Originally posted by Jewelltrail Rodney, you make an excellent point, one which many people need reminding of. The problem with high tech technology, is it never seems to be high-tech enough.
If camera technology were to reach the level the gear heads long for, all one would do is point the camera and push the button and get a perfect shot--each time. Better yet, gear-head mentality would warrant a camera which telepathically read the shooter's mind and pushed the shutter at the optimum moment. But then there would still be unhappy gear heads.
For them, cameras which functioned completely by reading the minds of the "shooters" would be wanted. And we would still have whining gear-heads.
For them, cameras which telepathically got every shot perfectly, would need to do so in the "shooter's" sleep.
Photography is an art--thank God digital (technology) has not stolen that!
i beg to differ. it feels to me you are confusing "craft" with "art" (and, btw, many people do, sometimes very respected commercial photographers and so on, so maybe it's just me.). the art is
not in handling your gear, the art is in your vision and ability to materialize it effectively, if you do that with a brownie, a pencil or a top end dslr is quite irrelevant. imho, people crediting "artists" (let's just say image creators, maybe, i am more confortable with that term
) for their craft as well as for their gear are missing the point, and wasting their time: they don't get it, that's not what it's about, it's irrelevant how the creator created his work, and changes _nothing_ of his works value. i am equally pissed, btw, at people touting their process, gear, paper they print on and how hard it is to do (and how easy digital image creators/printers have it by comparison) when selling pictures, i find it sad and ridiculous, if that's what you must do to set yourself apart..
i have no problem with not tripping the shutter, but instead thinking of tripping the shutter. if you think there's a difference, imho, you are missing the point: the shot will still be great or crap, depending on your vision and ability to make it real, your camera will never have vision, it can be smart, but that's about it. nothing changes what a photographer has to do to get what he wants, ultimately, technology can make it easier, but the photographers role will remain the same, if you make the photographer redundant, as you seem to secretly fear, you make the camera redundant too, and photography itself. so don't be afraid of technology, it's only here to help you (us), and no, using a brownie to shoot sports will not make you a great photographer, maybe a very stubborn one
, but as great or bad as you were before. people who are nostalgic at "the good old days", and angry that now "any idiot can het a 10k dolars canon system and get great (sports) shots" (which, btw, is simply wrong) are craftsman, they are those people who never did, and never were interested in creating images, they were just mastering a technical craft, and were happy with it. the digital era hit them, and hit them hard: now any kid with some brains and a bit of vision can do what they used to do, with a rebel, and without 5 years of learning "the craft". it still takes a kid with a lot of brains and vision to make great work though, as it did before, only now there are less hurdles to get there (though, if you get serious, with all this postprocessing and such, it is nearly the same amount of trouble as before with digital). this is the time, here and now, and we have to live with this reality: the standard is higher, the amount of shitty pictures publicly available is hugely higher than before, the amount of decent ones is definetly higher, and the amount of great ones just slightly higher. if this is good or bad, i don't know, but my humble opinion is that the craft is just an unavidable way to materialize your ideas, and it has always been such, except for the people who enjoy practicing the craft itself (i do, sometimes), but for those people, there is no threat: any serious camera still has manual focus, manual exposure, and you can still buy film and load your brownie, or whatnot, so there's no problem.
the whinning gear heads would be, by any chance, those who in the days of film would say "i'd like something small, high quality, rugged, i would like automatic perfect exposure and autofocus, i would also like to see a preview of the image imediately after i shoot, something like polaroid, but still have a high quality negative, oh, and i don't want to have to load film, i'd like something reusable; did i mention make it small?". the gearheads are your friends.