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Forum: General Photography
06-16-2016, 10:38 AM
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A gift beyond measure, and one I wish I had because it would serve me inestimably in my own profession. We histopathologists call it "ocular mileage", but we have the advantage that many of the common things and some of the less common things we see have the same essential structure over and over again, every time we see an example of that disease, so we can engrave it on our brains. What took us half an hour to work out as a trainee springs to mind in minutes or even seconds as a practising pathologist. In the photographic world, unless we take a lot of still life, architecture or scenery, nothing is ever really the same over and over again, and those without an eidetic memory or the personality necessary to repeat the same shot a hundred times with subtle variations can't learn that way.
Perhaps I should have been clearer and completed the sentence as "...on its merits, regardless of the equipment on which it was taken."
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Forum: General Photography
06-16-2016, 08:11 AM
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Given enough people in enough places over a long enough time taking "simple" photos with basic gear, some of them are sure to be masterpieces, whether the picture taker intended them to be or not. A good image is a good image and can be appreciated on its merits - the best gear only assists the photographer and does not replace them.
The photographer taking a picture in an unpredictable or hostile environment, in an instant (e.g. war zone, political protest or uprising) needs to concentrate on composition to the exclusion of everything else, and deserves to have everything possible automated for them. The photographic artist creating a vision at leisure or the student happy to accept a steep learning curve benefits from all the automatics being turned OFF. The grey zone in the middle is full of those who know what they are prepared to let the camera control (AND WHY), those who couldn't care less, and some in between.
Buy whatever you want and buy for fun if you like - but pause to think about what you're letting the camera control, and why no other camera will do.
Yes, this also. The talk is fun, but it definitely won't help you achieve the photographic equivalent of an enlightened state.
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Forum: General Photography
06-15-2016, 05:36 PM
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I wish someone would explain the nuts and bolts of this who can do so succinctly - I have seen too many YT vids where the presentation was so confused that I comprehended the topic worse at the end than I had at the start. They talk about "exposing to the left/right", then they forget that some of their audience are (or in my case still consider themselves, despite tens of thousands of exposures) rank amateurs.
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Forum: General Photography
06-15-2016, 09:10 AM
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It's harder these days than before. We all feel the bruise on our egos when someone criticises our efforts, but these days it seems that some people's adrenaline is too quick to rise into the stratosphere in response to even the most genuine of constructive criticism.
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Forum: General Photography
06-15-2016, 08:59 AM
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Yes. Get more and/or better gear because, and WHEN, the photography you're actually doing demonstrates a need for it. Logically I should have bought a 50-135 after my daughter's ballet recital last year, because I finally understood what its place was in the Pentax lineup (and in my own requirement profile), but the FA135 rose to the challenge and got me some really good shots. There were times I was shooting with a broad grin on my face because the K-5 was rocking along beautifully... and others when I knew a camera with better AF and high-ISO performance would have pulled more keepers (with less post-work required) from the same technique with the same or a better lens.
There's a saying in my profession, which to paraphrase goes something like "To practise medicine without reading books is to sail an uncharted sea; to read books without practising medicine is to not set sail at all." There is of course an unstated broad continuum of middle ground here, but the underlying philosophy can also be applied to gear acquisition.
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Forum: General Photography
06-15-2016, 08:17 AM
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Once upon a time, SLR cameras were mostly the same. You had apertures starting at 1.4 and going up to 22 depending on what lens you put on, and shutter speeds in full stops from 1 to 1/500th or 1/1000th. Focus was manual, by means we all know. That was all the control you had, aided and abetted by incident or reflectant light meters which anyone could buy - your Weston could become my Weston; my Sekonic could become your Sekonic. The sensor was independent of the camera, and the sensor you put in your Leica was the same sensor someone else could put in their Asahiflex. Hell, by rewinding, counting frames and shooting blanks, you could put the same physical roll of film in both cameras.
Things began to change when cameras got on-board metering. All of a sudden, more of the facilities were integral to the camera - the light meter on your Nikon F was no longer the light meter in my Spotmatic or the one mounted on top of my SV. Then AF came along, and the focus control module and actuation system in your Nikon or his Minolta or her Pentax wasn't something you could carry over when you picked up the other person's camera.
(I'm not even going to go into the argument about whose lenses are/were best; that's a dive down the rabbit hole if there ever was one.)
Enter the gear-head. The more there is to differentiate one camera from another (exposure control, focus control, etc.), the happier s/he is. Or maybe not, because s/he's also forever in pursuit of the best and must always have the next big thing. In part I think this is a status symbol - "I have the best" - and in part it's because they're hooked on the idea that better gear means better pictures. From there on, it depends on what you mean by a "better picture". Perhaps these people at their extreme have no true creativity, which is why they cling to sharpness as an ultimate measure.
Ultimately better gear just means getting the same picture more easily, and of that I thoroughly approve. But if you don't have an eye for composition and light, that picture is still going to be unappealing.
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