the other day (I should write book "Causal conversations of long lens wildlife shooters, while waiting for the subject to come into view." ) He was talking about being in Henry's when a soccer mom came in, and asked what point and shoot would give her the best images of her son's soccer matches. She left with a $10,000 Canon system and an appointment to participate in a course on how to use it all. There's soccer moms, and then there are soccer moms.

If only there were more such salesman's godsends, Nikon wouldn't be laying off 3000 employees, et al.

On another tack, one of the big regrets of my life was not buying the 560 a net dealer with a store front relatively close to my house was selling off for $3000. I seriously don't know what I was thinking when I passed on it.

As a great philosopher said, 'Doh!'

[clackers]

Ron Boggs is presently offering to part with a FA*600/4 and all the trimmings

He sadly didn't want to donate it, Monochrome, there was the quaint matter of him wanting fair compensation for it.

I lost enthusiasm at that point.

[Gimbeley]

At any sporting event I attend, I see the moms carrying the 5D mk iv with a crappy super zoom attached. They never upgrade the lens, and their cameras are set to auto mode, but they paid a premium for the "best" equipment and wonder why their photos don't look much better than the old point-and-shoot they used. Or they are happy with the pictures because ignorance is bliss...

Non-professionals with $3500 camera bodies: you sure that's really a common occurrence and not just a result of being enrolled in a more affluent, "top 1%'er" school district?

All the soccer moms I know have Rebels and D3000 series cameras.

[monochrome]

Ya, that thappened. Since the course was changed from "photography" to Communications Tech, our K-1000 images were scanned. The digital cameras had to bet reserved days in advance, assignments were handed in in HTML format that I could mark from my web browser. I had to teach HTML anyway, killing two birds with one stone.

They got marked on their photography, they got marked on their HTML, in the same assignment. The only thing that got it's own time with nothing else added in was drafting. I couldn't figure out how to work drafting into the rest of Communications Tech, which also included desktop publishing and video. Everything else flowed together. Drafting ended up being a 6 week unit that stood on it's own.

Our text book was from the U.S. so i suspect many U.S. programs went the same way.

Our District taught most extracurricular subjects as vocational, so photography was ‘Photo Journalism’ as part of Newspaper or Yearbook. My daughter as YB E-I-C led the transition to digital. The savings in film and chemicals alone bought a dozen cameras and 28/50/105 lens sets the first year. The long lenses were bought one or two at a time in following years. That worked until the first round of workstation upgrades. They’ve recently opened the darkrooms, CLA’ed the K1000’s and started teaching B&W as ‘Creative Art’ photography.

The relevance for this convo is lots of institutional buyers buy expensive lenses for lots of non-professional uses.

---

Last edited by monochrome; 01-31-2018 at 05:54 PM.

[monochrome]

He sadly didn't want to donate it, Monochrome, there was the quaint matter of him wanting fair compensation for it.

I lost enthusiasm at that point.

Minor consideration.

[clackers]

Minor consideration.

(Laughs)

[builttospill]

Non-professionals with $3500 camera bodies: you sure that's really a common occurrence and not just a result of being enrolled in a more affluent, "top 1%'er" school district?

All the soccer moms I know have Rebels and D3000 series cameras.

Oh I wasn't even referring to schools, but instead community sports such as little league baseball and football. But the parents of these little athletes have older kids in schools, so the occurrence would be the same.

Last week a high school student showed me his new T6i with his 24-70 f/2.8L attached.

[Wheatfield]

Price sensitive customers vs premium buyers, Wheatfield, and their respective contributions to a company's profits. It's what we were talking about.

Then why did you mention professional photographers, who are, at best, outlier purchasers?

[normhead]

I would expect curriculum to be mandated at the provincial-level there. Here it's up to the states to determine public schools' programs.

Does Ontario still have an optional grade 13?

IN this case, the curriculum was pretty much determined by the availability of the text book. We have an Ministry of Ed, and an approved textbook list, but there was only one text for this program. They do favour Canadian books, but for technical subjects, there just often isn't anything appropriate available.

We cancelled grade 13, a Conservative government did it as a cost cutting measure. But they had to maintain curriculum, because Canadian Universities are 3 years not four. So our kids actually graduated from University at the same time yours did, just not high school. However to get the required course you had to be extremely lucky and very smart, and probably do some summer school to get out in four years. Most kids end up with a 5th year, or at least an extra half year. So the end effect is really bright motivated kids, graduate from University a year early, after 4 years of high school and 3 of University.the average kid graduates HS a half year early. , the less motivated graduate in 5. It's just not called grade 13 anymore. In schools with less than 2000 students it's impossible to get out in 4 because the courses you need are not timetabled in the semester you need them. I had many students take my grade 10 photography when they were in grade 12, because they needed two credits to graduate, but you have to take three to be a full time student, and not get shoved off into night school.

SO that's probably everything you wanted to know about the Ontario Education system. The really funny thing about that is because of the implementation, cancelling grade 13 probably didn't save much money. Teachers are hired at the start of the school year. After a group graduated in Feb. we had smaller classes in the second semester. Same number of teachers, half the students in "not Grade 13" as half and graduated.

[clackers]

Then why did you mention professional photographers, who are, at best, outlier purchasers?

You clearly need to read this again:

"Pros have their equipment only because of us consumers providing the cashflow to the companies to develop the equipment they use."

[Wheatfield]

You clearly need to read this again:

"Pros have their equipment only because of us consumers providing the cashflow to the companies to develop the equipment they use."

You do realize that very few pros actually buy "pro equipment" and that the vast majority of "pro" equipment is bought by amateurs, right? Had you said that the buyers of munade equipment provided the cash flow for companies to develop the equipment that well heeled amateurs use, you would be correct.
Nothing has changed in the camera industry in this regard for the last several decades. For all intents and purposes, the entire photographic industry, from the camera phone to the top of the line digital camera is driven by amateurs. From a buyers point of view, professional photographers may as well not exist. No one in the camera industry would notice if they didn't exist at all. That is how small a market the pro market is.

[monochrome]

^^ The corporate contract tog who just updated my official corporate photo still uses an elderly 5DMkll. He specifically said there’s no business justification for upgrading to 5DMkIV. I know the guy. He feeds his family doing this.

I lent him my K-1 and FA Lim’s for a weekend to play with PixelShift. He hated PDCU but, as he put it, he printed a couple jaw-dropping files. He’s considering finding a used K-1 and buying my FA77 as an enthusiast toy, but not for business.

[Gimbeley]

You do realize that very few pros actually buy "pro equipment" and that the vast majority of "pro" equipment is bought by amateurs, right? Had you said that the buyers of munade equipment provided the cash flow for companies to develop the equipment that well heeled amateurs use, you would be correct.
Nothing has changed in the camera industry in this regard for the last several decades. For all intents and purposes, the entire photographic industry, from the camera phone to the top of the line digital camera is driven by amateurs. From a buyers point of view, professional photographers may as well not exist. No one in the camera industry would notice if they didn't exist at all. That is how small a market the pro market is.

I am immediately doubtful of any claims presented in the format of "you do realize X, right?" where X is sneakily implied to be a self-evident truth, when in fact it's not. Can you prove that amateurs buy the "vast majority of 'pro' equipment"?

[monochrome]

I am immediately doubtful of any claims presented in the format of "you do realize X, right?" where X is sneakily implied to be a self-evident truth, when in fact it's not. Can you prove that amateurs buy the "vast majority of 'pro' equipment"?

1. 8 Billion amateur photographers on the planet
2. A few million professional photographers on the planet
3. Doesn’t matter how you define pro equipment, by law of large numbers amateurs buy almost all of it

[Wheatfield]

I am immediately doubtful of any claims presented in the format of "you do realize X, right?" where X is sneakily implied to be a self-evident truth, when in fact it's not. Can you prove that amateurs buy the "vast majority of 'pro' equipment"?

I don’t need to. You can believe my experience or not. Frankly, I don’t care one way or the other.

---------- Post added 01-31-18 at 11:08 PM ----------

1. 8 Billion amateur photographers on the planet
2. A few million professional photographers on the planet
3. Doesn’t matter how you define pro equipment, by law of large numbers amateurs buy almost all of it

Bingo!