ever just feel overwhelmed?

@ Sejanus...

UK based financial institutions exist only in the City of London, which is virtually a different country from the rest of Britain in the same way that Switzerland is separate from Italy.

What a fragile institution it is, too, with heavy reliance on political sleight-of-hand keeping it in place.

We are far from being a solvent country, and that is not going to change in the foreseeable future.

Consumerism be damned... (!)

@ Jamie Pillars...

You've stumbled on the cure for rampant camera consumerism !

Take your latest digital gismoX10000001, bash it about with a hammer sufficient to make it unsaleable - and then use the bloody thing for a few decades.... !
 
dabick42 said:
@ Jamie Pillars...

You've stumbled on the cure for rampant camera consumerism !

Take your latest digital gismoX10000001, bash it about with a hammer sufficient to make it unsaleable - and then use the bloody thing for a few decades.... !
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Hmmm... maybe I've stumbled onto my new career... "Bash your camera into unsellable condition - $150" (I'd have to charge more for Leica, since they're harder to dent.)
 
And about 20th in happiness.
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According to who?

Anyway, without consumerism, where would you get your cameras, your film, your memory cards, your computers, your internet access...

This forum is all about consumerism and being against consumerism is just like fish campaigning against water.
 
Sejanus.Aelianus said:
According to who?

Anyway, without consumerism, where would you get your cameras, your film, your memory cards, your computers, your internet access...

This forum is all about consumerism and being against consumerism is just like fish campaigning against water.
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I think you have missed the drift..consumerism yes/..rampant ` i am entitled` consumerism - no.
And I believe you have seen the fruits of rampant consumerism - got nothing to do with democracy either...because the `communists` now produce most of the crap folks want to consume. Neat little cycle aye😉
 
Godfrey said:
Hmm. Cameras as toys.
...
Oh well. I'll put these heavy ruminations on hold for a bit. My weekly walk starts in an hour, I've had a cold all week ... What camera will I walk with? Perhaps the Polaroid ... 🙂
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I took out the SX-70, loaded it with a pack of Impossible Color Protection film, and went for my walk. This camera is still a toy to me, I'm still learning how it sees with these funky films. But I'm growing to like it, to be able to understand what to get from it. Soon it might become a tool, something I can see through transparently to the end products of my efforts.

Enough of weird philosophistical wibbling. I like the cameras I have.
Six out of eight exposures please me. I'll post some later.
Onwards!

G
 
Who are you, and what is this compulsion to pronounce on the motivations of everybody on this forum? Hilarious!
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Glad I gave you a laugh.

Anyway, it's good that you look so well for a bloke who's been dead nearly seventy years. Where do you get the plates for your Ermanox these days?
 
The latest and greatest for me is a Crown Graphic. I buy new, to me cameras because I want to try something different not because its the latest and greats because something new will always come along.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Certainly not for decades, Probably never (can't remember). Like others, I buy what I can afford and recognize that for the most part it'll only make my pictures easier, not better.

Cheers,

R.
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Easier? I'm not sure that's the case, Roger. I started out shooting an M2 forty years ago and progressed through a series of M kits over the years. I sold my last M4 kit ten years ago when I switched to Olympus digital. The M8 wasn't even on the horizon yet.

What I've found, moving through the age of digital technology, is that there was a point at which the technology matured... about 2009. We saw the same thing in analog equipment in about 1990 with the introduction of the Canon EOS1 era. All of the "improvements" past that were pretty much window dressing to sell more bodies to more people. We're seeing that again in digital.

Unfortunately, the "improvements" help "non-photographer" camera owners take better focused and better exposed snapshots, but make it more difficult for photographers to exercise control over the equipment. You have to learn pages and pages of menu settings and how to over-ride the camera's programming, which can be quite frustrating when you want to focus manually and just set the d*mn exposure to do what you want it to do. The Fuji X-Pro1 is a paragon of amazing automation that is confusing, convoluted, and can be difficult to use manually. I'm not dissin' it... it's a great camera that makes amazing images. It just "thinks" much differently than I do.

I have just paid the price of admission to return to a manual control camera: I've bought back into Leica with digital bodies. I'm tired of fighting with my equipment for control of the image and exposure. I'm returning to my trusty Sunpak 544 and related flashes. It's exciting to see well-exposed images with the point of focus and DOF exactly where I wanted it to be without having to turn wheels and buttons and try to figure out which one of the bazillion focus points the camera wanted to use instead of the one I wanted it to use...

In the '90s we paid premium prices for new technology. Now it seems we pay premium prices to avoid it. *sigh* Oh well...

It's taken me a little over ten years to figure it out, but even in digital, the KISS system still rules, at least for my style of shooting. Oh, and my 1970-ish Norman P500m corded studio lighting system is alive and well and working just fine, thank you. 😉
 
hepcat said:
Easier? I'm not sure that's the case, Roger. I started out shooting an M2 forty years ago and progressed through a series of M kits over the years. I sold my last M4 kit ten years ago when I switched to Olympus digital. The M8 wasn't even on the horizon yet.

What I've found, moving through the age of digital technology, is that there was a point at which the technology matured... about 2009. We saw the same thing in analog equipment in about 1990 with the introduction of the Canon EOS1 era. All of the "improvements" past that were pretty much window dressing to sell more bodies to more people. We're seeing that again in digital.

Unfortunately, the "improvements" help "non-photographer" camera owners take better focused and better exposed snapshots, but make it more difficult for photographers to exercise control over the equipment. You have to learn pages and pages of menu settings and how to over-ride the camera's programming, which can be quite frustrating when you want to focus manually and just set the d*mn exposure to do what you want it to do. The Fuji X-Pro1 is a paragon of amazing automation that is confusing, convoluted, and can be difficult to use manually. I'm not dissin' it... it's a great camera that makes amazing images. It just "thinks" much differently than I do.

I have just paid the price of admission to return to a manual control camera: I've bought back into Leica with digital bodies. I'm tired of fighting with my equipment for control of the image and exposure. I'm returning to my trusty Sunpak 544 and related flashes. It's exciting to see well-exposed images with the point of focus and DOF exactly where I wanted it to be without having to turn wheels and buttons and try to figure out which one of the bazillion focus points the camera wanted to use instead of the one I wanted it to use...

In the '90s we paid premium prices for new technology. Now it seems we pay premium prices to avoid it. *sigh* Oh well...

It's taken me a little over ten years to figure it out, but even in digital, the KISS system still rules, at least for my style of shooting. Oh, and my 1970-ish Norman P500m corded studio lighting system is alive and well and working just fine, thank you. 😉
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We are not in disagreement. What is 'easier' for me (as for you, it seems) is a camera that does what I tell it to, rather than my having to learn ways to fool it.

And this is really what I meant. My Linhof Technikardan is easier to use than my original 5x4 (Dawes), because I can make it do what I want, even though there are more things I could get wrong if I didn't know what I was doing. And my MP is easier to use than my IIIa, because I can fit the lenses I want (especially the 35 Summilux) and because of all the obvious advantages such as meter (for difficult/unfamiliar lighting), combined RF/VF, etc. In digi, the M8 was easier to use than a DSLR because it's a Leica and I'm used to Leicas, and the M9 is easier still because I don't need the UV/IR and it gives me back the focal lengths I''m used to.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
We are not in disagreement. What is 'easier' for me (as for you, it seems) is a camera that does what I tell it to, rather than my having to learn ways to fool it.

And this is really what I meant. My Linhof Technikardan is easier to use than my original 5x4 (Dawes), because I can make it do what I want, even though there are more things I could get wrong if I didn't know what I was doing. And my MP is easier to use than my IIIa, because I can fit the lenses I want (especially the 35 Summilux) and because of all the obvious advantages such as meter (for difficult/unfamiliar lighting), combined RF/VF, etc. In digi, the M8 was easier to use than a DSLR because it's a Leica and I'm used to Leicas, and the M9 is easier still because I don't need the UV/IR and it gives me back the focal lengths I''m used to.

Cheers,

R.
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Exactly... and that's what I was referring to as "mature technology." The M bayonet was a leap forward in technology over the LTM mount as it was just as secure, but faster to use. Built-in meters were a welcome advance. It took experience to understand the nuances of the meter in brand X's body, but once you had that, it was great. Sensors and controls in digital really matured about three years ago... there are still improvements being made, of course, but they're not incremental rather than revolutionary. The mechanical bits of the cameras matured years ago. How long has the Copal vertical focal plane shutter been in standard use now? And there's really nothing different about bayonet mounts since Leica pioneered them in 1954.

I have an M8 currently, and an M9P will be delivered on Tuesday. I'll keep the M8 as I've discovered (surprisingly, I think) that it has strengths of its own that will complement the M9 for the way I work. I need to scrounge around and find a Visofllex III since my favorite lens, the DR Summicron, apparently became obsolete with the digi-bodies (SHAME ON YOU, LEICA!!!)

But, yes, I think generally for those of us who grew up in the "dark (room) ages" that in the digital age, perhaps "less" really is "more" in many ways.
 
But, yes, I think generally for those of us who grew up in the "dark (room) ages" that in the digital age, perhaps "less" really is "more" in many ways.
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I agree with you. The only thing I'd add is that one man's mature technology probably will be another woman's primitive and obstructive design.
 
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