I've been thinking of late

[xayraa33]

I've played several "humble Mexican" Teles and even owned a fretless Fender Jazz Bass that was Mexican made and each of those I personally found better made than that first 1968 Tele from Manny's that I picked up, even though the latter would sell now for way too many $$$ (more than worth).

xayraa33- I have my opinions about the Tele and feel too often the conversation about the Tele is, well this guitar is great for country or chicken pickin or that sort of thing without acknowledging it's "acoustic" qualities. And yes, it really is an adaptable design. That for sure is another aspect that makes the guitar so good. If a player wants a beefy LP-like Tele, that's perfectly fine. And while Roy B stated that a Tele should never get a Humbucker, it sure worked fine for Canadian guitarist Ed Bickert and others.

I am a bit of a purest myself about Telecasters, but who am I to judge- I just have opinions about what works for me. I appreciate the versatility and again the musical (gavinig's "chimes and sings") qualities of a great unadorned Tele.....especially when I listen to a player like Danny Gatton, but also playing one at very intimate volume, something I find rewarding about the Tele that an LP does not provide me.

To bring this back to cameras, I'm tempted to say that adding anything on to a Tele is like placing a Visoflex on your M3, but not sure that is a great analogy either 🙂

David​

It depends on how many Telecasters one owns...I have Teles were I placed a P-90 or a PAF humbucker pickup in the front and the universal usability is enhanced in my opinion ...some Tele front pickups can be very dead sounding and replacing them with a boutique Tele pickup can improve their sound or just replace them with a P-90 or a humbucker or a Strat pickup, which I have done with no regrets. My heavy Tele that sounds like a Les Paul guitar is pure factory stock and came with single coil pickups and I would not even change a pickguard screw on it to lessen its mojo. There are many factors that make a guitar great, some cannot be analyzed or put in a category.

 

[Calzone]

It depends on how many Telecasters one owns...I have Teles were I placed a P-90 or a PAF humbucker pickup in the front and the universal usability is enhanced in my opinion ...some Tele front pickups can be very dead sounding and replacing them with a boutique Tele pickup can improve their sound or just replace them with a P-90 or a humbucker or a Strat pickup, which I have done with no regrets. My heavy Tele that sounds like a Les Paul guitar is pure factory stock and came with single coil pickups and I would not even change a pickguard screw on it to lessen its mojo. There are many factors that make a guitar great, some cannot be analyzed or put in a category.

I own 5 Tele's if you count the two that are setup as "Esquires." I own a few because Tele's are so versatile. One of my Esquires is a 1949 "Snakehead" replica with a 51 Nocaster Fender CS P.U. This one piece body is from some old growth barn wood and happens to be rather dense and heavy. What great tone. The relic'ed white lacquer features worm holes. They say the worms like the best woods. I also own a lightweight Tele that also is magical.

So like guitars I happen to own many cameras. Even though an inademite object I like to think that each has its own Mojo because part of me is embodied into the camera. Like a worn pair of jeans...

BTW did you know that a Tele can be a great Jazz guitar?

Anyways cameras can have Mojo, just like a guitar, but not all cameras or guitars have mojo. Anyways the cameras and guitars I own "speak to me." and they are not just light-tight boxes.

Cal

 

[xayraa33]

I own 5 Tele's if you count the two that are setup as "Esquires." I own a few because Tele's are so versatile. One of my Esquires is a 1949 "Snakehead" replica with a 51 Nocaster Fender CS P.U. This one piece body is from some old growth barn wood and happens to be rather dense and heavy. What great tone. The relic'ed white lacquer features worm holes. They say the worms like the best woods. I also own a lightweight Tele that also is magical.

So like guitars I happen to own many cameras. Even though an inademite object I like to think that each has its own Mojo because part of me is embodied into the camera. Like a worn pair of jeans...

BTW did you know that a Tele can be a great Jazz guitar?

Anyways cameras can have Mojo, just like a guitar, but not all cameras or guitars have mojo. Anyways the cameras and guitars I own "speak to me." and they are not just light-tight boxes.

Cal

Funny thing is I converted my Esquire to a Telecaster, that single pickup lore of less magnetic pull on the strings was never convincing to me. Yes, I know about jazz guitarists using Teles, the mentioned Ed Bickert and Mike Stern and even Jazz and studio session guy Bob Bain liked the Telecaster and was an early proponent of placing a humbucking PAF pickup in the front position of his blackguard Telecaster .

 

[Range-rover]

I like this it's true, they call it the Plank but it has a sound of it's own that I love. It's just like camera's there more that the sum of parts!

 

[waileong]

A few weeks ago I was on another site, and a group of us were commenting of the Nikon SP saying what nice camera it is and such.
Next thing you know someone comes up and say it's just a box that that holds the lens, mmm! that got me thinking and I know a few people
think that but I and a few don't. I look at it this way and call it a optical timing device, if it's just a box the focusing could not be done and it the
shutter was off your exposure would be off. When I look at a old Leica M3, M2 and other and see inside it's a mechanical to me with a great
rangefinder and shutter. Am I wrong is it just a box and do we love it more than a box?

It's not just a light-tight box. It has a weight, form factor, design elements that make it better for some kinds of photography and worse for others, etc. And even within the same category, there's aesthetics and performance considerations. Aka how much more are you willing to pay for more beauty, more design touches, better waterproofing, less weight, etc etc.

 

[Calzone]

Funny thing is I converted my Esquire to a Telecaster, that single pickup lore of less magnetic pull on the strings was never convincing to me. Yes, I know about jazz guitarists using Teles, the mentioned Ed Bickert and Mike Stern and even Jazz and studio session guy Bob Bain liked the Telecaster and was an early proponent of placing a humbucking PAF pickup in the front position of his blackguard Telecaster .

X,

Same here as far as string pull, but on a Strat it is a different matter.

I think the lore of an Esquire is really developing a sound with just your hands. Anyways that's for me a plug and play kinda guy.

Don't forget Bill Frishel...

Anyways a camera can be like a watch, an accessory that basically becomes part of you and your identity.

Cal

 

[hap]

Why am I wearing a garmin instead of my fine watches? Instead I am addicted to metrics fed to an app daily that have oversized influence on my life although of dubious accuracy and meaning.

 

[Range-rover]

Wow this turned out to be a nice informative thread, keep it going even the guitar talk is great, and yes I do have a Strat and thinking of building my own tele one day again.

 

[rbiemer]

I really don't know anything about guitars, but I heard that Martin had a pretty good luthier...


Ahem.
Sorry. I will try to zealously avoid puns in (undefined) future.

😀

 

[smiling gecko]

speaking of guitars... i am about to buy my first guitar.
been carrying around a few picks in my pocket for awhile.

i am looking at a fender squire stratocaster...black and white body. bought a snark guitar tuner a few weeks ago.

my influences are delta and chicago blues. i am an old (i do mean old) metallica fan and only recently dived deeper into halestorm and bad wolves.

going to see and hear and absorb howlin’ wolf was my introduction to live blues...the hook was set.

lived in austin in late 70’s and was a regular at the alamo lounge in the old crocket hotel absorbing every riff and every drop of sweat and blood from SRV.

basically lived at antone’s every year during the annual blues week. pinetop perkins tried to show me some piano riffs.
then there was armadillo headquarters, the split rail, the hole on the wall (saw wendy o williams there).

i LUV zydeco and cajun and samba batucada and more.

clutzed around in a samba band - the purple martins - learning a little percussion we had one gig at sxsw a million years ago.

was an ok chorus member in austin lyric opera for 9 operas.

then there were good years going to aqua fest.

sooooooo, i was blessed with being at the right places at the right time a bunch of times.

i hope to find my own voice/sound after i quit making scary (learning) noises for the dogs and the cat.

oh yeah cameras - initial topic - my every day camera goes back and forth and back and forth between my mamiya6 and rolleiflex 6002 and contax g2...then there’s my large and ultra large format - that’s a whole ‘nother thing.

my apologies if i rambled on too long here.

some of my images are on flickr.com as “thesmilingecko”.

breathe, relax and enjoy.
”patience and shuffle the cards” don quixote

have a great day and a blessed thanksgiving!

the smiling gecko, aka kenneth, hey you, !#%?!

 

[bluesun267]

Prior to the digital invasion, this "it's just a box" saying was used more as a way to snap someone out of gear upgrade-itis when it was stifling their creativity, ie: "accept the tools you have/can afford, and get on with photographing". That I didn't have a problem with because sometimes it was helpful. Lately though it does seem to be used as a way to lay a guilt trip on film camera aficionados...and to discourage the exploration/appreciation of these 'obsolete' cameras by young persons who may not have experienced them the first time around.

 

[CLAdictic]

I have cameras not boxes. The box shape of the Kodak Brownie was a ground breaking triumph. The superb Leicas, just a box? Any camera is basically just a tool or device for exposing film. So I guess that I have 20 different size, shape, material, boxes according to some. Each to his/her own, I have cameras, they came in boxes.

 

[boojum]

A camera is just a tool, but not all tools are them same and thinking so is misleading. To wit, back at the dawn of time when the IIIf was a new camera I borrowed a friend's to take some HS photos, football game. I swear I did better with it than I did with my old Vito II. Later when living in Montreal I had the loan of the first Leica CL and got some great pics, better than I was getting with whatever Japanese camera I had at the time. I think it was in a large part the effect the camera had on my head. I felt better and more confident poking the IIIf and the CL around and that enabled me to get better images. This is a weakness of my ego but I do not think it is confined to me. Others experience this, too. Using a really good camera will improve, and does improve, what I shoot but it does not perform miracles. The galleries are still not clamoring for my pics and I think it will stay that way. 😎

 

[Rob-F]

Another thing I could say (I last posted on this in November 2021) is that to call the camera a "box" is to devalue it. Why might someone want to devalue a fine camera? Maybe they would like one, but can't afford it. The same person might call a BMW or Rolls-Royce "Just a rolling box on wheels to get from point A to point B." Wanting something one can't have creates conflict within the person. One way to resolve the conflict is to dismiss the coveted item as having no value.

Alternatively a photo instructor might make such a remark if trying to give a reality check to a student who thinks all he needs is a fine camera to take professional quality shots. Or, maybe it might go like this:

Student (Or any other misguided person): "Well, if I had a camera like that, I could take pictures like that, too!"

Instructor: "Sure, and if you had a Steinway concert grand piano, you could play the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto Number Three, just like Olga Kern can."

 

[Canyongazer]

IMO, by far the biggest influence on the results from a film camera is film.

 

[lukitas]

I inherited a copy of the Famous Photographers Course of 1964, the one that had Irving Penn and Richard Avedon and other greats as tutors.
One of the first tasks was to reproduce a 'picture postcard' - boats reflected in water, a village church... - with a third rate, unprofessional camera. With fixed focus, what depth of field do you have and how do you use it. If you cannot change the diaphragm or the shutter speed, you have to make sure the light is right for the film you have. And you can experiment with development, play around in the darkroom. Most of all, framing is more important than all of the present or absent doohickies on the camera. The task is to make a picture, whatever the tools you have.
These were the sort of comments my dad got on the submissions he sent in.
Deeper in the course, they went into great technical detail, explaining the relationship between diaphragm, focus distance and depth of field, shutter speed and motion blur, etc. But always, the emphasis was on making pictures; technique as a hand-maid, the aim is a great picture.
The best course book on photography I have ever seen.

I've boiled it down to a sort of Zen-Socratic conversation :

It isn't the camera, it's the lens.
It isn't the lens, it's the brain behind the box.
It isn't the brain behind, it's the scene before the lens.
It's none of the above, it's the printed picture.
it's all of the above, but only the print counts.

cheers

 

[Rayt]

I made a similar comment in another forum within context of whether to prioritise on the lens or the camera. With film it’s always best to spend money on the best lens and then the rest on the body because whether it’s an M7 or Bessa 3A it takes the same pictures.

Today with digital especially mirrorless the camera has more say in what your photos will look like than the lens. Just make a lens with high contrast and resolution and apply correction algorithms and Lightroom presets and it’ll look like how you want it to look like.

 

[agentlossing]

A CAMERA IS JUST A TOOL.

And humans have always appreciated our tools. Is a watch a tool? is a car a tool? Is a hunting knife a tool? Was a knight's broadsword or a musketeer's rapier a tool? We have an affinity for our tools. I have no patience for utilitarianism, nor any philosophies which ignore human personality.

 

[santino]

Sad thing is that for certain people other people become tools.
A camera is not just a box: Give me an SLR, TLR or RF and I will take very different pictures with each one of them (imagine, all had the same lens).

 

[Richard G]

Orville Robertson here, long gone, set us straight on the it’s all about the glass delusion. It’s all about the body, the camera. Here we’re using Leica ASPH, LTM, Zeiss, Voigtlander, whatever. The rangefinder camera size, focusing concepts (plural), on-body controls all affect the relationship with human subjects particularly, but also compositions waiting to be found. Different cameras affect what shots we look for, and see, and take. One kind host of Koudleka found he’d go out and practice sometimes without film in the camera.

The shots you look for or see or take are different when you carry an M2, or a Hasselblad and what you get is different even between a Hasselblad and Rollei. There’s a human being behind the viewfinder (or above it) and often in front of the lens, and they both have different responses to different cameras.