cameras are tools...really?

Paulbe said:
Bill--OMG! You are Mr Trainland??!!!???
Now I AM impressed---
I've read about this--neat!!
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I just stopped and took photos! Happened to be on my way back from my nephew's wedding in West Des Moines, IA and saw it on I-80. I never say no to a train museum.
 
The people that voice the loudest disdain for the collectors are just as pretentious as those that claim that only those that use / don't use such-and-such photographic technology are true photographers. Quite frankly, it reeks of the romantic myth of the starving artist.

Do I agree with all the collectors? No. Personally, I think that collecting most anything that's intentionally created to be a collector's item is rather silly. That's just me though.

Do I use all of my cameras? Nope. Some of them are historically interesting, but ultimately crappy "tools". Some of them are uselessly obsolete. Yep, I bought a few of them because they're just plain pretty. I'll admit that gleefully. Is there any other reason to buy a Beau Brownie versus a plain black box camera that costs all of 50 cents at the flea market?

Are cameras tools? Sure. Are they just tools? Depends on how you look at tools.
 
landsknechte said:
...the romantic myth of the starving artist.
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I have a friend living out near Bodega who is a photo artist. Mostly he shoots color stuff through very long lenses on a Pentax 67, scans, and makes large format gicleee prints on interesting media - silk lately. He crafts his own frames for his works from exotic hardwood, and sells enough to stay housed and fed.

His next project involved a BMW 650 (one lung 2-wheeler), a Leica R9 with the digital back, some fast lenses, hummingbird feeders, and maps of back roads through Central American rain forests. Some of his early works in this line have been stunning.

I have not heard from him in a while. I hope he hasn't starved, or worse. But... what a romantic end :rolleyes:.
 
cmogi10 said:
This is how I see it,

It's like trying to tell a session guitar player that his worn out 60's strat, vintage 335 and impeccable custom shop Les Paul are all just tools. I mean, that's his job right? to make music with those tools?

Those aren't just tools :)
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Right on !

It's really not a big stretch to believe that we are able to produce items that yes, technically they are "tools", but because of the care, design, engineering put into producing it, elevates it to something more.

And if we're talking about hammers, I know a few pro's that will only hammer in a nail with their own hammer, no one else's.
 
Actually, I don't Leica was ever kept afloat by the purchases of professional photographers. Anybody who's seen their ads dating back to the 1920s & '30s can see that the main market back then was the same as it is today: well-heeled, "advanced" amateurs. The same was even more true of their main prewar rival, Zeiss Ikon & the Contax RF. Pro photogs & the advanced amateurs who emulate them serve the same purpose for camera manufacturers that racing does for auto makers: prestige, marketing, &, lastly, a testbed for new technologies. Pros & advanced amateurs don't make up to a significant market by themselves, though together there are enough of them to sustain a small company like Leica (in contrast, Zeiss Ikon sold to the broader market, too, w/a much wider variety of cameras in different formats). This is basically true today of almost every camera maker I can think of. Nikon makes most of their money selling point & shoots, not D3s & D300s. Heck, isn't Canon mostly a copier & printer company that happens to sell some cameras on the side?

The way I see it, after the market to shifted decisively to SLRs in 1959, Leica was forced to make a virtue out of a bad situation & specialize in RFs. And, yes, I would agree that collectors & RF diehards kept the company going for the past few decades. So I'm glad to see Leica offering a digital body @ all & bought 1 of the 1st M8s. However, barring an alliance w/a much bigger optical/electronic company, I can't see them competing in a serious way for the pro camera market any more than I expect to see Morgan sponsoring a Formula 1 team.

bmattock said:
Again - I'm not for 'em nor agin 'em. Wish them well. Hope to see them survive. But I do not for a moment believe they are kept afloat by the purchases of professional photographers.

HCB and Winogrand have left the building.
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Yes, that states the obvious. It also doesn't change the fact that people can regard objects beyond the simplistic intention of it.
 
I would guess that the pros throw their gear around because someone else's money paid for it. It's different when you have to dig into your own pocket to buy or repair things. For sure cameras are tools, but they are also wonderfully engineered possessions (Spotmatics excepted) that are fun to use. For a lot of us, the whole thing is Escheresque .....cameras used to take pictures of other cameras. Or wierder still, people w/ cameras taking pictures of people w/ cameras who are sometimes taking pictures of people. Now I'm dizzy. Perhaps I should go take a picture.
 
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I can't wait to scoop the guys at grandprix.com w/ the new Morgan Formula One car rumor! If a soft drink maker of stimulant drinks can sponsor a race car, I wouldn't be that surprised to see a Morgan sponsorship. How about a Morgan Nascar deal?
 
Things changed when people earning money from photography changed to image taking (digital). With digital both, the image taking device and image processing software are of same importance, the "digital"- camera became just one part in the chain of tools for image-producing.

In former times, using cameras without any kind of automation, the photographer needed more skills to take a photo, thus the camera was more the basic and important tool to "get the shot". Today's auto-everything-featured cameras with a high fps makes it easier to get at least one usable shot, which than can be polished up using photoshop or other software. With the old-style full-manual camera, the latitude in wet-darkroom post-processing was much smaller, thus the raw-material (correct exposed film) had to be of better quality. So cameras are still tools but their role in the complete imaga-taking-chain has changed, IMHO.
 
kevin m said:
At the risk of repeating myself:

1. A digital Leica "CL."

2. A Leica competitor to the Ricoh GR-D. Full analog manual controls. Small format digicams are, in spirit, the 'Barnack Leica' of today.

3. Make the M8 a true "pro-quality," no-excuses digital camera, and not a toy that a photographer keeps for "personal use." Dual card slots and weather sealing would be a good start. A dedicated ISO dial would be even better. If you could pack it in your bag and not bring a C-A-N-O-N to back you up, then it'd be worth $5,000.

The Leica M was the best RF of the film age, but the film age is over.
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And you're willing to fund this?

If not, where is Leica going to get the money?

As for 'the film age is over', well, yes, of course: no-one rides horses any more, either, and television has made radio completely obsolete.

Cheers,

R.
 
It strikes me that if your purpose in owning cameras is simply to take photographs, then whether you're a pro or a hobbyist, your cameras are a tool. Having said that, collecting is a perfectly legitimate reason to own cameras and photographic equipment, in which case they become slightly more than a tool. A lot of hobbyists - as well as some pros - sit somewhere in the middle: they both take pictures and collect cameras for their own sake.

Most of my cameras fall into the 'tool' category but I do own a few - my OM1 and my father's Zeiss Ikon folder, for example - which have sentimental value for one reason or another and so, to me, are more than tools.
 
Please show us the standards body that has proclaimed the minimum number of photos that must be taken per year to call yourself a photographer.

Cameras can be more than tools. In the right person's hands.
 
sitemistic said:
Cameras are tools to take photos. Whatever else you do with them is fine, but it has little to do with photography.
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I don't think I disagree with you. Cameras are the tools of photography but photography is not necessarily the only or the primary reason why some people own cameras. While I regard myself as a photographer I do own a couple of cameras for reasons other than - primarily - photography, although I do still take pictures with them from time to time.

I see where you're coming from: as a pro, you're obliged to focus (ho, ho) on the final image you deliver to your client. For me, as - usually - my own client, I have the opportunity to take some enjoyment and satisfaction from the process of getting to the final image. My RF cameras are not as quick, nor as convenient, as my DSLR in getting to a usable image; and my wet darkroom produces one print in the time it would take to produce fifty or a hundred via my laptop and printer, but that really doesn't matter that much to me because nobody is hassling me for the results. Consequently I suspect that you have a different attitude towards your cameras and equipment to most of the hobbyists and amateurs on this site. I won't deny that I find some of the equipment fetishism here quite funny, but it's nothing more than symptom of enthusiastic amateurism which you'll find in most hobbies.
 
sitemistic said:
If you buy yourself a 12 inch reflecting telescope and your primary use of the telescope is to check out the girl in the apartment half a mile away, the police won't buy the argument that you are an astronomer.
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Though presumably if you bought an adaptor and took photographs of her through it, you'd be a photographer?

Sorry, cheap shot but I couldn't resist it:D!
 
nextreme said:
Cameras can be more than tools. In the right person's hands.
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I don't really buy that. Michelangelo's hammer and chisel and Monet's paintbrush remained tools despite what they produced.
 
I agree. And I think the steadily improving capability of video cameras + the change in media venues is blurring the line between photography & videography, @ least in fields like journalism, etc.

maddoc said:
Things changed when people earning money from photography changed to image taking (digital). With digital both, the image taking device and image processing software are of same importance, the "digital"- camera became just one part in the chain of tools for image-producing.
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A wood-framed F1 or NASCAR car would be something to see.

myoptic3 said:
I can't wait to scoop the guys at grandprix.com w/ the new Morgan Formula One car rumor! If a soft drink maker of stimulant drinks can sponsor a race car, I wouldn't be that surprised to see a Morgan sponsorship. How about a Morgan Nascar deal?
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