[mee]

snapsort is a nice place for a general comparison, but I wouldn't put any weight into the actual point values they give each camera.

Besides, we don't want to become like the arrogant, snooty types we are discussing here I think!

[lesmore49]

A friend of mine took a photography course....sort of an intro for DSLR's....a few years ago.

The instructor was full of misinformation and had a very limited knowledge of photography and equipment. My friend usually would call me with a few..".this doesn't sound right....but this is what he said "...issues after pretty well every class. I would provide the correct information to her on a regular basis.

BTW, she has become an excellent photographer and has learned an enormous amount...mostly due to her personal drive and intelligence.

Unfortunately, some of these courses that are offered to the public, through the community are only as good as the individual instructor's knowledge, experience and ability to convey information.

Some courses are excellent, others are not. That's the way it is with most things in life...it's dependent on the person.

[Pepe Le Pew]

I am a photographer, I have never picked up a camera I couldn't use.


The guy is either a liar or incompetent.


Is this the kind of guy anyone would want to learn from.

Same
Both
Nope


---------- Post added 08-05-14 at 01:43 AM ----------

An elderly customer of mine brought her laptop in to me for an upgrade to Windows 8.1 because a course she was doing required it.
What was the course? "An introduction to the Internet"..

Humans..

(face palm)

[Jonathan Mac]

I think your sister is not going to learn much of use from this clearly very ignorant "teacher".

[calsan]

Actually, like MagKelly was saying, the weather resistance has caused some astonishment among my family and friends. Like the time I took my K-7 canoeing and just left it in the hull of the boat, where it was half under water, or the time I was taking photos in the surf and got knocked over by a large wave... My friends (Canon) said: 'you're an idiot, you just ruined your camera." Then I just got up and took another photo... he he...

Here comes the wave...

[RobA_Oz]

Y'all have some strange ideas about NA. The biggest item in the NC State Annual Budget of 21+ Billion USD is Education.

Well, I do have close relatives who live in Texas, I have travelled in the USA and Canada, several times, and I do read US news sites, so I get the hostility in some quarters there to Governments doing anything, but note that I actually said "in some parts". So, maybe not such strange ideas, after all, even if North Carolina may not be one of those parts. My point was also about the relative independence of government-run Adult Education classes, which are fee-paying programs and which are under pressure here to be scaled back and even abandoned. It was not about (free) general or (subsidised fee-paying) vocational education programs that are run by the State.

So, local sensitivities apart, it's my view that sponsored programs are always potentially conflicted by the interests of the sponsor, and best either avoided or treated with a degree of suspicion until they can demonstrate otherwise.

[Digitalis]

I teach advanced level photography and I personally encourage people who use cameras from Leica, Pentax, Minolta, Olympus* and other makers because over the years I have seen excellent work made with cameras that aren't ordinarily what one would consider "professional level gear" - whatever that is supposed to be. I also teach view camera techniques and some of the more esoteric photogaphic techniques ( UV photography, Platinotype,Tintype, Far infrared imaging)

It is true, I work commercially with Canon and Nikon full frame DSLRs and Leica and Pentax Medium format digital systems, and that is how I earn my keep. But I always sneak in a Pentax K or a Leica M body with a lens or two and sometimes my clients find the images from those smaller cameras much more interesting than the others.

* though sadly there aren't many students of mine who don't use cameras from Canon or Nikon. A true testament to the overall beigeist ideal that pervades professional photography.

---

Last edited by Digitalis; 08-05-2014 at 12:39 AM.

[MadMathMind]

I had a guy who tried to tell me his t3i was a professional camera, and that he was sad for me that I had to use Pentax. I then took a picture with my Tamron 17-50 on it with no flash indoors, showed it to him, and almost made him cry. I then asked him if his camera could do that. It couldn't. He has never showed up at an anime convention I've been at again.

The T3i is fine for an intro level...but really, it's not much more capable than a mirrored point and shoot that lets you interchange lenses. It's fine for the crowd that never changes lenses and leaves it in P mode, but it does little more than meet the expectations of its target demographics.

My cousin has one. We were both shooting indoors at a family function. She had to use flash for pretty much every shot while I never popped up my K-5 IIs's flash (I think I've used it 5 times or so only).

I bought a 'Introduction to Photography' book for a young family member some months ago, alongside gifting them my K200D. It was a good book, with technical and composition info, and lots of good hands on guides to camera settings.

Although the book was careful to mention that there were other camera brands, and said that most modern DSLR's had essentially the same PASM controls and features nowadays, for consistency purposes, I guess, they only displayed either Canon or Nikon bodies, menus and controls in their illustrations. Perhaps this kind of material leads some people - even instructors - to sometimes assume that Canon and Nikon are the only game in town.

More so Canon and Nikon PAY for those photos in the books. Obviously there is some desire to use a standard lots of people use, but you can bet that product placement in a book generates a lot of the money needed to publish such a thing.


I always wonder what people think Pentax is when they don't know what what it is. Do they think it's a boutique brand? If a camera can't be found at Walmart or Best Buy, it's hard to imagine it's some super cheap off-brand because big box stores are where you'd expect to find such things. I think people who bought SLRs would think it's junk because they "exhaustively researched their purchase"...and by that, I mean they went to Amazon and bought the top rated product and didn't bother to look lower.

---------- Post added 08-05-14 at 03:07 AM ----------

Also, I think the most outrageous part of this teacher is the "classroom debate" about cameras. Product endorsement and fanboyism has no place in any professional setting. It would be like a math teacher getting up and proclaiming that HP calculators are junk and anyone who is foolish enough to use anything other than a TI must be stupid. There's just no reason for it...it's highly, highly likely this teacher is affiliated with a store or Canon, somehow.

[beachgardener]

This teacher has no clue at all, your sister would benefit from choosing a course that has a competent teacher at the helm.
I hope she and that teacher are able to read this thread, and really find out what a K-5 is capable of, vastly more than a T3 (1100D) i suspect.

[cxdoo]

I believe there are two issues we are discussing here; the incompetence/laziness/angle of the teacher and the perception of Pentax.


The first one is not really a big deal IMHO; at the end maybe the OP's sister in law will be better off using the gear other participants/teacher have/are familiar with. In a small community other relations/considerations take precedence over the brand of camera. And frankly, at introductory level I don't see what's the drawback of using T3i over K5 (apart from having to buy it). Could be that it was cheaper to shell out than to stick out.


The second one I find more amusing than infuriating. People who are ignorant/snobbish enough to dismiss Pentax usually don't have the gear/skills to support the claim and are more often than not made look foolish. The ones that have, hats off to them; I don't have the money for that race and I still find them ridiculous to do so.

[RonHendriks1966]

Sad in so many ways. What kind of course could such a teacher be giving.

[Cynog Ap Brychan]

I just picked up on this thread, and the instructor's attitude made my blood boil! Such ignorance. I have been on a few advanced level photography courses, and not once was I asked the brand of my camera. The idea was to take decent photographs, evaluate them and learn. It was a photography course, not a camera course, for goodness sake. I suppose I could have done it with a phone camera, had they existed in those far off days of film and chemicals (ah, happy times). I'm still fuming!!!! Grrrrrr grrrrr!

[Clavius]

So... Nobody wonders about the teachers motives? I've read the entire thread two times and nowhere I could find any reasons for the denial. If anything, the differences in camera systems is important to beginning photographers. So I would guess the teacher would have been happy to answer that, if he was asked the question. Wasn't the question even asked... or? Maybe using eachothers lenses is part of some of the lessons? It could easily be that simple.

[Kayaker-J]

Y'all have some strange ideas about NA. The biggest item in the NC State Annual Budget of 21+ Billion USD is Education.

Here in my corner of NA, in North Carolina, when I suggested to my local Town Parks & Rec. Dept. offering photography classes, I submitted course outlines and gave them customer references, beside my web sites. They do not use contractors, so I was required to fill out a standard employment application.

Part of my proposal was being vendor agnostic, no sponsorship. Their primary concern was sufficient community interest. First lesson was, we pushed back the start date because it collided with folks summer vacations. My pay check will be from the Town.

I don't know what the guy described in OP was doing but that foolishness wouldn't fly in any presentation to members of my local camera club. I am the odd duck of 100+ members but I do end getting donations of legacy Pentax & Ricoh gear from folks with hair even grayer than mine.

These days, It would certainly be a novelty if dominant NC State legislators had reaped, or had begun to reap, any personal benefit from the education fund.

[Cynog Ap Brychan]

So... Nobody wonders about the teachers motives? I've read the entire thread two times and nowhere I could find any reasons for the denial. If anything, the differences in camera systems is important to beginning photographers. So I would guess the teacher would have been happy to answer that, if he was asked the question. Wasn't the question even asked... or? Maybe using eachothers lenses is part of some of the lessons? It could easily be that simple.

Perhaps, but if so, why didn't he explain this?