Overheard - made me smile.

[gavinlg]

Hahaha... this is great.

I regularly get "Is that a really really old camera or something"
Me: "Yes"
To which they make a confused/suprised face and walk away. Why would someone use something like that in this day and age?

Another one was while shooting with my hi-matic 7s in Brisbane city - overheard a young girl with her grandfather:

Girl whispering: "why is that man using a toy camera?"
Grandfather: "shhh! maybe he can't afford a real one!"

But it's true that you get just as many silly comments with SLRs as well. I was doing a uni assignment with my 30d+battery grip and 50 1.4 in the city and people were asking me left right and center:

"Wow thats a professional camera - how much zoom does it have?"
me: "none.... it's a fixed focal length lens"
"I bet you're just saying that"

"Wow thats big.... is it like 30 megapixel or something?"
me: "nope, only 8"
"But my sony cybershot has 10.4 megapixels - and its only this big!!"
me: chuckles.... "technology huh"

 

[back alley]

i love using the tiny ricoh grd as i often get comments like, 'gee, that's a small camera'...to which i usually reply by saying, 'yeah, but it's a professional camera'.
and that's when i get the weird looks😉

joe

 

[alan davus]

Last weekend, I spent an hour or two wandering around our Botanical garden here in Adelaide clicking away with my M6. A young lad with a big Dslr smiled and nodded at me at one stage. After a while I noticed he was following me at a distance and basically photographing what I had just snapped. No words were passed but I took it as a compliment. It's a good grandfather story but what happens when they all die. The young generation will know nothing except digital so the debate one v. the other effectively ends. But hopefully some of us have 20 or 30 years left to finish running in our new M6's and so forth.

 

[foto_fool]

Thirty-something restraunteur here in town noticed my IIIf and said "wow - THAT'S a camera." No "how many megapixels" or anything. Brought a tear to my eye.

She honestly had no concept of what an image on a ground glass screen was or how the lens projects the image on it even when I tried to explain it to her.

Yeah we're doing a great job of teaching basic high school physics in this country these days, aren't we?

But then, my wife is a PhD biochemist and she doesn't "get" optics either. She just loves to goad me into trying to explain circles of confustion to her - and then just looks confused, to my chagrin. Maybe I'm just a bad explainer?

 

[NickTrop]

At the college where I work one of the program chairs from India asked me to recommend a camera. I gave up trying to talk anyone into a film camera - film cameras are my kink. So, I recommended a Panasonic model. A month or more had passed since then and just today I asked the guy how he liked the camera. He said he was disappointed. I think this model was around $200-$300. Long story short, he said he liked the way the pics I take of the students "come out" (I shoot and enlarge and have them posted on a couple cork boards - 50/50 color to black and white... some 6x4's, others 8X10 matted enlargements...) All these pics are taken with a Yashica GSN I keep on my desk.

Punchline, he wants me to recommend a film camera for him.
---

Last year an older couple w offerred to take a pic of my family at night under a street light near the beach. His wife said "the flash didn't go off". I said the camera doesn't "need" a flash, it will come out just fine. I had 800 speed film in the camera. Plenty of light under a street light and neaby hotel lights. I told him the new cameras have slower lenses than the old ones and need a flash more often.

He wrote down the name of the camera... They both seemed amazed.

 

[eric]

haha, thats really different from the "does this thing even work?" that i usually get to hear 😀

That's what I usually get too.

 

[sam_m]

But hopefully some of us have 20 or 30 years left to finish running in our new M6's and so forth.

I'd like to think I have well more than 20 or 30 years!

 

[bmattock]

i love using the tiny ricoh grd as i often get comments like, 'gee, that's a small camera'...to which i usually reply by saying, 'yeah, but it's a professional camera'.
and that's when i get the weird looks😉

joe

You could say "Yeah, I only take small photos." See how that gets 'em.

 

[tedwhite]

Woman noticed me taking a picture of a young lady store owner in front of her store. I was using my Rolleiflex, handheld, as I had plenty of light and ISO 400 b/w film.

"What is that? Is that one of those stereo cameras?" Apparently she noticed the two lenses.

"No, it's not. You look through one lens and take the picture with the other lens."

"Oh, that sounds ridiculous, I mean, how does one lens know what the other lens is doing?"

After finishing the shoot I immediately went to the nearest bar and had a double.

 

[FrankS]

After finishing the shoot I immediately went to the nearest bar and had a double.

Oh, that sounds ridiculous. How does the second drink know where the first one went? 🙂

 

[Keith]

On the other side of the coin ... I was wandering around a camera fair in Brisbane with my M8 hanging from my neck when a chap walked up to me and mentioned he thought it was nice to see someone using an older classic film camera ... congratulations Leica, your styling exercise was a success! 😀

 

[bmattock]

After finishing the shoot I immediately went to the nearest bar and had a double.

I do that every day. Oh, you mean...never mind.

 

[bmattock]

On the other side of the coin ... I was wandering around a camera fair in Brisbane with my M8 hanging from my neck when a chap walked up to me and mentioned he thought it was nice to see someone using an older classic film camera ... congratulations Leica, your styling exercise was a success! 😀

Yeah, when I was in Chicago recently for the "RFF get-together" that didn't happen (yes, I went to the bloody camera show and I was the only one there, too), I went up Sears Tower with my Bessaflex TM. Got cornered by a guy who had an Olympus OM10, and he could not stop bending my ear about it. I was beginning to wish I'd brought my Kodak digicam.

Chicago Camera Show

The Loop in B&W - including Central Camera having been burnt up.

 

[wlewisiii]

She honestly had no concept of what an image on a ground glass screen was or how the lens projects the image on it even when I tried to explain it to her.

That is so amazingly sad that I just don't even have words for it. That's 6th grade physics/optics, damn it! And then we have the "every child left behind" teach to a test crap on top of it... :bang: :bang: :bang:

William

 

[jamesj]

when i started shooting pictures again i would take a picture of my nephew and he would say let me see how it looks, i would tell him its film...

i showed him what film was...
and taught him this phrase "we dont shoot digital we shoot film"

now he wants a camera of his own...a film camera at that!

 

[MadMan2k]

I've never had anyone comment on the Leica when I'm out with it in public. Well, except for on a photography club trip, but...

Most people notice it, but apparently 'serious' photographers don't shoot with little chrome cameras with film advance levers so they ignore me.

Maybe the SLR doesn't generate much more attention when it's just one body and one small lens, but it sure does feel like a boat anchor...

 

[bmattock]

I like it when the 'pro' shooter in the pack gives my worthless kit the once-over and then sort of sneers and goes about his business. I'd much rather be ignored when I'm shooting.

 

[payasam]

When I use film cameras from the 1970s, 1950s and 1940s at public functions, many people look and then look away. The last time, when someone openly sneered, a young fellow using a digital SLR stepped in to defend me: "Uncle will get much better pictures than I will."

A couple of months ago, as soon as I had taken a picture of the little son of a niece, the tyke ran to me and wanted to look at the picture on the non-existent LCD.

[edit] Frank S demonstrates that he is his label.

 

[skibeerr]

It's a good grandfather story but what happens when they all die. The young generation will know nothing except digital so the debate one v. the other effectively ends. But hopefully some of us have 20 or 30 years left to finish running in our new M6's and so forth.

I was born in 1961 just the end of production of the Super Ikonta IV and the rise of the SLR was beginning. My father and grandfather had the contemporarie P&Sers and I was not introduced to any form of art :bang: or sport for that matter. Only hard and persistant work and obedience could bring you ahead in the world was their view. Yes I have issues!

Now I have and use Ikontas a lot and love it, responses in the street are 90% positive. From the naive to the genuine intrest. And people somehow seem to appreciate the ritual, metering, winding, setting, etc... and finaly the click.
Yesterday somebody on the street looked in awe at the Super Ikonta and asked if I was a " famous photographer", must be my style, and later that evening on the vernisage of our amateur clas exhibition when loading a roll and fumbling a bit another participant said loudly " this is why everybody goes digital". After coutning to about 1000 I compared my 60x60cm enlargements with his entries... and just smiled.
I just love it.😀

 

[JCdeR]

After grabbing coffee this morning with another RF shooter we were standing waiting for a stoplight, rf's in hand, next to two photogs with dslr beasts around their necks.

Off to the side, a grandfatherly character with his grandson were watching us. The elderly gentleman said to his young companion -

"There's a scene for you. Just based on what you see, which two photographers would you assume were the better photographers? My money would be on the two with their cameras in hand, Not the ones looking like they are carrying boat anchors."

😀

Made my morning.

Go to any typical news scene, war environment, riot... whatever .... the statement would be, "you mean the man 50 yards back still trying to load his camera?" 🙂