I review fly fishing the same way PetaPixel's Chris Niccolls reviewed the Pixii Max

[ranger9]

[NB - Dapper YouTuber Niccolls recently posted a scathing review of the Pixii Max, based on two hours of shooting with a borrowed camera, on PetaPixel's YouTube channel. Since Niccolls is also an avid fly fisherman who runs his own fly-fishing channel, I thought I'd give his other income stream exactly the same treatment… all in a spirit of fun, of course!]

Fly Fishing Isn't Good and I Hated It

I've never known much about fly fishing, but I was curious… so when a pal offered to lend me some gear and take me to one of his favorite spots for a couple of hours, I decided to give it a try.

I really wanted to like it. The scenery was beautiful, and I even caught a couple of fish. But fly fishing is awful. It's just no good. The water was cold and the hip waders were uncomfortable. Not only is the equipment expensive, it's also poorly designed: the rod and reel were hard to handle, and I often had trouble getting the fly to land where I wanted. It shouldn't be so hard to do that. Also, the fish I caught didn't taste especially good. It was just a disappointing experience all around.

Conclusion: Fly Fishing Is Stupid and No One Should Do It

I admire the determination of people who do fly fishing, but it just doesn't work well enough to be worth the bother and expense. If you want to eat a trout, you should take the money you were going to spend on fly fishing and instead make a reservation at a good seafood restaurant. Fly fishing is bad. Don't do it.

#chrisniccolls #flyfishing #petapixel #youtube

 

[Harry the K]

Seems like a misleading comparison to me, you mixed up different categories.
Fly fishing would be the general category, like photography.
The Pixii would be much more specific, like a certain fishing pole, for example.

 

[Rayt]

I can see Niccoll’s review pissed you off.🙂

 

[ranger9]

I can see Niccoll’s review pissed you off.🙂

The best art requires a strong inspiration.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Funny! Thanks.

 

[ranger9]

Seems like a misleading comparison to me, you mixed up different categories.
Fly fishing would be the general category, like photography.
The Pixii would be much more specific, like a certain fishing pole, for example.

That is a very intelligent critique, but to quote the late P.J. O'Rourke: "Sometimes intelligence is of no use until you shine the cold, hard light of stupidity on it." My goal wasn't to construct an exact literary parallel; my goal was to be terse, rude, and funny about issuing a blanket condemnation of something based on very little observation.

 

[Coldkennels]

I thought his review was pretty fair; there's a lot of weird decisions made in the Pixii's design that are easy to criticise, and he did correctly compliment them on the upgrade process (which always reminds me of how Leitz treated the early screwmount Leicas, for what it's worth). That is a good system, and it deserves to be celebrated.

One thing that he missed that I feel he could (and should) have bought up is how ridiculously small the Pixii's RF baselength is... especially considering I'm pretty sure I could see blockage of the rangefinder patch (!) from the 75mm Thypoch lens he was using on a couple of the shots through the viewfinder. That would go some way to explaining why he was struggling to get accurate focus at times!

 

[ranger9]

I thought his review was pretty fair; there's a lot of weird decisions made in the Pixii's design that are easy to criticise, and he did correctly compliment them on the upgrade process (which always reminds me of how Leitz treated the early screwmount Leicas, for what it's worth). That is a good system, and it deserves to be celebrated.

I'm not trying to be fair, I'm trying to be snarky!

 

[Coldkennels]

How dare you, @ranger9. That's my job!

(I once saw a comment under an article I wrote where someone referred to it as "another piece of unmitigated snark". Easily the best comment I've ever received in any context.)

 

[Richard G]

I like stuff like this. It’s brilliant how your peeves and disappointments still included you catching a couple of fish on your first outing, in high waders, running water and trout, you caught. Trout. Despite such staggering incidental success, I agree that on your first outing it would still be really annoying that you couldn’t land the fly exactly where you wanted each time, and the readers should be told this. The fish - wait for it - didn’t taste good. What a relief. I thought you were about to overdo it and complain that the trout had totally the wrong attitude to what fly fishing is about.

 

[BillBingham2]

Exactly what I needed to read this morning. An exposé on fly fishing that made me think about where we are as a society.

It made me wonder if by any chance, in a past life perhaps, were you a producer at 60 minutes?

I did spend five minutes reading through the piece that started all of this and had I think many of the same thoughts go through my mind.

I generally like Chris's work/perspectives, perhaps he had a bad few hours, ate some bad poutine. It did remind me of what I love about RFF. The vast majority of contributors here are not influencers. While I may not agree with their perspective/opinions, they come from the head, the heart and thier experiences.

Thank you ranger9.

 

[Godfrey]

[NB - Dapper YouTuber Niccolls recently posted a scathing review of the Pixii Max, based on two hours of shooting with a borrowed camera, on PetaPixel's YouTube channel. Since Niccolls is also an avid fly fisherman who runs his own fly-fishing channel, I thought I'd give his other income stream exactly the same treatment… all in a spirit of fun, of course!]

Fly Fishing Isn't Good and I Hated It

I've never known much about fly fishing, but I was curious… so when a pal offered to lend me some gear and take me to one of his favorite spots for a couple of hours, I decided to give it a try.

I really wanted to like it. The scenery was beautiful, and I even caught a couple of fish. But fly fishing is awful. It's just no good. The water was cold and the hip waders were uncomfortable. Not only is the equipment expensive, it's also poorly designed: the rod and reel were hard to handle, and I often had trouble getting the fly to land where I wanted. It shouldn't be so hard to do that. Also, the fish I caught didn't taste especially good. It was just a disappointing experience all around.

Conclusion: Fly Fishing Is Stupid and No One Should Do It

I admire the determination of people who do fly fishing, but it just doesn't work well enough to be worth the bother and expense. If you want to eat a trout, you should take the money you were going to spend on fly fishing and instead make a reservation at a good seafood restaurant. Fly fishing is bad. Don't do it.

#chrisniccolls #flyfishing #petapixel #youtube

I saw Chris Niccolls' review of the PIXII a couple of days back. I bought one myself a few years ago, used it extensively for a month, and returned it.
I have to say I agree 100% with his review.

The one positive thing I obtained from using the PIXII for a month was that it convinced me that a monochrome RF camera was absolutely right for me ... After I shipped it back, I purchased the very last new Leica M10 Monochrom that my dealer friend was able to obtain. That cost me more than double what the PIXII refund returned. It was the best thing I could have done: the M10 Monochrom is exactly what suits me best, and does everything that I'd hoped the PIXII would do, but rather than being a total pain in the tookus, the M10 Monochrom does it all flawlessly.

Despite Chris' review of the PIXII being based on a relatively short testing time, I feel he hit it right on the head.

G

 

[BillBingham2]

........

Despite Chris' review of the PIXII being based on a relatively short testing time, I feel he hit it right on the head.

G

Good to hear.

I felt negative to the Nikon Zf after holding one without a lens after about 3 seconds. I put it down and tried again and the results were the same, at least for me.

Kind of why, at least IMHO, that Apple products have supported higher margins for them over the decades. From what I hear, Chinese EVs have that same simplicity/elegance in their interiors.

Thanks for the additional info.

 

[Harry the K]

That is a very intelligent critique, but to quote the late P.J. O'Rourke: "Sometimes intelligence is of no use until you shine the cold, hard light of stupidity on it." My goal wasn't to construct an exact literary parallel; my goal was to be terse, rude, and funny about issuing a blanket condemnation of something based on very little observation.

To quote the still alive Harry the K: Rudeness without precision is not funny.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Good to hear.

I felt negative to the Nikon Zf after holding one without a lens after about 3 seconds. I put it down and tried again and the results were the same, at least for me.

Kind of why, at least IMHO, that Apple products have supported higher margins for them over the decades. From what I hear, Chinese EVs have that same simplicity/elegance in their interiors.

Thanks for the additional info.

It's good that there are so many different camera options, because we all like what we like.

I happen to love the way my Nikon Zf fits in my hand and that I can use all the Canon FD lenses I used when I first started photography back in the 1970's.

Hope we all find what works best for each of us.

Best,
-Tim

 

[plexi]

I saw the review. Love the concept of the camera but it has way too many deal breakers to even consider it.

 

[Out to Lunch]

way too many deal breakers to even consider it

Idem ditto.

 

[ranger9]

Okay, I'm going to be serious for a moment. What hacks me is this: I've shot more than 20,000 photos with a Pixii since October 2021, but (precisely because I know the camera really well) the internet commentariat dismisses my positive opinions as being those of a credulous fanboy. Meanwhile, Niccolls shoots for two hours with a borrowed camera, and his devastatingly negative opinions are considered important because his channel has 280K subscribers (and because he's personable and has great hair.)

I don't really mind that Niccolls doesn't like the same cameras I like -- in fact, I take quiet pride in liking things other photographers don't like. But I see this tiny blip as a microcosm of what's wrong with contemporary photography culture, in which we're relentlessly herded away from self-expression and toward an algorithm-driven mainstream defined by imitative imagery and opinion leaders whose primary qualification is being good at social media.

As a photographer, you're now encouraged to declare a "genre" (wildlife, action, astro, landscape, whatever), swear allegiance to Nikon, Canon, or Sony (or Fujifilm or Leica if you want to be a nonconformist), adopt an online guru, and dedicate yourself to making images that look like others in your genre. This automatically leads you down a sales funnel within which you can be targeted to buy, buy, buy ("You'll never win the Fish Lips Photographer of the Year Award unless you have our AI-trained fish-recognizing AF system.") It's potentially the only thing keeping the photo industry going, but is it really doing anything for us?

This process isn't just personal, it's highly consequential for the marketplace. One glimmer in L'Affaire Niccolls/Pixii was that another commenter was cheeky enough to suggest that Niccolls might have disliked the camera less if he had been introduced to it at a cushy influencer junket like those routinely hosted by the major manufacturers for the YouTube elite (I don't totally believe this myself.) Niccolls, who apparently cherishes his self-image as a fearlessly independent critic, was stung; he riposted that he had said equally critical things about heavily-supported major-manufacturer products such as the Sigma BF and the Leica SL3S.

One difference he glossed over: it's highly unlikely his remarks would have had any real effect on Sigma (given that the BF was a very-limited-production bauble already destined for JDM sellout status) or Leica (whose stalwarts tend to rely on Leica-specific reviewers for their info.) On the other hand, for the next several years, anyone who notices the Pixii in a B&H ad and is curious enough to search YouTube about it is going to see, as top hit, this popular 280K-subscriber expert telling them (based on his two hours of experience) that it's no good and they should buy a competitor's used camera instead. That might well be a significant drag factor on Pixii's long-term viability. And I don't care that some of you are yelling at your screens right now, "They should buy the competitor's camera instead; that's what I did!" My point is that this is a small example of how the commerce-driven photo-internet penalizes innovation and pushes photographers toward the big-brand oligarchy and in turn toward generic imagery.

I'm sure some of you are already thinking up what you consider to be devastatingly clever retorts, and I don't care; go ahead and have fun. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I'm not taking any questions.

#chrisniccolls #flyfishing #petapixel #youtube

 

[BillBingham2]

Keep in mind he worked for years at Amazon/DPReview. Frankly, as you point out, it’s a two hour review. The newest Sigma camera got a more in depth review.

Contrary to my wife opinion (did I just wrote that out loud?) cameras, lenses, hell, even flashes are a very personal thing to many of us. We look for the tool that works and delivers the way and what we want. Fanboys (and girls (M43Nerd)j have just as valid an opinion and the rest of us. Theirs is formed under different circumstances and they find comfort in their space.

Sometimes I think that I’m to bipolar/contrarian/schizophrenic with respect to my preferences in cameras. I loved my Nikkormat, my F2, my S2, my OM-1, my Bessa L, my M4-P, my CrownGraphic, and yes, even my iPhone 12Pro. Im trying to love my Fuji X-E3, but it’s not loving me back, yet.

I’m hoping Chris will realize he should give it a week of shooting, look at the results and the comment. I think he’s better than this last review.

 

[Coldkennels]

Cameras are a personal thing, but framing exactly why you don't like something is far more valuable than saying "this is shit", and I think Chris did exactly that.

I have a friend who was still using a Nikon Dsomething well into the mirrorless age just because it had two card slots, and none of the various mirrorless cameras presented to him did (at the time). That was the only thing holding him from making a switch; we all have dealbreakers. To Chris, the lack of an SD card slot is a dealbreaker. As is the low/flat shutter button position, the lack of mechanical shutter, the awkward menus/interface, and so on. He laid all that out clearly. Those are all reasons I turned down a Pixii, too. And I don't think if you gave either me or Chris an entire year with the camera, we'd change our minds on those points.

Companies shouldn't get the "flaws" in their products glossed over just because they're small, upstart companies. Do I wish Pixii had knocked this out of the park? Yes. But I'm not going to pretend they have just because they're smaller than Leica.

Other than that, I agree with @ranger9 - I think a lot of discussion around cameras and photography has become painfully formulaic and herd-minded (is that a phrase, or have I just made that up?), but I don't think that's anything new. Upstart, weird stuff has always had been frowned upon until it proves its worth; even Leica had to deal with cynicism in the early days with a lot of people deriding them as "toys", but they ended up defining the basic elements of camera design for the next hundred years. They did that by producing incredible products, though - and Pixii just aren't there yet, as much as I (genuinely!) want them to be.