[Zygonyx]

This is where we urgently need 4K Theta, to break this vivious VR circle.

[biz-engineer]

Should Pentax change their strategy to serve the cameraless photographers market?

That here: 12 Most Profitable Places to Sell Your Photos Online

[gatorguy]

Oh but I do. I always know when to take the one image Im going to print and frame. This time it is with John Harvard!

The one image? I'm sorry your life in photography became so jaded as some point. I hope you find a way to reignite the sense of anticipation you used to have with camera in hand, and the happiness you felt at seeing what you were capable of capturing.

I'm north of sixty now, but feel more like I did in my youth when trekking a nature preserve, walking downtown on a quiet Sunday morning, or practicing in my studio with my Pentax.

[eddie1960]

That is simply not true. That is such a dangerous, haphazard myth perpetrated by digital fake Avedons like that boy Kim-what's-his-name, and other boys. There is no substitute for quality, unless the client is the 3rd rate pizza shop that does not care how the images will look in flyers, or on their 3rd rate website because their audience is blind and drunk anyway.

Smartphones can be used by a client, or an art director, to tell, roughly, what they want to do. Smartphones are also useful to develop digital sketches and ideas, in a manner "snap, snap, ok this, then we do that.. snap snap … then this detail .. snap .. then we need a portrait here .. then series of scenes with senior executives, then we need to photograph the production process and major products, from this angle ..." etc.

Once details are established, you show off you gear, that is capable of things, or you are history — because the art board is approved, contract is signed off, and there is no change to the concepts! If a photographer has no suitable lenses, or equipment, or a camera, or light setup, then hasta la vista baby, because the concept does not change! Talent can extend the value of the equipment within the determined parameters, but if lenses used are 3rd rate Japanese beer glass, as most lenses today are, then a fine art director can see that. Such 'photographer' can use that stuff to take snaps of his kids, but no way I would allow that for a corporate or PR portrait.

A good art director can even make very specific demands; a phtog comes with 70-200 to do shooting, he can be dismissed asap, because the desired look cannot be made by such a setup — sorry, too much compression, and lack of details, look is all too similar to 1 million other shots seen online; I demand 75mm Cron or 90mm macro. 70-200 may be good for soccer mums and their kids, or for boys stepping up from their kit lenses into another cheap kit, but not for certain clients and purposes. Sorry.

I can see all that and more; I worked as an art director for a major national agency, and I know exactly when I see the file, I can understand everything about the photographer and his or her limits, cliches, stereotypes and capabilities. It takes some 25+ years of hard professional work, and staring at work of world's best professionals in advertising and photography, but it is possible.

you missed the point, my point was mobiles are more than capable of being used to create great images. you may need better res less noise better dof options etc for a client shoot, but hand a great ccamera to a usuer with no talent and you get trash, hand a mobile to an artist and you will get creative interesting images....so yes ity is down to the user always has been and its always been about correct gear for the job (and if Terry richardson can build a fashion careeer shooting with a film era point and shoot ....

[biz-engineer]

This of course is the eternal refrain: good gear does not make good photographers. Professionals and artists who expose their works will tell you "the camera doesn't matter, I could have done this shot with a cheap camera" although some of them use a high end version of a full frame camera and most of them use medium to large format. This is a fact and subject to interpretation.

[Uluru]

This of course is the eternal refrain: good gear does not make good photographers. Professionals and artists who expose their works will tell you "the camera doesn't matter, I could have done this shot with a cheap camera" although some of them use a high end version of a full frame camera and most of them use medium to large format. This is a fact and subject to interpretation.

Good gear matters. Matters a great deal. A chef with an excellent set of knives and pans can do amazing job compared to a man given a Swiss army knife and a bucket. A surgeon with proper, expensive and super precise equipment can do better job than a butcher with low grade steel knives. A mechanic who has better diagnosing equipment will do a better job and save time and money than a mechanic who guesses by mere look from the outside. A car with proper new tyres and better braking system will have shorter stopping distance, will save more lives and the driver himself. A gardener with better pair of gloves and hi0grade spade can do better work than a man who does all work barehand or with a spoon. A painter with proper and very finely made and expensive paper and brushes, can create work that is better lasting and of higher technical quality. With talent, such work will exceed all expectations.

And we could go on, and on, and on. Proper, dedicated, and usually more expensive gear makes everything easier, faster, more productive, and safer — for everyone. It gives incentive to dedicated talented men across industries to invest, and create best possible equipment that pushes the quality, satisfaction and achievements higher and higher.

BUT, only in photography — guess that, huh! — the opposite is true. Those who buy very dedicated and more expensive equipment that give them creative and quality edge not easily obtainable otherwise, are in fact untalented snobs who don't know anything.

[distudio]

BUT, only in photography — guess that, huh! — the opposite is true. Those who buy very dedicated and more expensive equipment that give them creative and quality edge not easily obtainable otherwise, are in fact untalented snobs who don't know anything.

I guess the difference is that photography is subjective (other than specific technical instances) , there's no official measure of success other than the works appeal/popularity and that's rarely defined precisely by the gear on which the image was captured.

[ffking]

It's actually quite simple - a good camera will make a good picture (ie potential picture) better, but it won't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

There is one other factor, also. One of my photographic heros, Obie Oberholzer, used to take great pictures with a Pentax 67. Times changed, and he went digital with a 5D (II, I think). He still takes great pictures - but his style, and the look of his images has changed - he now takes pictures enabled by and suited to his new equipment and post processing options. That's what great photographers do. But the pictures are still better than they would have been with an entry level Canon.

[BigMackCam]

Good gear matters. Matters a great deal. A chef with an excellent set of knives and pans can do amazing job compared to a man given a Swiss army knife and a bucket. A surgeon with proper, expensive and super precise equipment can do better job than a butcher with low grade steel knives. A mechanic who has better diagnosing equipment will do a better job and save time and money than a mechanic who guesses by mere look from the outside. A car with proper new tyres and better braking system will have shorter stopping distance, will save more lives and the driver himself. A gardener with better pair of gloves and hi0grade spade can do better work than a man who does all work barehand or with a spoon. A painter with proper and very finely made and expensive paper and brushes, can create work that is better lasting and of higher technical quality. With talent, such work will exceed all expectations.

And we could go on, and on, and on. Proper, dedicated, and usually more expensive gear makes everything easier, faster, more productive, and safer — for everyone. It gives incentive to dedicated talented men across industries to invest, and create best possible equipment that pushes the quality, satisfaction and achievements higher and higher.

With respect, your analogies work because you're comparing extremes:

- excellent knives and pans versus a Swiss army knife and a bucket
- proper, expensive and super precise surgical equipment versus low grade steel knives
- mechanical diagnostic equipment versus looking from the outside

... and so on.

Take your example of the chef working with excellent knives and pans. Give that talented chef even a reasonably-good set of knives and pans and they'll still produce beautiful and delicious meals that we'll gladly pay for. If the results are what we wanted, we don't care what equipment they used. And if we do, we could be rightly criticised for missing the point. Should we appreciate good food any more or less because of the knives and pans?

And so, back to photography... You wouldn't typically expect a talented photographer to produce commercially-viable work with a ten-year-old point-and-shoot digital compact (the "swiss army knife and bucket", if you will); but nor is it essential they use the very best Hasselblad or Leica cameras and lenses (read "excellent knives and pans"). Depending on the project, he or she can (as many professionals do) work within the limitations of merely good equipment - including those "Japanese beer-glass lenses" you mentioned previously - to produce commercially-viable images of outstanding quality.

Anyone who discounts the viability of the artist and their work because of the equipment used has missed the point

[Kunzite]

If we're talking about smartphones, the comparison to a swiss army knife and bucket is apt Do you think a swiss army knife is too limited for this usage? Oh, but the smartphone is, too.
I'm not often agree with Uluru's analogies (nor with analogies in general), but in this case, indeed, promoting professional photography made with smartphones is not that different from promoting food made with a swiss army knife and a bucket. It's definitely possible

[Rondec]

Good gear clearly does matter. I have flipped a number of lenses over the years because I wanted "something better." The biggest thing that it generally gives is better corner sharpness at wider apertures and faster apertures. These things can be handy in many situations.

At the same time, clearly it does come down to vision and ability to capture the image you want/see with the gear you do have. All too often people blame their deficiencies on gear when they haven't figured out how to make what they do have work for them.

Most of the cameras currently on the market are pretty awesome and capable of turning out great images -- given a good photographer behind them.

[BigMackCam]

Most of the cameras currently on the market are pretty awesome and capable of turning out great images -- given a good photographer behind them.

Of all the posts here, mine included, this one sentence sums it up perfectly

[normhead]

My commercial studio instructor back in the 60s who only had 4x5 and 8x10 film in the studio was asked in class what his favourite camera was. The answer? "I have one of those plastic throw away cameras in may glove box. The DoF with those optical plastic parabolic lenses is amazing, and I have taken many shots with it because it was available when I needed it." This makes much more sense to those of us who were trained on large format where DoF seems to be the problem on every image. Being able to just snap an image without poring over an image on glass to make sure everything we need to be in focus is in focus is a liberating experience.

That's still true only to a lesser extent. But of course, back in those days you had to use large format just to get acceptable resolution. My 120 shooting Ricohflex was too low res for most jobs in those days. 35 mm was great for press shots, even though most press photographers still used rangefinder larger format cameras.

[Blue]

The French site Les Numeriques says: The Pentax KP ... will arrive in the shop at the end of February 2017. He will live for six months with the K-3 II before he retires (K3II) and is replaced.

The KP has been out and there is no need to keep