[Christine Tham]

Sorry. There is just a difference in people. I just find it difficult to view a bunch of underexposed, noisy and blurry photos. But I suppose there are plenty of people who don't mind and for whom immediacy is the most important thing. Maybe that's why I am not enthralled with social media...

Did you know you can actually *choose* who you associate with on social media?

Of course, it would be hard to defriend a family member if that person is the source of the photos you find so objectionable.

Still, you could mute their posts, although perhaps that is not very nice either.

Have you tried perhaps providing some coaching to your brother? Or offer to help him cull the photos, maybe post process some of them?

[Rondec]

Did you know you can actually *choose* who you associate with on social media?

Of course, it would be hard to defriend a family member if that person is the source of the photos you find so objectionable.

Still, you could mute their posts, although perhaps that is not very nice either.

Have you tried perhaps providing some coaching to your brother? Or offer to help him cull the photos, maybe post process some of them?

The people I am friends with on social media are people that are friends/family away from social media as well. That's the way it is.

I have mentioned something to my brother about quantity of photos and he was a little offended and so I didn't go further.

I don't find the photos objectionable. I just don't find them interesting enough to look through them. It takes five minutes a day for me to scan Facebook and very little of it is taken looking at photos. It works for me, but I am not 20 either and actually have a life away from the internet...

Edit: I will say that I do follow folks on Flickr and find the quality of photos is better there -- at least among the people I follow. Certainly there is little narrative to go with the photos though.

[monochrome]

Ahh.....telling us its sarcasm takes all the fun out of replying to your provocative statement. Well not all the fun, but some of it

Who needs art? Who even needs emotions. These questions are waaayyy to deep for me.

Photography has provided a social and artistic outlet for me in unexpected ways. Do i "need" it for a living - no - I"m retired and have an income. But i have developed a lot of friendships because of photography to a degree that i can't imagine being without a camera. In one town, i'm a valued volunteer photographer for a playhouse support staff and have complete access to the theatre whenever i want it. They even let me hold a photo club workshop in the theater on one occasion. I just joined a gallery in another town, and the friendships that have developed are great. So i guess i really do "need" a camera, despite my not being a professional :-)

You needn't explain yourself - I do what I do for enjoyment also (though it is less just photography and more taking photographs with old cameras).

You and Rondec and Christine and all the other really good photographers here are statistical noise compared to 500 million iPhones. Most of the dSLR owners I know socially - especially the D800 people, are also BMW driving, golf-playing, fly fishing, shot-gunning gear hounds and collectors of whatever is expensive and impresses shallow people.

I know a young attorney who bought the most expensive Canon FF camera and the two most expensive zooms (I don't know Canon designations) because, "When our children are born we want the best there is to capture the memories." IMHO he/they and those like them represent a significant part of the sample population of recent non-camera-buyers.

[jogiba]

Interesting. I know Leica sell scopes and an attachment for the digilux cameras. I'd have to believe that would be a better albeit pricy combo. Last I read lots of folks had started digiscoping with the Nikon 1 series. The IQ was so much better than compact sensors in point and shoots.

I use the Pentax PF-CA35 K-Mount SLR Camera Adapter with my Pentax PF-80ED spotting scope that works great with my Pentax DSLRs , K-01 and full frame Sony VG900.
Pentax PF-CA35 K-Mount SLR Camera Adapter 70510 B&H Photo Video



Pentax K-01 with Rode Stereo VideoMic on Pentax PF-80ED with Pentax PF-CA35 K-Mount SLR Camera Adapter

[philbaum]

The people I am friends with on social media are people that are friends/family away from social media as well. That's the way it is.

I have mentioned something to my brother about quantity of photos and he was a little offended and so I didn't go further.

I don't find the photos objectionable. I just don't find them interesting enough to look through them. It takes five minutes a day for me to scan Facebook and very little of it is taken looking at photos. It works for me, but I am not 20 either and actually have a life away from the internet...

Years ago, my wife and I would just leave any family gathering when my brother or brother-in-law would take out their lengthy vacation slide shows. As meaningful as these pictures might be to the participants themselves, there's something very rude about showing endless pictures of one's own life. At the photo club, we limit the number of photos to no more than 10, or sometimes 3, unless its a pre-approved show. When we've held longer shows of people's photos-very few people showed up - long vacation picture shows are not in demand in our club. I see tablets being abused for this purpose. I'll show someone in a club meeting 2 of my recent pictures i've worked on, and this one gal will insist on showing 200 or more shots. I just walk away these days.

[Christine Tham]

You and Rondec and Christine and all the other really good photographers here are statistical noise compared to 500 million iPhones. Most of the dSLR owners I know socially - especially the D800 people, are also BMW driving, golf-playing, fly fishing, shot-gunning gear hounds and collectors of whatever is expensive and impresses shallow people.

I know a young attorney who bought the most expensive Canon FF camera and the two most expensive zooms (I don't know Canon designations) because, "When our children are born we want the best there is to capture the memories." IMHO he/they and those like them represent a significant part of the sample population of recent non-camera-buyers.

LOL - thanks very much for grouping me amongst the "really good photographers" but I suspect I belong more in the other group you mention.

I don't think there is anything wrong with people who have too much money buying expensive toys which they may or may not use effectively. Hey, they help fund R&D for cameras and make them more affordable for the rest of us.

When I was in Salzburg, I had fun watching this group of Chinese tourists struggle with taking travel snapshots with an Canon FF body and L series telephoto - he had his wife try and take a group photo and you should see how far she had to go back to fit everyone in:


Oh, and I saw this guy in Hong Kong - I do NOT want to know how much he spent on that lens:


I am sure Canon and Nikon want more of these customers in order to boost their revenue!

[clackers]

Most of the dSLR owners I know socially - especially the D800 people, are also BMW driving, golf-playing, fly fishing, shot-gunning gear hounds and collectors of whatever is expensive and impresses shallow people..

Just remember, Monochrome, people with more money than sense subsidise the rest of us in those hobbies.

[Christine Tham]

Years ago, my wife and I would just leave any family gathering when my brother or brother-in-law would take out their lengthy vacation slide shows. As meaningful as these pictures might be to the participants themselves, there's something very rude about showing endless pictures of one's own life. At the photo club, we limit the number of photos to no more than 10, or sometimes 3, unless its a pre-approved show. When we've held longer shows of people's photos-very few people showed up - long vacation picture shows are not in demand in our club. I see tablets being abused for this purpose. I'll show someone in a club meeting 2 of my recent pictures i've worked on, and this one gal will insist on showing 200 or more shots. I just walk away these days.

Is your club a retro club or what? Photo shows? Sounds like something from the 50s :-)

Most of the time we just share photos on Google+ and all the commentary goes there. If anyone over-shares, it doesn't matter because the less popular photos get shunted to the bottom of the pile (nice feature of Google+ to sort the photos by votes).

The more adventurous would exhibit in a gallery and hold opening nights.

I have to admit - I am a little bit like Rondec - I generally find viewing other people's photos somewhat boring after a while (even excellent ones) so I usually skip these opening nights. I've missed three in the last two weeks.

[Christine Tham]

Looks like the end is nigh, and a lot sooner than even I anticipated.

Canon Australia about to reduce staff by 10% following drastic reduction in revenue:
Canon loses revenue in ’13, staff in ’14 | PhotoCounter

Also just heard from friend at Facebook - Fairfax Media (owners of Sydney Morning Herald and The Age amongst others) will retrench almost their entire photo department in two weeks time. Lots of really good photojournalists will soon be out of work.

Sad times indeed for photographers.

[jogiba]

It's a rough time to be in the news industry, be it as a writer, editor, or photojournalist. News heavyweight CNN has now fired 50 staff, and part of their justification is that amateur work is good enough to take their place. You can read the entire email explanation from CNN Senior VP Jack Womack at the link above, but here's the meaty bit:

We also spent a great deal of time analyzing how we utilize and deploy photojournalists across all of our locations in the U.S. We looked at the evolution of daytime and evening line-ups. We analyzed how stories are assigned and more importantly the ratio of stories assigned that actually make it on to our networks or platforms. We know that we have to sharpen our focus on stories assigned to ensure that this great work gets on air. We looked at production demands, down time, and international deployments. We looked at the impact of user-generated content and social media, CNN iReporters and of course our affiliate contributions in breaking news. Consumer and pro-sumer technologies are simpler and more accessible. Small cameras are now high broadcast quality. More of this technology is in the hands of more people. After completing this analysis, CNN determined that some photojournalists will be departing the company.

In other words, it's too expensive to keep a trained staff of photojournalists around, when someone with a compact camera or cellphone will be at the scene sooner, and their photos are good enough. Photographers aren't the only ones on the chopping block, editors are also being fired in large numbers, and the CNN archive libraries are being consolidated and downsized.

It's hard to deny that with the ubiquity of cellphone cameras and their increasing quality that someone can beat a journalist to a scene, and it does feel like every other person has a print quality DSLR, but do they have enough to replace a dedicated photojournalist? There's a lot that goes into knowing where to be and when to look in order to grab the perfect shot of a scene, which will be lost if the entire industry just crowdsources their content.

CNN Fires Photographers Because Others Will Do It for Free | Popular Photography

That was from Nov 30 2011 but I am sure it is worse today with smartphones having camera quality that is much better than back then along with compact mirrorless cameras with 36mp full frame sensors.

[philbaum]

Is your club a retro club or what? Photo shows? Sounds like something from the 50s :-)

Most of the time we just share photos on Google+ and all the commentary goes there. If anyone over-shares, it doesn't matter because the less popular photos get shunted to the bottom of the pile (nice feature of Google+ to sort the photos by votes).

The more adventurous would exhibit in a gallery and hold opening nights.

I have to admit - I am a little bit like Rondec - I generally find viewing other people's photos somewhat boring after a while (even excellent ones) so I usually skip these opening nights. I've missed three in the last two weeks.

Don't know about the 50's :-), but there are about 4 photoclubs currently in the small towns around my area. I joined my present one in 2007. They had and still have workshops on various subjects, use of lighting, group trips to nearby photogenic areas, and then monthly meetings, often with a speaker for the first hour, and the second hour, folks could show and discuss some recent photos and projects. Back in 2007, this club had competitions, but that has died out for my club, but the other 3 clubs are very much into the competition. Our club puts on a yearly 2 month long show at a hotel in the area, now in the loft of a wine shop :-)

Our members are involved in other activities in town, so its a great way to network. We occasionally get requests to help out in summer fairs, a documentation study of some whale bones, etc. One of the members got me involved in the local playhouse organization and i've been doing that for 5 years. At least 3 of our members have gone on to join galleries in the area, 2 of our members put together a book proposal, at first got acceptance at a publisher who subsequently backed out. Currently, we are using workshops to present tutoring programs from one online company concerning Photoshop's Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom. I have found that software is much easier to learn in a group situation than by oneself. I think the social aspect of the club is valued by a lot of our members.

MeetUp.org really helps one start a club in their area, if interested.

[Christine Tham]

CNN Fires Photographers Because Others Will Do It for Free | Popular Photography

That was from Nov 30 2011 but I am sure it is worse today with smartphones having camera quality that is much better than back then along with compact mirrorless cameras with 36mp full frame sensors.

I have noticed a lot of media now source their photos and videos from social media.

I suppose as long as the person gets credited (and hopefully paid in some instances) it's a boost and incentive to amateurs/enthusiasts.

Although those in social media circles were rather upset at Vivid Sydney for rather interesting terms and conditions for people who upload images to their Facebook wall (apparently they can use those images freely for "promotional purposes")

From a strictly business perspective, I do agree with the analysis that you quoted. Despite the reservations and doubts of some in this forum, I think smartphone image quality is really good and perfectly acceptable for reportage purposes. It's actually quite clever for Leica to shift their target market to the luxury end whilst trying to preserve the illusion/fantasy that their cameras are used by photojournalists.

PS - I saw "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" on the plane. The storyline is quite relevant to this discussion.

[Christine Tham]

Don't know about the 50's :-), but there are about 4 photoclubs currently in the small towns around my area. I joined my present one in 2007. They had and still have workshops on various subjects, use of lighting, group trips to nearby photogenic areas, and then monthly meetings, often with a speaker for the first hour, and the second hour, folks could show and discuss some recent photos and projects. Back in 2007, this club had competitions, but that has died out for my club, but the other 3 clubs are very much into the competition. Our club puts on a yearly 2 month long show at a hotel in the area, now in the loft of a wine shop :-)

Our members are involved in other activities in town, so its a great way to network. We occasionally get requests to help out in summer fairs, a documentation study of some whale bones, etc. One of the members got me involved in the local playhouse organization and i've been doing that for 5 years. At least 3 of our members have gone on to join galleries in the area, 2 of our members put together a book proposal, at first got acceptance at a publisher who subsequently backed out. Currently, we are using workshops to present tutoring programs from one online company concerning Photoshop's Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom. I have found that software is much easier to learn in a group situation than by oneself. I think the social aspect of the club is valued by a lot of our members.

MeetUp.org really helps one start a club in their area, if interested.

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the effort to describe what your club does. Very interesting. I haven't been in a club like that since I joined the photography club in high school, nearly 40 years ago. I didn't realise clubs like that still existed.

These days, something like that sounds too organised for me. I'm a wild kitten, I like to do my own thing when it comes to photography. And I have zero ambition in terms of my output - they are purely for personal enjoyment. Although a sculpture gallery owner once asked me if I was interested in doing the photography for a coffee table book featuring celebrities and sculptures. I was interested, but nothing came of it.

[pinholecam]

I think for camera manufacturers its back to small setups instead of behemoth ones, catering to the enthusiast crowd and with lower inventories and a slower product cycle.
Something like Leica, but Jap and cheaper.
That means Canikon are the ones who need to shift to the reality of the new market more than the others.

The initial growth for DSLRs was with the coming down of the entry price of such cameras and the rapid improvements of these cameras (esp. the sensor) as well as ppl switching to digital from film.
A large pool of new entrants at that time may have got an entry level dslr and a proportion of that would move to higher end cameras.
That has now reached a saturation point.
The vast majority of such new entrants just keep to the entry level camera and don't need anything more.
Marketing execs will in any company will always need to project a glossy outlook based on the previous yr/qtr results and I think Canikon has got itself into a bit of over inventory at this point because of this.

My interactions with such laymen about their needs/wants are usually along the lines of :
1. I need a better camera than my pns (be it just that a dslr looks more pro or real needs like better AF)
2. I need better 'zoom' (meaning more reach in terms of focal length and they think it lies in the kit lens or the bundle 55-200mm)
3. I need a better camera to take photos of my fast moving kid (often in low light) (more an impression that the dslr will solve their problems than real, though its an upgrade if moving from a pns)

There is no talk of resolution, DR, UI, lens selection.

Even for me, I have found little need to move beyond the K30 for the photos I do and print (up to A3+)
Instead, I now look for cameras that give me what I don't have in the current one (eg. DP1m - higher resolution and Foveon look; A7 - FF and manual lens fun; Q7 - small,fun, super macro and tele)
Cameras have become good enough for most needs and I doubt sales will pick up that soon.

[philbaum]

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the effort to describe what your club does. Very interesting. I haven't been in a club like that since I joined the photography club in high school, nearly 40 years ago. I didn't realise clubs like that still existed.

These days, something like that sounds too organised for me. I'm a wild kitten, I like to do my own thing when it comes to photography. And I have zero ambition in terms of my output - they are purely for personal enjoyment. Although a sculpture gallery owner once asked me if I was interested in doing the photography for a coffee table book featuring celebrities and sculptures. I was interested, but nothing came of it.

Ironically, i visited a large photo club several months back which was super-organized. (and felt put off by it :-)). I would hasten to add that we are not nearly as organized as my description might have implied. We;ve become a group of old friends that use photography as an excuse to get together and socialize. Occasionally we manage to attract a few new members or present something educational, but that's mostly an accidental occurrence :-))

However you enjoy photography - thats great. My best photos i take when i'm alone.

---------- Post added 05-25-14 at 08:44 AM ----------

I think for camera manufacturers its back to small setups instead of behemoth ones, catering to the enthusiast crowd and with lower inventories and a slower product cycle.
Something like Leica, but Jap and cheaper.
That means Canikon are the ones who need to shift to the reality of the new market more than the others.
........

Even for me, I have found little need to move beyond the K30 for the photos I do and print (up to A3+)
Instead, I now look for cameras that give me what I don't have in the current one (eg. DP1m - higher resolution and Foveon look; A7 - FF and manual lens fun; Q7 - small,fun, super macro and tele)
Cameras have become good enough for most needs and I doubt sales will pick up that soon.

Well thought out. Its easy to get caught up in the consumerism, and thereby overlook basic reasons why we have photography. Photography primarily, for me anyway, provides a way to communicate to others, much as writing, speaking, etc. Portability and ease of use is very important therefore to the use of such tools. But not for everyone.