A camera is just a tool?

A camera is just a tool?

  • Total voters
    95
Yes and no. Yes it is does perform a designed function, as a tool. But it has characteristics which are attached to it. For some the way it functions, how it looks, how it feels, how costly it is; these things can make it a status symbol, a workhorse, or a cherished memorial of a friend or family member. So it seems a camera is a tool but can be more, too.
 
If the camera is a tool, my photos are the equivalent of all those nuts I rounded off with an old pair of pliers.
 
Caneras are sometimes "... beautiful to hold and look at ..." or " ... a work of art ..." ???

I'm sorry guys, they are pieces of engineering designed for a purpose, and if they are not being used for that purpose then they are just so much waste metal/plastic/whatever - they are just a tool, yes some are better tools than others, but still just a tool.
 
Anyone who can use the word 'just' to create the phrase 'just a tool' is unlikely ever to learn how to get the best from any tool more complex than a crowbar (American: pry bar).

To get the best from any tool, you need to learn how to use it. Good tools are easier and nicer to use. If you don't believe me, try comparing a decent Snap-On or Craftsman socket set with a Chinese set made of pot metal and putty. Or a forged Solingen kitchen knife with thin, wobbly stainless steel.

edit: I have to modify this in the light of Chris and his Land Rover. But stand that next to an Austin Gypsy...? They're both 'just' tools.

Cheers,

R.
 
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chris000 said:
Caneras are sometimes "... beautiful to hold and look at ..." or " ... a work of art ..." ???

I'm sorry guys, they are pieces of engineering designed for a purpose, and if they are not being used for that purpose then they are just so much waste metal/plastic/whatever - they are just a tool, yes some are better tools than others, but still just a tool.
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hahaha:

563926677_af8e239027.jpg


When people use the word 'just' or 'only' when stating their opinion as if it were a universal truth it's amusing.

I can think of all sorts of cameras that were produced that were never really intended to be used for anything.
 
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Roger Hicks said:
Anyone who can use the word 'just' to create the phrase 'just a tool' is unlikely ever to learn how to get the best from any tool more complex than a crowbar (American: pry bar).
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I can't agree Roger. I need a camera (or perhaps more than one) to make photographic images (which is what I enjoy doing) and I have no other reason to own cameras but for that purpose.

Whilst I accept that some 'tools' are better than others, and I prefer to use good quality tools when I can afford / find them, I don't 'fondle' them or place them on display, in fact I don't even take them out of the bag unless I am going to use them or for periodic maintenance.

The word 'just' in this context means 'no more than' and does not refer to the quality of the instrument.

To be honest, I have never understood camera collecting - but I suspect that to some on these forums that will be regarded as a serious inadequacy on my part! :D
 
luketrash said:
hahaha:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1327/563926677_af8e239027.jpg

When people use the word 'just' or 'only' when stating their opinion as if it were a universal truth it's amusing.
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I'm sorry you interpreted it that way, it was meant as my opinion not a 'universal truth'.


I can think of all sorts of cameras that were produced that were never really intended to be used for anything.
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So can I. But, in my opinion, owning any of them would be pointless.
 
I think it's fun to own all sorts of nickknack conversation pieces. But I'm also the crazy cat lady of camera hoarding.

Unlike some of the crazy people that do this, I do actually shoot film in all of them at some point and my rule is they do have to work.

Philisophically, how would we classify a broken camera sitting on someone's mantle as a decoration or family heirloom? Sure, it was designed as a photographic tool, but what has it become presently?
 
This is bad. First I checked the simple "no". Then I decided "Oh yes it is" but came back with "Oh no is's not."

Now if there had been an "Is too." response, I would have chosen that one next.
 
chris000 said:
The word 'just' in this context means 'no more than' and does not refer to the quality of the instrument.
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Dear Chris,

We do not disagree on this; but my dispute is with those who use 'just' dismissively. Some do -- I am sure you have met them too -- and those who use 'just' in this way are normally overprivileged twerps seeking to look clever, tough or 'professional' by abusing their tools (if you will forgive the image thus created). A craftsman looks after his tools and is not dismissive of them.

You will note that I have enough regard for your opinions that I modified my post as soon as I read yours. I fully accept that these are two different readings of the word 'just' and I do not think that either of us would deny the validity of the point made by the other.

As for collecting; well, in about 1969-70 my girlfriend wanted a good, basic camera and (on my advice) bought Leica II conversion no. 23010, for twenty quid. After a few weeks she wanted to use it so I had to buy my own IIIa, no. 229589, for thirty quid. (These are the only two Leicas I have ever used where I remember the serial numbers, I hasten to add).

We then bought various things together to use, such as a fat-barrel coupled 9cm f/4 with a serial number ending with both a (attrape, dummy) and * (re-used serial number) -- the only lens ever to sport this combination, as far as I know. I knew none of this at the time: as far as I was concerned, at eleven pounds ten, it was a cheap lens to use. By the early-to-mid 70s I had quite a collection, all bought to try it out, but realized that it was a lot of money tied up, and sold it. Since then I have bought equipment primarily to use; sometimes to trade (my 90/2 Summicron cost me 90 pounds new, as a swap for a tri-lens turret, and my M4-P, as far as I recall, 120 new, swapped for a good black M3); and sometimes just to write about...

In the process, especially in the early days when Leicas were just old cameras, not investments, I met some major and very knowledgeable collectors. These included Paul-Henry van Hasbroeck and the late Colin Glanfield (who did a lot of Paul-Henry's photography), as well as others who would prefer to remain nameless. I also met an awful lot of people who wasted an awful lot of money on rubbish withoit really understanding what they had or indeed what they were doing. But I haven't collected cameras myself for over 30 years. Like you, I can't see the point.

Cheers,

R.
 
A tool?.. YES... :)

An ego thing?.. Sometimes..Especially when it is NEW and used for the 1st time...May be a proud thing too sometimes :D


A weapon?..If nothing else is available to stabilize the situation....:eek:
 
Take a common garden tool - say a sp@de (shovel in English). Is it just a tool? I suppose people would say Yes. Now take an English garden sp@de bought 15 years ago from Smith and Hawken. Is it just a tool? I suppose people would say Yes. Now compare the two side by side; pick one up and use it one afther the other. Now is each just a tool? I suppose yes, but the English garden sp@de is jsut soooo much more a tool than the shovel. If you see what I mean, you understand what it is for a camera to be just a tool. They are all just tools, but some are soooo much much more tools than the others.

/T
PS: Had to edit sp@de to overcome RFF software censor.
 
If a camera is just a tool - why do so many of us buy dodgy tools from ex USSR ?

I guess it is a tool .. but there are tools and tools - I still have one of my great grandfather's wooden planes , I have no use for it , it's just wonderfull !
 
Creagerj said:
A screw driver is just a tool. A camera is a source of inspiration.
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Maybe you just haven't thought hard enough what you can do with a screw driver. ;)

In addition, I don't think that way. Firstly, anything can be a source of inspiration, so that's nothing special. Secondly, I don't take a camera and feel a surge of inspiration. I feel a surge of inspiration and use the camera to express something with it. So the camera isn't the source of inspiration here, no more than the artist is inspired by the brush rather than by whatever he wants to paint.

I like some cameras as quaint objects. I also use some to do something more or less creative with them. (Mostly these are not the same cameras.) Definitely tools. Even the quaint objects are quaint in the way that my grandfather's tools are.

Philipp
 
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shadowfox said:
Simply,

a camera is a tool ...

that can make two or more decent, even-keeled grown-up men to bicker (online or otherwise) until their faces are blue.

... what a tool.

Btw, Stewart, how many of us do you think vote both Yes and No ?? ;)
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I didn’t have any view at the start, what has surprised me is how few have voted for both 1 and 3, or 2 and 4
 
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