Is "new" better?

[DCB]

I have been looking around the net and it seems that most think the lateste and greatest is the best thing going.

I know a camera is just a medium that photographers use and a good photographer and use a old or cheep junk camera and make something very nice.

I know innovations can be good..really good, but when is enough enough?

Photoshop does not really show you what kind of photographer you...just how good you are at that program.

I am not bashing any of these things...just thinking out loud.

Peace

 

[Roger Hicks]

Some think that old is always better.

They're equally wrong.

That's before you even start on reverse snobbery ("All Leica users are rich idiots").

Cheers,

R.

 

[NaChase]

Some new things are always better (milk and fruit come to mind). In terms of camera stuff, I think you're good with pretty much anything. I prefer my old film Leicas over my 5D Mk III almost 100% of the time.

 

[Sparrow]

em no, well ......... except for artworks, old furniture and burgundy

 

[thegman]

Always a grey area I think. The first generation of digital cameras, with 0.3 megapixels or the like, were next to useless unless you had some particular aesthetic in mind. Once they were up to say, 6MP, they were useful for 99% of people, you could print well at 8x10, perhaps beyond, depending on your needs (i.e. magazines are viewed up close, wall hung photos, less so).

Some new technology is good, some not. The first thing to remember is that new things are made to make money, it's not enhance people's lives or improve anything. It's only to make money, please Wall Street, or one-up a competitor. Sometimes you'll get a small company who genuinely want to make good products, but they're the exception.

Sometimes though, a company's need to make money will coincide with our personal desires, say, better metering, higher ISO or whatever. It either brings you something you want or it does not. Equally, new technology may take away things we want too, like nice focus rings in favour of focus-by-wire.

New or old technology may, or may not give us what we want, I don't think either one is more likely than the other.

For cameras, "enough" for me, passed a long time ago, any camera made in the past 50 years is likely fine, barring cheap junk. For other things, say computers, there is still progress to be made, I'd like my laptop to have better battery life, no noisy fan, be faster, and have 4G built in, so new technology can indeed help out there.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I have been looking around the net and it seems that most think the lateste and greatest is the best thing going.

I know a camera is just a medium that photographers use and a good photographer and use a old or cheep junk camera and make something very nice.

I know innovations can be good..really good, but when is enough enough?

Photoshop does not really show you what kind of photographer you...just how good you are at that program.

I am not bashing any of these things...just thinking out loud.

Peace

New isn't on it's own necessarily better and photoshop is just the digital darkroom. Just like with film the capture is just the first part of a two part process. With film it was the darkroom and with digital it is photoshop. You need both to make sure your vision get's to the finished state because only you know what that should look like.

 

[DCB]

I understand that PS is a digital darkroom, but I think you can mess with pics way to much. Lightroom is better in my option.

I am not a camera snob .... I have both film and digital.

I thing you should be able to "see" the picture in your head, so it would need very little touchup.

Peace

 

[Daniel Teoli Jr.]

OP, can't say. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

My new dishwasher didn't do as good as the old one. Same with the garbage disposal. My new clothes washer was better than the old one.

The problem is the photo engineers that design some of this crap is they are NOT great doc photogs themselves...they are camera fondlers.

The 2 worst inventions that came down the pike from the camera fondling engineers were the program dial that replaced the shutter speed dial and Fuji's terrible 'focus by wire.'

They keep dummying down the lenses, removing controls like distance scales for zone focus work and aperture controls and turning gear into useless garbage when it comes to serious doc work.

Leica perfected what is needed in a great doc cam eons ago. All the Japanese had to do was copy it and make it affordable. Was that too much to ask of the camera fondling engineers?

 

[airfrogusmc]

Mess with pictures way to much is a personal thing. Some of the very early images in the history of photography were messed with. Henry Peach Robinson was a very early photographer and created images from several negatives. Jerry Uehlsman is a more recent film example . You should be able to create what ever you need to communicate your vision no matter what that is. Ansel Adams created the zone system to capture consistently what he saw in his minds eye which was usually nothing like the scene as it was in reality. And he was considered a purist.

You see the image in your head and use whatever tools you need to to achieve that goal.

 

[waileong]

One should distinguish two types of 'new'. One is for marketing purposes, the other represents design or technology breakthroughs or new ways of thinking.

No matter how much one likes the old, one can't deny that there is a rational basis for saying new is better, if new represents the latter.

 

[bence8810]

If I were a professional photographer I would perhaps be using Digital for the ease and speed.
I do photography for my own enjoyment and I enjoy the old gear and the manual process from rolling my own film to wet printing in the darkroom. It is very unlikely I'll change to newer gear as what I get from this setup is exactly what I was looking for.

There is no better or worse - it depends what you need it for.

p.s. I tend to upgrade early to new iPhones as I enjoy the new features!

 

[Axel]

I have been looking around the net and it seems that most think the lateste and greatest is the best thing going.

I know a camera is just a medium that photographers use and a good photographer and use a old or cheep junk camera and make something very nice.

I know innovations can be good..really good, but when is enough enough?

Photoshop does not really show you what kind of photographer you...just how good you are at that program.

I am not bashing any of these things...just thinking out loud.

Peace

I think that "new" can be a chance for a better way to design your photos. And there are different kinds of interests. Some people are looking for new stuff, the latest stuff because of their likes for technics. Others take a long way to try different devices and methods to get their photos their own look.

More than ever it is important to know what you want today is my opinion. Otherwise you are lost in space of stuff and gear (can be nice, too 😉).

Regards, Axel

 

[John Bragg]

Older film cameras for me. Many of them pre-enjoyed but still very capable and reliable. I can not afford a Nikon F6, but my Nikon F5 was bought cheaply and in near mint condition. Any bad shots are entirely my fault, although there are not many. I never dreamt of being able to own such a piece of professional hardware, but thanks to the digital revolution, I can !

 

[mfogiel]

You can make music with a computer or with a Stradivari, you can cook on a fire or with liquid nitrogen, you can make sculptures with a chisel or you can print in 3d. You can shoot with an Iphone or with a brownie. The point is, what counts is the result - if it is as intended, then everything is OK.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

The point is, what counts is the result - if it is as intended, then everything is OK.

By result I presume, and do correct me you refer to a final image be it on a physical medium as a print or on screen, virtually?
Sometimes it is just about the enjoyment of using the equipment, or with film the physical processing and printing, the image can become secondary.
A colleague is a fine woodworker, he will happily plane wood for no point other than the pleasure of handling, and using with great skill, his tools and the materials. His finished product is pointless.
I find it useful to look at my shooting this way if only because many of my "results" are indeed "pointless"!!

 

[Roger Hicks]

One should distinguish two types of 'new'. One is for marketing purposes, the other represents design or technology breakthroughs or new ways of thinking.

No matter how much one likes the old, one can't deny that there is a rational basis for saying new is better, if new represents the latter.

Neither design and technology breakthroughs nor new ways of thinking are necessarily better. I mean, we've all encountered new products that don't function as well as old (my best frying pan is over 100 years old) and fascism was a new way of thinking once.

You can say that progress happens on average, but there are always eddies and countercurrents.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Pioneer]

New is terrific!

Until suddenly it isn't new anymore.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

New digital cameras? They are good for very simple reason.
Original batteries. Holding charge for so long... But for one year or so... And replacement is nowhere near for capacity of original one...

🙂

 

[Lauffray]

New is just different

 

[Hsg]

Recently I have been thinking about buying a new camera. After some basic research, I realized that a Sony A6000 with two Sigma primes for Sony Nex would cost me ~$1000... For $1000 that is a very good value.

But then, it occurred to me that the next upgrade to Sony A6000 is going to have the 5-axis image stabilization and 4K video. And as soon as its announced, A6000 prices are going to plummet...

Image quality has never been cheaper than it is today and its going to get cheaper... But then again what you do with image quality, that is something which is beyond technology and megapixels.