No, No, No! Your Gear is ALL Wrong!

David Hughes said:
...
The relationship is like that of a pen or pencil to spelling...
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I agree. This measurements doesn´t matter in general.
And this thread is about photography in general.

Nothing new here. All the years we have digital photography now people in
internet forums tried to atomize various technical data again and again.
And the result was and is always - nothing.

All the nice photographs we have in the gallery here, according to the title
of this thread, the most are made with "wrong gear" :rolleyes:
 
MaxElmar said:
Hi, Nick -....
I shoot most days with almost exactly the rig you describe to earn my living. Funny thing is, when I get home, I don't want to touch that stuff. For me - to make the images I like - family, friends, places, weird light I see here and there - I just like working in old-fashioned analog media. I actually like the way it looks. I like the way it feels. I like not worrying about batteries. It's different.

I know yours is the "right" way to do it. But it's all just going to wind up on some crappy web site with bad color management and tons of compression anyway. Can I just make what I like in my spare time?

Is there something wrong with me? Perhaps some medication will help?

Thank you for taking my call, and I will take your answer off the air.
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Interesting perspective, my father was a photographer for Kodak for most of his life. For him, the fun was out of photography. He enjoyed it when we both went out to cover a softball game or something, but doing it in the off hours wasn't for him. He enjoyed helping others out by taking pictures they needed, but it was the helping he enjoyed, not so much the photography.

I don't think it's medication that will help, my suggestion is to move as far away from your work kit as you can. Maybe a Baby Speed Graphic with an Ektar lens and a roll film back. Perhaps a Fujifilm GS645W (and only that version) would be a slightly smaller package with enough difference.

I like the idea of not dragging along a Domke F2 full-o-stuff that I did when I was younger and in better aerobic shape. Perhaps that is part of my problem...... But a good mirrorless camera with a couple of lenses backed up with an iPhone 7 seems like a great kit. If I want to experiment with some found glass I can, but then again I'm not making a living at with it. I was lucky enough to have a father who pushed me to other things I loved (computers). Come to think of it, I feel the same way when I get home. I don't want to deal with stuff, I just want it to work, why we have Macintoshes. I get yelled at enough when I am testing a new (to me) printer and trying to get it on the network. My youngest and I move between osX, Windows, and Linux well enough (he does better). I tried my wife on a Windows laptop years back and will never do that again.

Unlike others who have posted on this thread, I love these sorts of things as they cause me to think outside of the box I've drawn. Perhaps I change, perhaps I will stay the same, but either way I come out stronger for thinking things through.

B2 (;->
 
I don't think Stephen Shore is a good argument in favor of digital as his new work is terrible. I say this as a big fan of stuff from the 70's.

His stuff on Instagram and his photos of the sidewalk with the digital Hassy are real crap.

If you didnt' know who shot it, you'd think it was a angsty teenager with a iPhone.

Back to your regularly scheduled DSLR discussion...

Dogman said:
I've read interviews with Stephen Shore in which he reported he has limited his use of his 8x10 camera due to the cost of color film and processing. He now shoots mostly digital.
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emraphoto said:
There is wisdom and logic in what Nick has posted yet for some folks, myself included, it is unimportant. Issues such as trust, storytelling, composition and many others trump all of it.

This realization had a profound impact on my photography career.
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I thought sometime back that, trying to get that concept across has become a waste of my time. There are some who get it, and a lot that don't. I think, to my mind, the interest simply isn't in photography. It's in related things. Nothing is going to change this for most people. There are exceptions. Icebear comes to mind.

I've cited Matt Black's work before in this argument (argument used as in Math). Matt, for his most recent project, used a little Sony X100 camera for most of his photos. He also has a digital Leica for some photos. Pretty minimal equipment for a huge project. My guess is, the major costs for the project were logging and auto fuel.

Square format shots are the X100

https://www.instagram.com/mattblack_blackmatt/?hl=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUXYDtbWu0E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8OybGqUNsA

Erich Hartman

https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K7O3R1VUF5N

http://pro.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Erich-Hartmann/1980/EUROPE-Train-journey-NN15678.html

https://shootfilmridesteel.com/jumping-on-the-xa-wagon-blame-erich-hartmann/

.
.
 
PKR said:
I thought sometime back that, trying to get that concept across has become a waste of my time. There are some who get it, and a lot that don't. I think, to my mind, the interest simply isn't in photography. It's in related things. Nothing is going to change this for most people. There are exceptions. Icebear comes to mind....
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Well :eek:, ... I guess it's in the open now :D
 
PKR said:
I thought sometime back that, trying to get that concept across has become a waste of my time. There are some who get it, and a lot that don't...
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Hi,

I don't want to split hairs but I don't see this as a concept that some get and some don't; it implies the wise and the stupid...

Some of us get it and think it's wrong; simple as that.

F'instance, I don't think any lens is perfect or near perfect all the time. Most of them are excellent at just one or, perhaps, two apertures and when focused at a certain distance.

I also think that most of the concepts that are praised so highly are ignored or not even noticed by most people. Most of the time they just notice the subject...

Regards, David
 
@ PKR: thanks for the interesting links you provide, bookmarked. I think when there is a strong idea in our project gear is not so important...(of course there could be special need in special cases).

robert
 
David Hughes said:
Hi,

I don't want to split hairs but I don't see this as a concept that some get and some don't; it implies the wise and the stupid...

Some of us get it and think it's wrong; simple as that.

F'instance, I don't think any lens is perfect or near perfect all the time. Most of them are excellent at just one or, perhaps, two apertures and when focussed at a certain distance.

I also think that most of the concepts that are praised so highly are ignored or not even noticed by most people. Most of the time they just notice the subject...

Regards, David
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Well this is exactly what is holding people back and keeps them making -mildly put- "less interesting" photographs that in some way or another only represent the subject that they saw. As this doesn't lead to any improvement but is going around in circles, they try to alleviate the problem by buying new gear and start reasoning their personal best choice with some obscure rating figures.

In principle there is nothing wrong with that type of photography but once you see the light and not only the subject itself, you will quickly notice how much more is there to photograph and how little it actually matters what gear you use, as long as you are comfortable using it and it does what you want it to do.
 
NickTrop said:
1. APS digital cameras? No. Since when was APS ever any good? Smaller? Even worse. This negates 85% of all gear out there excluding cell phones.
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Just so we all know, Nick used to shoot APSC and had similar threads telling us we were dumb for not using a Nikon D5XXX with 35mm 1.8DX lens (due to price / performance ratio). Once the FF came down to his price point, then of course APSC isnt good enough anymore. I`m a proud APSC user because I think it is a great balance between IQ and size. I do not like big cameras and modern APSC is great. You cannot compare it to APSC film... it is not anywhere near the same thing.
 
geetist said:
I stopped reading after Point 1.
Not sure if this is a troll. but...
Film cameras do make you a better photographer.
Mary Ellen Mark and Elliot Erwitt agreed as well.
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Learning to see, how to compose, and what content is compelling makes you a better photographer... the camera is a framing device more or less. MEM and EE are great, but great photography has always been done, and will continue to be done, with all types of equipment.
 
jsrockit said:
Just so we all know, Nick used to shoot APSC and had similar threads telling us we were dumb for not using a Nikon D5XXX with 35mm 1.8DX lens (due to price / performance ratio). Once the FF came down to his price point, then of course APSC isnt good enough anymore. I`m a proud APSC user because I think it is a great balance between IQ and size. I do not like big cameras and modern APSC is great. You cannot compare it to APSC film... it is not anywhere near the same thing.
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I don't recall such posts but don't doubt I may have made one. Your attempt at "whataboutism" is a variant of the tu quoque fallacy and on shaky rhetorical grounds. I stand behind the comments I am alleged to have made. Although intended to show hypocrisy, your comment fails. As prices have dropped, performance improved, and with high quality used full frame cameras infiltrating when once they did not (as film cameras have) the variables have changed.

When variables change in the function, so does the output. The output has now changed from "that" (then, when the variables were "this") to "this" now, and "that" at some later point. No inconsistency, however, in the function.

As a result of these changing variables, I sold off all of my small-sensor "amateur photo system" digital gear to offset part of the cost of moving to a FF digital system. Ceteris paribus I would have still been shooting the APS digital camera.
 
Quiet down folks. Otherwise guys like Michael Kenna and David Burnett will find out they shouldn’t taken all those published photos with a Holga. What were they thinking?
 
David Hughes said:
Hi,

I don't want to split hairs but I don't see this as a concept that some get and some don't; it implies the wise and the stupid...

Some of us get it and think it's wrong; simple as that.

F'instance, I don't think any lens is perfect or near perfect all the time. Most of them are excellent at just one or, perhaps, two apertures and when focussed at a certain distance.

I also think that most of the concepts that are praised so highly are ignored or not even noticed by most people. Most of the time they just notice the subject...

Regards, David
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Im curious David... What do you think is wrong about the concept? With the concept being that for a lot of photographers interested in photojournalism/documentary/street the gear, megapixels, full frame narrative is a distraction at best.
 
icebear said:
Well this is exactly what is holding people back and keeps them making -mildly put- "less interesting" photographs that in some way or another only represent the subject that they saw. As this doesn't lead to any improvement but is going around in circles, they try to alleviate the problem by buying new gear and start reasoning their personal best choice with some obscure rating figures.

In principle there is nothing wrong with that type of photography but once you see the light and not only the subject itself, you will quickly notice how much more is there to photograph and how little it actually matters what gear you use, as long as you are comfortable using it and it does what you want it to do.
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Dear Klaus,

YES!

We just had some friends around for lunch. He shoots 5x7 inch wet-plate (none of this wimpish film stuff). I gave him a "new" lens: a 99-year-old 300/3.5 Tessar. I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Anyone who thinks that aesthetics are quantifiable is not only barking up the wrong tree: they're not even sure what a tree looks like.

Cheers,

R.
 
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