what makes a pro camera

Gooshin · 09-16-2008, 08:43 PM

the cameras that you mentioned, may i remind you, shoot film.

since you are obviously well versed in the subject matter, i'm not going to go into detail explaining to you the extreme benefits of shooting film in controlled conditions if you know what you are doing.

a holga may be shit, but it takes light through a crappy lens that still FOCUSES, on to a high quality FILM.

since we cannot interchange digital sensors in todays cameras, any introduction of FILM cameras into this discussion is poor form, the comparison is irrelevant when discussing what "makes a pro camera" today.

also, what makes a "pro" camera is a criteria that you chose to define in your own light.

your arguments only state that "any camera can take a wonderful photograph"

but thats not what we are talking about, atleast not what i understood from the main topic.

things like weather sealing allow for some photographers to be more aggressive in going out and taking shots in adverse conditions, also little accidents like tipping in a boat, falling into the snow or mud, or having some random guy at the Pride parade spray you out of a water gun, are not going to destroy your valuable investment.

things like wireless support means less external accessories for flash work, less junk = cleaner workflow

things like wireless remote support, do they make 15 foot cables for Holgas?

accurate metering sensors. You can get great pictures with a holga, but thats assuming it exposed right! You CAN shoot fully manual and run around with a light meter, but why bother, the technology is there, and the company that makes the most accurate and sensitive metering will be the one that people want to get.

anyway i can go on and on

i hope you get my point... at the very least that comparing FILM to a digital sensor is pointless

and also remember, some art, that is sold for thousands of dollars, is done so out of the hype of the often irrational art community rather than any real efforts on the part of the photographer.

Damn Brit · 09-16-2008, 09:27 PM

One correction on your last post Serge, the Oly C5050 mentioned is a Digi P&S.

I think you hit the nail on the head though about the features. Any camera that has features that enable the photographer to do their job with the minimum of fuss is likely
to be labeled pro. That is until they trickle down in to the Prosumer and Consumer market. Lack of on board flash is kind of the reverse. It won't do the job so why have it.
For a consumer camera it's necessary to provide value for money. Other features on consumer cameras like scene modes are again good for consumers (coolness, ease of use) no good for pros.
Of course cost is another factor, call anything a pro model and the cost goes up. Of course the right features are there but not necessarily worth the much higher price.
The top class pros don't pay full price anyway (if they pay for them at all). If a world class photographer is using a Nikon whatever, lesser mortals are going to want that model as well. Then they can say " I use the same camera so and so does". That's where Nonca and Kinno make their profits.

scotfree_photo · 09-16-2008, 10:30 PM

A pro is defined by somebody who makes a living at it. so first you need define the pro...

A National Geographic Photographer that trudges through unimaginable conditions in 3rd world countries where the camera gets beat to hell and has to survive the elements. D3, 1D are the only tools that will probably fit the bill. They usually dont have a flash because it makes the body harder, if not impossible, to seal and if they are looking for pro level results they need pro level lighting which a built in flash probably wont do.

A high dollar sports shooter that needs a camera to capture a sequence of shots, searching for that one magical moment somewhere in that sequence.... Anything that shoots faster than 6fps.

Wedding/Portrait photographer where the camera has to survive no more than civilized conditions and is relatively near cover... Any Prosumer camera, including K20D, 40D, 5D, D300 etc...

Anybody who has a fantastic eye and can make a living at it... any camera he wants or any camera he can achieve the style he is trying to accomplish.

If you define pro as someone who does it professionally, (make money at it), you cant define a pro camera anymore.

Scot

Damn Brit · 09-16-2008, 10:56 PM

Originally posted by scotfree_photo

A pro is defined by somebody who makes a living at it. so first you need define the pro...

A National Geographic Photographer that trudges through unimaginable conditions in 3rd world countries where the camera gets beat to hell and has to survive the elements. D3, 1D are the only tools that will probably fit the bill. They usually dont have a flash because it makes the body harder, if not impossible, to seal and if they are looking for pro level results they need pro level lighting which a built in flash probably wont do.

A high dollar sports shooter that needs a camera to capture a sequence of shots, searching for that one magical moment somewhere in that sequence.... Anything that shoots faster than 6fps.

Wedding/Portrait photographer where the camera has to survive no more than civilized conditions and is relatively near cover... Any Prosumer camera, including K20D, 40D, 5D, D300 etc...

Anybody who has a fantastic eye and can make a living at it... any camera he wants or any camera he can achieve the style he is trying to accomplish.

If you define pro as someone who does it professionally, (make money at it), you cant define a pro camera anymore.

Scot

Hi Scot

You're a new member so you probably missed it but Pro has been defined to death so any more talk about that will probably have us all running out of the room screaming with blood pouring out of our ears and eyes. Please don't do that to us.

You're second point, K10 has already been to all the places you mentioned including the top of Everest and also the upper atmosphere at -60 degrees.

Your third point I can't disagree with.

Fourth point, again I agree.

Fifth point, you can't just have the eye, you've got to be able to use the camera as well.

Sixth and last point, don't start again I've already told you.

snigelben · 09-17-2008, 04:19 AM

I cant really see the glamour of pro photography, the absolute majority of pro work seems to be very mundane and uncreative. I think much of the pro equipment specs are supposed to make up for the fact that there is never any time to be inspired.

séamuis · 09-17-2008, 04:26 AM

Quote:

I think much of the pro equipment specs are supposed to make up for the fact that there is never any time to be inspired.

no, they are to get gadget geeks with too much money, to shell out for the most expensive body on the market. thus making the companies like canon and nikon more profitable and able to shove more gadgets into their cameras. its an ugly cycle.

Gooshin · 09-17-2008, 05:13 AM

Originally posted by snigelben

I cant really see the glamour of pro photography, the absolute majority of pro work seems to be very mundane and uncreative. I think much of the pro equipment specs are supposed to make up for the fact that there is never any time to be inspired.

i highly disagree.

there was a post awhile ago here about Vincent Laforets olympic gear

Olympics Equipment Gallery - Page 1

and everyone and their grandma decided to throw a rock at him

but if anyone actually bothered to go and look at his photographs after the fact from China, would be wise to hold their tongue.

high quality specs dotn make up for anything, in fact, they allow you to do more.

ghelary · 09-17-2008, 05:42 AM

Having a "pro" camera doesn't qualify you for being a "pro", and "pros" don't always have a "pro" camera.

I don't think "pro" cameras can be defined from the spec, as "pro" features are passed to entry level DSLRs, and new are brought. My personal definition would be on 2 criteria :
1. A pro camera is designed to be used by people who have a deep knowledge of technics, meaning that the "auto" (portrait mode and so on) are not present, and every parameter can be tuned.
2. On the tradeof that lead the design of the camera, price is not part of the equation.

As oposed to that a consumer camera is designed for ease of use, with a lot of automatism, and price is always a very important parameter. Most of them are P&S.

In-between, you will find a lot of "prosumer" cameras designed for amateurs who wants more control (like me) or pros on a budget, P&S with full manual mode (Panasonic LX2, Canon G9) or entry level SLRs are part of this category.

I don't think there is any debate about the fact that Nikon D3, canon 1Ds etc are designed for pro exclusively. Amateur bying them are a very small minority of this market.

TaoMaas · 09-17-2008, 06:13 AM

I tend to think of pro gear in terms of durability. An entry level camera may be capable of creating images on a par with a pro level camera, but can it do that day-in, day-out for weeks, months, or years without breaking? Most pros need gear that they don't have to baby.

davek · 09-17-2008, 07:03 AM

I never contribute the these Pro vs Amateur threads, but I thought I'd throw an interesting tidbit out there.

I was at a wedding in the summer where a Professional photographer was there as a guest. We had a rather interesting conversation. He told me the story that he was asked by an organization to judge their photo contest. The contest had amateur and professional categories. He said that the amateur submissions where far and away better than the professional submissions. In fact, he could only pick one professional shot that was worthy of an award, so he refused to pick 2nd and 3rd place images. Ultimately the organization picke the 2nd and 3rd place winners.

His point was that amateurs do it for the love of it, and that passion came out in the images.

**Aristophanes** · 09-17-2008, 09:21 AM

Really, a "pro" can be any yahoo who sticks a camera in Brittany Spears' face while she is jonesing and throwing her kids into the pool. Technically, anyone who sells their artwork is a pro. If there is a market, the product can be said to have been professionalized. I am just quoting my tax code for the definition ;-)

innershell · 09-17-2008, 02:24 PM

Originally posted by Aristophanes

If there is a market, the product can be said to have been professionalized. I am just quoting my tax code for the definition ;-)

That means those girls with 2MP webcams showing their "goods" on paid websites are "pros"!

WMBP · 09-17-2008, 05:48 PM

What's a "pro" camera? It's kind of a bogus question.

In the marketing context, a pro camera is a camera that is likely to be used only be pros. That generally means one that's very expensive - too expensive for most consumers to bother with. That would certainly mean medium-format digital backs. I doubt even Bill Gates would bother to pay $35,000 for a camera. I think it also clearly applies to the high-end full-frame digital SLRs like the Nikon D3 - although the D700 (which is very similar to the D3) is cheap enough that it's surely being purchased by well-heeled amateurs, some of whom may not even be very serious photographers. I'm pretty sure you don't have to audition to buy one of these cameras!

So Pentax doesn't sell a pro camera in this sense, because the K20D is too good a bargain. And note that it's not just a matter of the price of the individual camera. Pentax couldn't make the K20D a pro camera in this sense simply by tripling the price, because the camera has to compete with similar cameras from other companies, and if the comparable Nikon D300 is selling for $2000 (or whatever it's selling for), it would be a joke for Pentax to sell the K20D for $3000 or $4000. By the way, there is a special exception to this rule for Leica. Leica's digital camera costs $5000 or something like that last time I checked, but it's clearly not a pro camera - more of a rich amateur's camera.

There are two problems with the marketing definition.

The first problem is that the cameras thus described change every six months. The lowliest DSLR on the market now (say, the Nikon D60 or the Pentax K200D) would have been a pro camera just a few years ago.

The other problem is that it's almost never been the camera itself that matters - it's the lenses. Perhaps the camera body matters more for digital photography than it mattered for film. But there's still a good bit of truth to this idea even for digital photography. Lenses matter. Bodies come and go, but great lenses are forever.

But that's all about hardware. And the truth is, neither cameras nor lenses are "pro." A professional is a person. And the interesting thing is, the term professional in this field is not very interesting. A pro photographer is somebody who makes money with a camera. You can slice and dice it more finely if you like: pros make most or all of their money from photography, while people who make less than half of their income from photography are "semi-pro" or whatever.

But who gives a fig about this? There are lots of pros making good livings who are lousy photographers, and some of the best photographers in the world aren't making a dime from their work.

Will

**Lowell Goudge** · 09-17-2008, 06:58 PM

just 3 letters P R O

Actually given the past arguments in attempting to define a pro, and our colective failure to agree on that, lets change this to what is a hobby camera, the answer is simple, everything used to date, because any camera can be used to take images for pleasure.

Damn Brit · 09-17-2008, 07:09 PM

I'll be glad when we have something new to talk about, what is a pro camera? , what is the definition of a pro photographer? We have wasted so much bandwidth going round in circles on these subjects.

A pro camera gives you a blow job for $30.
A pro photographer takes pictures of you then blackmails you.

09-17-2008, 06:58 PM	#29
Lowell Goudge Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Toronto Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 17,891	really it is simple.... just 3 letters P R O Actually given the past arguments in attempting to define a pro, and our colective failure to agree on that, lets change this to what is a hobby camera, the answer is simple, everything used to date, because any camera can be used to take images for pleasure.

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09-16-2008, 08:43 PM	#16
Gooshin Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Toronto, the one in Canada. Posts: 5,610	the cameras that you mentioned, may i remind you, shoot film. since you are obviously well versed in the subject matter, i'm not going to go into detail explaining to you the extreme benefits of shooting film in controlled conditions if you know what you are doing. a holga may be shit, but it takes light through a crappy lens that still FOCUSES, on to a high quality FILM. since we cannot interchange digital sensors in todays cameras, any introduction of FILM cameras into this discussion is poor form, the comparison is irrelevant when discussing what "makes a pro camera" today. also, what makes a "pro" camera is a criteria that you chose to define in your own light. your arguments only state that "any camera can take a wonderful photograph" but thats not what we are talking about, atleast not what i understood from the main topic. things like weather sealing allow for some photographers to be more aggressive in going out and taking shots in adverse conditions, also little accidents like tipping in a boat, falling into the snow or mud, or having some random guy at the Pride parade spray you out of a water gun, are not going to destroy your valuable investment. things like wireless support means less external accessories for flash work, less junk = cleaner workflow things like wireless remote support, do they make 15 foot cables for Holgas? accurate metering sensors. You can get great pictures with a holga, but thats assuming it exposed right! You CAN shoot fully manual and run around with a light meter, but why bother, the technology is there, and the company that makes the most accurate and sensitive metering will be the one that people want to get. anyway i can go on and on i hope you get my point... at the very least that comparing FILM to a digital sensor is pointless and also remember, some art, that is sold for thousands of dollars, is done so out of the hype of the often irrational art community rather than any real efforts on the part of the photographer.

09-16-2008, 09:27 PM	#17
Damn Brit Guest	One correction on your last post Serge, the Oly C5050 mentioned is a Digi P&S. I think you hit the nail on the head though about the features. Any camera that has features that enable the photographer to do their job with the minimum of fuss is likely to be labeled pro. That is until they trickle down in to the Prosumer and Consumer market. Lack of on board flash is kind of the reverse. It won't do the job so why have it. For a consumer camera it's necessary to provide value for money. Other features on consumer cameras like scene modes are again good for consumers (coolness, ease of use) no good for pros. Of course cost is another factor, call anything a pro model and the cost goes up. Of course the right features are there but not necessarily worth the much higher price. The top class pros don't pay full price anyway (if they pay for them at all). If a world class photographer is using a Nikon whatever, lesser mortals are going to want that model as well. Then they can say " I use the same camera so and so does". That's where Nonca and Kinno make their profits.

09-16-2008, 10:30 PM	#18
scotfree_photo Inactive Account Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 18	A pro is defined by somebody who makes a living at it. so first you need define the pro... A National Geographic Photographer that trudges through unimaginable conditions in 3rd world countries where the camera gets beat to hell and has to survive the elements. D3, 1D are the only tools that will probably fit the bill. They usually dont have a flash because it makes the body harder, if not impossible, to seal and if they are looking for pro level results they need pro level lighting which a built in flash probably wont do. A high dollar sports shooter that needs a camera to capture a sequence of shots, searching for that one magical moment somewhere in that sequence.... Anything that shoots faster than 6fps. Wedding/Portrait photographer where the camera has to survive no more than civilized conditions and is relatively near cover... Any Prosumer camera, including K20D, 40D, 5D, D300 etc... Anybody who has a fantastic eye and can make a living at it... any camera he wants or any camera he can achieve the style he is trying to accomplish. If you define pro as someone who does it professionally, (make money at it), you cant define a pro camera anymore. Scot

09-16-2008, 10:56 PM	#19
Damn Brit Guest	Originally posted by scotfree_photo A pro is defined by somebody who makes a living at it. so first you need define the pro... A National Geographic Photographer that trudges through unimaginable conditions in 3rd world countries where the camera gets beat to hell and has to survive the elements. D3, 1D are the only tools that will probably fit the bill. They usually dont have a flash because it makes the body harder, if not impossible, to seal and if they are looking for pro level results they need pro level lighting which a built in flash probably wont do. A high dollar sports shooter that needs a camera to capture a sequence of shots, searching for that one magical moment somewhere in that sequence.... Anything that shoots faster than 6fps. Wedding/Portrait photographer where the camera has to survive no more than civilized conditions and is relatively near cover... Any Prosumer camera, including K20D, 40D, 5D, D300 etc... Anybody who has a fantastic eye and can make a living at it... any camera he wants or any camera he can achieve the style he is trying to accomplish. If you define pro as someone who does it professionally, (make money at it), you cant define a pro camera anymore. Scot Hi Scot You're a new member so you probably missed it but Pro has been defined to death so any more talk about that will probably have us all running out of the room screaming with blood pouring out of our ears and eyes. Please don't do that to us. You're second point, K10 has already been to all the places you mentioned including the top of Everest and also the upper atmosphere at -60 degrees. Your third point I can't disagree with. Fourth point, again I agree. Fifth point, you can't just have the eye, you've got to be able to use the camera as well. Sixth and last point, don't start again I've already told you.

09-17-2008, 04:19 AM	#20
snigelben Inactive Account Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sweden Posts: 34	I cant really see the glamour of pro photography, the absolute majority of pro work seems to be very mundane and uncreative. I think much of the pro equipment specs are supposed to make up for the fact that there is never any time to be inspired.

09-17-2008, 04:26 AM	#21
séamuis Banned Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Savannah, U.S./Baguio City, P.H. Posts: 5,979	Quote: I think much of the pro equipment specs are supposed to make up for the fact that there is never any time to be inspired. no, they are to get gadget geeks with too much money, to shell out for the most expensive body on the market. thus making the companies like canon and nikon more profitable and able to shove more gadgets into their cameras. its an ugly cycle.

09-17-2008, 05:13 AM	#22
Gooshin Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Toronto, the one in Canada. Posts: 5,610	Originally posted by snigelben I cant really see the glamour of pro photography, the absolute majority of pro work seems to be very mundane and uncreative. I think much of the pro equipment specs are supposed to make up for the fact that there is never any time to be inspired. i highly disagree. there was a post awhile ago here about Vincent Laforets olympic gear Olympics Equipment Gallery - Page 1 and everyone and their grandma decided to throw a rock at him but if anyone actually bothered to go and look at his photographs after the fact from China, would be wise to hold their tongue. high quality specs dotn make up for anything, in fact, they allow you to do more.

09-17-2008, 05:42 AM	#23
ghelary Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Paris, France Photos: Gallery Posts: 613	Having a "pro" camera doesn't qualify you for being a "pro", and "pros" don't always have a "pro" camera. I don't think "pro" cameras can be defined from the spec, as "pro" features are passed to entry level DSLRs, and new are brought. My personal definition would be on 2 criteria : 1. A pro camera is designed to be used by people who have a deep knowledge of technics, meaning that the "auto" (portrait mode and so on) are not present, and every parameter can be tuned. 2. On the tradeof that lead the design of the camera, price is not part of the equation. As oposed to that a consumer camera is designed for ease of use, with a lot of automatism, and price is always a very important parameter. Most of them are P&S. In-between, you will find a lot of "prosumer" cameras designed for amateurs who wants more control (like me) or pros on a budget, P&S with full manual mode (Panasonic LX2, Canon G9) or entry level SLRs are part of this category. I don't think there is any debate about the fact that Nikon D3, canon 1Ds etc are designed for pro exclusively. Amateur bying them are a very small minority of this market.

09-17-2008, 06:13 AM	#24
TaoMaas Pentaxian Join Date: May 2007 Location: Oklahoma City Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,574	I tend to think of pro gear in terms of durability. An entry level camera may be capable of creating images on a par with a pro level camera, but can it do that day-in, day-out for weeks, months, or years without breaking? Most pros need gear that they don't have to baby.

09-17-2008, 07:03 AM	#25
davek Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Elmira, On, Canada Posts: 461	I never contribute the these Pro vs Amateur threads, but I thought I'd throw an interesting tidbit out there. I was at a wedding in the summer where a Professional photographer was there as a guest. We had a rather interesting conversation. He told me the story that he was asked by an organization to judge their photo contest. The contest had amateur and professional categories. He said that the amateur submissions where far and away better than the professional submissions. In fact, he could only pick one professional shot that was worthy of an award, so he refused to pick 2nd and 3rd place images. Ultimately the organization picke the 2nd and 3rd place winners. His point was that amateurs do it for the love of it, and that passion came out in the images.

09-17-2008, 09:21 AM	#26
Aristophanes Site Supporter Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Rankin Inlet, Nunavut Photos: Albums Posts: 3,948	Really, a "pro" can be any yahoo who sticks a camera in Brittany Spears' face while she is jonesing and throwing her kids into the pool. Technically, anyone who sells their artwork is a pro. If there is a market, the product can be said to have been professionalized. I am just quoting my tax code for the definition ;-)

09-17-2008, 02:24 PM	#27
innershell Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada Posts: 408	Originally posted by Aristophanes If there is a market, the product can be said to have been professionalized. I am just quoting my tax code for the definition ;-) That means those girls with 2MP webcams showing their "goods" on paid websites are "pros"!

09-17-2008, 05:48 PM	#28
WMBP Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Dallas, Texas Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,482	What's a "pro" camera? It's kind of a bogus question. In the marketing context, a pro camera is a camera that is likely to be used only be pros. That generally means one that's very expensive - too expensive for most consumers to bother with. That would certainly mean medium-format digital backs. I doubt even Bill Gates would bother to pay $35,000 for a camera. I think it also clearly applies to the high-end full-frame digital SLRs like the Nikon D3 - although the D700 (which is very similar to the D3) is cheap enough that it's surely being purchased by well-heeled amateurs, some of whom may not even be very serious photographers. I'm pretty sure you don't have to audition to buy one of these cameras! So Pentax doesn't sell a pro camera in this sense, because the K20D is too good a bargain. And note that it's not just a matter of the price of the individual camera. Pentax couldn't make the K20D a pro camera in this sense simply by tripling the price, because the camera has to compete with similar cameras from other companies, and if the comparable Nikon D300 is selling for $2000 (or whatever it's selling for), it would be a joke for Pentax to sell the K20D for $3000 or $4000. By the way, there is a special exception to this rule for Leica. Leica's digital camera costs $5000 or something like that last time I checked, but it's clearly not a pro camera - more of a rich amateur's camera. There are two problems with the marketing definition. The first problem is that the cameras thus described change every six months. The lowliest DSLR on the market now (say, the Nikon D60 or the Pentax K200D) would have been a pro camera just a few years ago. The other problem is that it's almost never been the camera itself that matters - it's the lenses. Perhaps the camera body matters more for digital photography than it mattered for film. But there's still a good bit of truth to this idea even for digital photography. Lenses matter. Bodies come and go, but great lenses are forever. But that's all about hardware. And the truth is, neither cameras nor lenses are "pro." A professional is a person. And the interesting thing is, the term professional in this field is not very interesting. A pro photographer is somebody who makes money with a camera. You can slice and dice it more finely if you like: pros make most or all of their money from photography, while people who make less than half of their income from photography are "semi-pro" or whatever. But who gives a fig about this? There are lots of pros making good livings who are lousy photographers, and some of the best photographers in the world aren't making a dime from their work. Will

09-17-2008, 07:09 PM	#30
Damn Brit Guest	I'll be glad when we have something new to talk about, what is a pro camera? , what is the definition of a pro photographer? We have wasted so much bandwidth going round in circles on these subjects. A pro camera gives you a blow job for $30. A pro photographer takes pictures of you then blackmails you.