For those who don't trust electronics...

[KoNickon]

And though the new device has all sorts of extra capabilities, I wouldn't necessarily know how to even use them. (If it's something that I have to read an instruction book to figure out, the odds are very high I won't want to use it.) But the manufacturers aren't targeting people like me.

 

[Jamie123]

Exactly. And how many people really care about (or have any real use) for the new features? How many are merely persuaded that newer = better, even if many of the features are marginal at any price, and, if they thought realistically, would not be worth the price being asked?

I am not against progress or improvement. I am just against the idea of buying stuff I don't want or need (such as a scanner built into my printer), and against the blanket idea that "old" = "useless."

Cheers,

R.

Think of it this way, Roger. Some people in a room at some creative agency are working their asses off to find a way to persuade people that they actually require those features. They're bound to succeed at least some of the time 😀

One thing that should be said, though, is that sometimes new features and technological advances in cameras actually do spark the creativity in photographers. I'm thinking hd video in DSLR's or high ISO etc. The funny thing is that often the people who actually take advantage of these features are those who didn't think they would need them. I know a few photographers who bought a Canon 5DII because their 5D broke down and they just wanted a replacement. Then they started playing around with the video mode just for fun and now they're producing really good motion content.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Think of it this way, Roger. Some people in a room at some creative agency are working their asses off to find a way to persuade people that they actually require those features. They're bound to succeed at least some of the time 😀

One thing that should be said, though, is that sometimes new features and technological advances in cameras actually do spark the creativity in photographers. I'm thinking hd video in DSLR's or high ISO etc. The funny thing is that often the people who actually take advantage of these features are those who didn't think they would need them. I know a few photographers who bought a Canon 5DII because their 5D broke down and they just wanted a replacement. Then they started playing around with the video mode just for fun and now they're producing really good motion content.

All very true.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Ben Z]

Exactly. And how many people really care about (or have any real use) for the new features? How many are merely persuaded that newer = better, even if many of the features are marginal at any price, and, if they thought realistically, would not be worth the price being asked?

I am not against progress or improvement. I am just against the idea of buying stuff I don't want or need (such as a scanner built into my printer), and against the blanket idea that "old" = "useless."

Cheers,

R.

If everyone on the planet was like you and I, Roger, the world economy would be in even worse shambles than it is now. Thank heaven for the the hedonistic, the insecure, and the just plain gullible consumer.

 

[emraphoto]

have a peek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251qoGOqpdk&feature=share

 

[Roger Hicks]

If everyone on the planet was like you and I, Roger, the world economy would be in even worse shambles than it is now. Thank heaven for the the hedonistic, the insecure, and the just plain gullible consumer.

True enough, but sooner or later, sustainability becomes a major problem. As does the question of how long the third-word 'have-nots' who don't even have clean drinking water will put up with the 'haves' who wallow in wastefulness.

Cheers,

R.

 

[BobYIL]

have a peek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251qoGOqpdk&feature=share

Out of my ten M-classical Leicas (M2, M3 & M4, some used since half a century) five of them still having the "L" seal on, working perfectly... Three Nikon Fs, one of them has covered all my motorcycle tours (always in the tank bag, vibrations, humidity and dust, quite possibly over 100K kilometers) since the '60s, still performing faultless...

OTOH, my Nikon F3, two M6's are from the '80s.. and the oldest digital of mine is a Coolpix 995, year 2001. They operate too like in the first day however, somehow I do not trust that they would cover another half a century...

 

[sanmich]

have a peek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251qoGOqpdk&feature=share

I loved the french guy:
"The who thinks that an infinite growth is possible on a finite planet is either a lunatic or an economist"

 

[Ben Z]

Out of my ten M-classical Leicas (M2, M3 & M4, some used since half a century) five of them still having the "L" seal on, working perfectly... Three Nikon Fs, one of them has covered all my motorcycle tours (always in the tank bag, vibrations, humidity and dust, quite possibly over 100K kilometers) since the '60s, still performing faultless...

OTOH, my Nikon F3, two M6's are from the '80s.. and the oldest digital of mine is a Coolpix 995, year 2001. They operate too like in the first day however, somehow I do not trust that they would cover another half a century...

If I cover another half a century, I'll be glad to buy myself a new camera 😛

 

[john_s]

The last couple of posts makes me wonder -- so which companies' products have more reliable electronics than others?
...........

My experience:
Rollei electronics (early attempts, admittedly) not good,
Ricoh (GR1v) not good,
Canon (anything not too small) very good
Nikon (anything not too small) very good.

And to round off, Volkswagen (electricals generally, not just electronics) woefull

 

[Roger Hicks]

I loved the french guy:
"[Anyone] who thinks that an infinite growth is possible on a finite planet is either a lunatic or an economist"

EITHER?

The two are far from mutually exclusive. Anyone for "synonymous"?

Cheers,

R.

 

[rxmd]

If everyone on the planet was like you and I, Roger, the world economy would be in even worse shambles than it is now. Thank heaven for the the hedonistic, the insecure, and the just plain gullible consumer.

I'm not really sure whether that is actually true.

Caring about sustainability etc. does not nevessarily lead to less consumption. In the West, the organic product sector is booming. Vegetarians spend more on food than non-vegetarians. People are ready to pay extra to buy local instead of Chinese products. All of that goes into stimulating the economy.

A guy who has several old cameras has probably spent a fair amount of money on them. A guy who buys and sells them regularly, has them CLAd etc. puts a fair bit of money into circulation, enabling others to consume. The guy with the ten classic Leicas and however many Nikons is economically just as relevant as a guy who just buys a new DSLR every now and then.

Camera collecting, photography (film or otherwise) are expensive hobbies. You guys are just spending whatever money you're spending on different things. Maybe more on services than goods. Probably more on local than imported goods. All of them economically quite relevant.

 

[wolves3012]

True enough, but sooner or later, sustainability becomes a major problem. As does the question of how long the third-word 'have-nots' who don't even have clean drinking water will put up with the 'haves' who wallow in wastefulness.

Cheers,

R.

I suspect that it's the "sooner" that will apply.

 

[wolves3012]

EITHER?

The two are far from mutually exclusive. Anyone for "synonymous"?

Cheers,

R.

+1 on that. In this case, synonymous would be a better word. However, it's what most of business is based upon - eternal growth. There is the possibility though, that the planet is not the only "finite planet". This planet may be finite but the universe is a rather large "finite" if not more than. I wonder if mankind will manage to reach out or if we'll fail to notice we've gone beyond sustainability because we were too busy squabbling over land/resources/religion/etc.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I suspect that it's the "sooner" that will apply.

We do not disagree on either of your last two posts.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Ben Z]

I'm not really sure whether that is actually true.

Well let's take a look at it line-item:

Caring about sustainability etc. does not nevessarily lead to less consumption.

Sustainability was Roger's train of thought. I only pointed out that the ability for marketing to influence consumers to upgrade, is a driving force in the global economy.

In the West, the organic product sector is booming.

If by "the West" you mean CA, OR and WA, then you're probably right...or left 😀

Vegetarians spend more on food than non-vegetarians.

That's because vegetarians don't just eat vegetables, and vegetarian substitutions of comfort food generally cost more than the non-vegetarian version...partly because of the economics of selling in a niche market, and partly because statistically there is a higher proportion of higher-educated and therefore more affluent among vegetarians. Vegetarianism is a choice, eating is not.

People are ready to pay extra to buy local instead of Chinese products.

Some people, no doubt. A lot of people, or the majority? Definitely not. The facts do not support that assertion. Last year 33% of dental appliances delivered in the USA were made in China, and this year it's expected to rise. Even if the majority of people in the USA were "ready" to buy local, most are in no financial condition to pay more. Our government is in no position to impose tariffs on imports from China, to whom they are heavily indebted. The Democrats won't pressure the unions into remodeling the US workforce to compete with Chinese labor, and the Republicans side with large corporations who not only have adopted China as a manufacturing base, but have also set their hopes on China as a marketing base since unemployed Americans aren't big spenders.

A guy who has several old cameras has probably spent a fair amount of money on them. A guy who buys and sells them regularly, has them CLAd etc. puts a fair bit of money into circulation, enabling others to consume. The guy with the ten classic Leicas and however many Nikons is economically just as relevant as a guy who just buys a new DSLR every now and then.

Camera collecting, photography (film or otherwise) are expensive hobbies. You guys are just spending whatever money you're spending on different things. Maybe more on services than goods. Probably more on local than imported goods. All of them economically quite relevant.

I won't dispute their relevance as human beings, but as an economic buying force, collectors of old film cameras clearly are a drop in the ocean compared to consumers of electronics...digital cameras, phones, computers/tablets, music players, GPS, you name it. You're comparing a cottage industry to trillion-dollar multinational corporations.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Roger says, more or less, "If it works, no reason not to keep using it."

I'll support that. Caught without my "good" camera, I pulled out my old D-70 and made great photos at a friend's wedding last summer.

I do see big differences in quality of electronic goods. Bose items seem to last forever. All my electronics from Cambridge Soundworks are dying now, a decade or so after purchase. And, it's hard to tell what quality is there under the outer case. I would have thought the Hexar AF would be high quality, but the recent thread about the shutter release switch is not encouraging. I don't think any consumer electronics are built to the quality of the Voyager craft.

In the good old days, things could usually be fixed, but for modern electronics including cameras, the only viable repairs are module replacements. This caught me on a Yashica GTN with an electrical glitch; to fix it required a donor camera or someone with parts. A Nikon FG drains the battery, and there is no viable repair. (No great problem because it's so cheap to get another one, replace the whole item, at least for now.)

I have several viable cameras that will instantly be non-viable when there are no replacement rechargable batteries in the required form.

 

[wolves3012]

I do see big differences in quality of electronic goods. Bose items seem to last forever..... And, it's hard to tell what quality is there under the outer case.

Probably better that you don't look inside Bose's cases then. They use the cheapest possible components whilst shelling out large sums on marketing to convince the gullible that they are employing some technology that others don't have. The Wave Radio is a good case in point: the "acoustic waveguide" is nothing more than a folded horn-loading system; horn-loading being a very old technology that happens to be quite efficient.

I have several viable cameras that will instantly be non-viable when there are no replacement rechargable batteries in the required form.

All part of the built-in obsolescence. 😉

 

[wolves3012]

On the OP, I agree with Roger. If something continues to serve a useful and relevant purpose, why is there any need to "upgrade"? I find it annoying that we have things rendered obsolete by having newer equipment forced on us just by upgrading things like "system requirements" in PCs, for instance. I'm typing this on a 12 year-old PC, by the way. It's becoming harder to keep it viable but I will resist.

Vehicles are another good point. We're constantly encouraged to buy new cars, they are less polluting and there are often taxation carrots dangled. Tosh! A car produces half (roughly) of its pollution simply by being produced. It's actually not environmentally good sense to replace one just because a lower tail-pipe-pollution model is available.

Electrical goods are another good source of governmental blunders, based on environmental grounds. We are threatened with the loss of incandescent light bulbs and transformer-based mains power supplies because they're less efficient, electrically speaking. The fact that incandescent bulbs and transformers are low-pollution in manufacture and disposal, versus the opposite for alternatives, is disregarded. I have transformer-based power supplies that are donkey's years old and working, yet the electronic versions fail in short order and are inferior. The "old technology" is also easier on the electrical distribution network.

Ok, I'll stop ranting now!

 

[Roger Hicks]

Vehicles are another good point. We're constantly encouraged to buy new cars, they are less polluting and there are often taxation carrots dangled. Tosh! A car produces half (roughly) of its pollution simply by being produced. It's actually not environmentally good sense to replace one just because a lower tail-pipe-pollution model is available.

Electrical goods are another good source of governmental blunders, based on environmental grounds. We are threatened with the loss of incandescent light bulbs and transformer-based mains power supplies because they're less efficient, electrically speaking. The fact that incandescent bulbs and transformers are low-pollution in manufacture and disposal, versus the opposite for alternatives, is disregarded...!

This is often driven by what I call "arts graduate science", i.e. very incomplete understanding of science and engineering by those who have never studied or practised either.

The only thing worse than "arts graduate science" is "marketing manager science". As Kodak bears witness...

Cheers,

R.