Photo gear question

Chriscrawfordphoto said:
. . . Cheap stuff is cheap for a reason. . . .
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Dear Chris,

Surely not. Only a snob with more money than sense would buy anything other than a second-hand fixed-lens Canon. What sort of idiot buys a camera that gives him control over focal length, focus, exposure and sharpness? Let alone in-date film?

(Sorry: I don't do smilies).

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Chris,

Surely not. Only a snob with more money than sense would buy anything other than a second-hand fixed-lens Canon. What sort of idiot buys a camera that gives him control over focal length, focus, exposure and sharpness? Let alone in-date film?

(Sorry: I don't do smilies).

Cheers,

R.
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Some stuff really is so dramatically overpriced that only those with more money than brains can afford the thing. I woudln't even consider buying ANYTHING Leica makes now. Honestly, I'm thinking of selling all of my Leica gear because my beloved Olympus OM-4T bodies fit my hands better and the lenses are just as good so far as I can see, at least on the films I usually use in 35mm (Tri-X and Delta 3200). My Mamiya 6 beats the quality of Leica anyday simply because of the larger film. I have too much money tied up in the Leica stuff, which I have not shot a single photo with in nearly a year.

Most camera companies, like Nikon and Olympus, make a range of cameras from inexpensive amateur stuff to mid priced stuff for serious hobbyists to high end stuff for pros. I know from Nikon that I could not stand their non-pro manual focus 35mm bodies, like the FM2 and FE. They were built well and capable of the exact same image quality as the top of the line F3, but the F3 was designed for someone like me who wants gear to just work without getting in my way.

The problem is the amateur bodies were designed so that you could not release the shutter without the wind lever being pulled out part-way. A stupid design that seems like it was intentionally made to frustrate users for no reason other than to punish them for not spending the money on the F3. That's the kind of idiotic crippling of design and ergonomics I see in a lot of amateur gear.

I see the same thing with digital SLRs. Mid-priced and high-end models from several makers have two finger wheels, one on the back and one on the front, so that in manual exposure mode you use one to set aperture and the other for shutter speed. Works great and fast, doesn't get in the way of seamless operation. Cheap models often have just one finger wheel that sets shutter speed. Changing aperture requires some finger gymnastics to hold a button down while turning the finger wheel. Gets in the way and breaks your concentration on the subject.

Those are the kind of silly things that manufacturers do to make cheap models so frustrating for advanced users, both amateur and professional, so that they'll be forced to spend more for a higher priced model.
 
Hi Chris. Nowhere did I say that gear is not important, just that any major brand of suitable gear will be just fine.
 
I have bought and sold lots of stuff over the years. In retrospect, it's a sorting process - keep what works for me, sell what does not work for me.

For example, the old Nikkor 28mm/f2.8 lens is (at the moment) "my lens". The Fujifilm X100 is (at the moment) "my camera". I'd replace both of these immediately if I lost them, because they make pictures that I love to see.

So, yeh, equipment makes a difference. Subtle maybe, but sometimes subtle is the difference between "okay" and "wonderful".
 
You can get used to anything if you want to.

You can get used to anything if you want to.

As I watch my 5 year old son struggle to play the violin, I realize that the human body and mind can adapt to using just about any instrument. He's getting to be a pretty good player too. However, the violin requires that the instrument and the bow be held properly, otherwise squeaks emerge. It has a very low tolerance for error.

I've played with a lot of different cameras. I would say that the Nikon F3 and Leica M7 work seamlessly for me. The fact that they are autoexposure help with rapidly moving subjects. Lately, I've been adapting to using a Bessa R. It's become my travel camera, along with a FED 50mm 3.5 lens. Like using the violin, I've had to practice with it to become fluid with it. After about 5 rolls, I'm getting the hang of this kit. I like that it is completely "no frills".
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
You can pretend that gear doesn't matter all you want until someone asks to buy a large print and you have to tell them "Sorry, but it'll suck at that size because I shot it with a 6mp camera and crappy kit lens." Oops, there goes several hundred dollars and your professional reputation!

The fact is that choosing the right equipment is of the basic skills needed to make a good photograph. That means knowing what you need to get the job done and not compromising.
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I found this short article interesting. The photo isn't sharp at all & at the time 4X5 cameras were considered inferior for artistic photography.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/58.577.11
 
As always, it's a grey area.

I like to shoot landscapes, I also like quite large prints, that means that a medium format camera or large format camera is likely better for me, and likely take photos more to my liking than a smaller format camera.

For me, the best photos I see on this forum are by a chap who uses a Pentax 67. A camera far less expensive than what many, even most of us use.

Most items are not cheap because of quality, ergonomics or anything like that, it's simply demand and what the market will bear. Quality, cost to produce etc. all play a role in pricing new products, but if we're talking used items, then all that expense is in past, and it all comes down to what the market has deemed something to be worth. We all know the very expensive lenses such as Bessa II with Apo-Lanthar or the Alpa/Kern Macro Switar are not expensive because they take good pictures.

I found my Leica IIIf a real pain to use compared to my Olympus OM2n, but we all know the reason why the Leica cost almost ten times as much is because that is what people will pay, and it's nothing to do with 'pros needing the best stuff' it's 'enthusiasts wanting the nice stuff'.
 
gb hill said:
I found this short article interesting. The photo isn't sharp at all & at the time 4X5 cameras were considered inferior for artistic photography.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/58.577.11
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Greg, that photo, like many of Steiglitz's from that time period, was printed as a photogravure. This historic process transfers the photo to a metal plate that is used to make prints using an Intaglio press. The process is much lower resolution than a modern print, or even a normal photo print of the time. Steiglitz chose the process because he liked that look. 4x5 had more than enough quality; much of the image detail was lost in translation to the etching plate.

Because he deliberately chose a process that gave a less detailed print, I don't think its a good example to refute the need for good lenses. Other styles of photography have emerged and become popular since then, and currently no style that really dominates the art world. Some people are reviving old 'pictorialist' processes like gravure, and other prefer the more modern look of a 'straight photography' style (sharp, full tone range, little or no manipulation).
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Some stuff really is so dramatically overpriced that only those with more money than brains can afford the thing. I woudln't even consider buying ANYTHING Leica makes now. . . .
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Dear Chris,

I sincerely doubt I'm much richer than you are, and I doubt I'm a lot stupider, but I do buy new Leica gear very occasionally. I think the last time was the M9 in 2010.

Cheers,

R.
 
FrankS said:
Does anyone really think that owning the highest resolving lens or the "best" camera system, (what does that even mean?), will make their pictures any better?
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Very often on RFF (and also in this thread) these discussions are about used gear and money. Expensive vs. cheap, "gear is cheap for a reason", "you get what you pay for", etc.

Let's take money out of the picture: you can buy today very similarly performing film cameras and lens combos for a vast difference in price; for example, a Nikon F or Olympus OM1 with 50/1.8 (combo costs between US 150 and 200) will be technically on par with, say, a Leica M2 or M3 with 50/2 Summicron v3 or below (as a combo, between US 1500 - 2000 these days).

The fact that some prefer the Leica, at least for many applications, and that they are ready to pay 10 times more, shows that technical quality is only a tiny part of the picture. For me, often, the Leica is more fun. Which sometimes translates to better photos. A camera is not only a light tight box.

People try to rationalize "fun" into quantitative discussions, but it's pointless, since it's personal. Also, when money is discussed, envy will rear its ugly head. Roger often talks about "quality threshold". I care more about my "fun threshold". And I also do my own tests and comparisons, often because I want to understand why I enjoy some gear, and other not so much.

So there, my 2 cents.

Roland.
 
Here again my miserable example - I'm dumping Konica Auto S2 known for its Hexanon lens just because ergonomics isn't there, for me at least. Yashica Lynx 5000 which is about same thing externally, has feel I expect from this kind of cameras.

I can understang there are people who will choose KAS2 any day and hour.
 
I think it's about finding the right equipment that matches your vision and the way you work. If you don't have all the stuff you find that you probably have the $$$ to buy the stuff that matches your vision no matter what the that equipment is.
 
I've got such a wide range of gear that it's not hard to tell when I get the results back that such-and-such photo would have looked better taken with a different camera/lens. I'm always striving to get the best out of whatever I'm using at the moment, so even if it's a crappy little P&S, at least the composition and lighting of the photo should be decent. But oh, how many times have I stood there, surveying the scene, and thinking all the while how I would have done this shot with "X" camera/lens set-up.

PF
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
You can pretend that gear doesn't matter all you want until someone asks to buy a large print and you have to tell them "Sorry, but it'll suck at that size because I shot it with a 6mp camera and crappy kit lens." Oops, there goes several hundred dollars and your professional reputation!

The fact is that choosing the right equipment is of the basic skills needed to make a good photograph. That means knowing what you need to get the job done and not compromising.
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Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Some stuff really is so dramatically overpriced that only those with more money than brains can afford the thing. I woudln't even consider buying ANYTHING Leica makes now. Honestly, I'm thinking of selling all of my Leica gear because my beloved Olympus OM-4T bodies fit my hands better and the lenses are just as good so far as I can see, at least on the films I usually use in 35mm (Tri-X and Delta 3200)... I have too much money tied up in the Leica stuff, which I have not shot a single photo with in nearly a year.
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Two interesting and seemingly diametrically opposed statements in the same thread, Chris. I'm a Leica shooter. And I don't have a lot of money, but I think I do have enough "brains" to get by most of the time.

Interestingly, the very point you make about your "beloved Olympus OM-4T" bodies is exactly the reason I'm shooting Leica today. Yes, the price of admission is high, but I prefer shooting a coincident coupled rangefinder camera over every other type of viewing system devised for cameras. I also prefer shooting with primes. For me, Leica makes sense, and I only have a small fortune invested in my three bodies, Visoflex III and eight lenses rather than a large fortune. As a matter of fact, I have only spent less than the cost a new M9-P body and a used Noctilux on my entire outfit. Even at that, however, I've never had so much tied up in my gear.

I've shot weddings and sports with M42 Pentax Spotmatics. I've done aerial work with a Mamiya C220. I shot macro and forensic work for years with an EOS1 and 28-105 zoom with close-up filters. It is possible to do 95% of what anyone needs to do with any generalist gear. Pretty much all lenses built since the advent of the Canon EOS1 in 1989 are computer designed and are amazing performers; even the cheap kit lenses today are amazing performers. There are differences, of course, but they're so minute as to be negligible in real world application.

I would argue that ergonomics and system features (viewing system type and lens system depth) are more important today than comparing IQ (trying to count angels on the head of a pin) among any of the bodies of the leading brands. They may all render slightly differently, but all of them will get the job done. If you took a half-dozen comparable cameras with comparable lenses and shot the same scene and set 16x20 prints out side by side without reference to which was which, they'd all be acceptable and no one could tell you definitively which was shot with what equipment.

So... you buy the brand that "feels good" and has the right "stuff" in the system to accomplish what you need to do. For you, that's your Olympus OM bodies. It just so happens that the right "stuff" for me is a coincident coupled rangefinder camera, and Leica happens to be the only supplier of that kind of equipment right now, so I'm shooting Leica.

Does following your own logic about "...choosing the right equipment is of the basic skills needed to make a good photograph. That means knowing what you need to get the job done and not compromising" and using Leica for those very reasons cause me to fall into your "more money than brains" category?
 
I love this quote by Weston and it is as true today as it was then.
"The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it." - Edward Weston
 
My thread idea was aimed at those who ask: Should I sell all of my brand x gear because I've hear that brand y has sharper lenses?

Find the gear that works for you and be happy.
 
FrankS said:
My thread idea was aimed at those who ask: Should I sell all of my brand x gear because I've hear that brand y has sharper lenses?

Find the gear that works for you and be happy.
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Absent some major issue like I had with my X-Pro1, I'd bet Frank, if folks who lust after some piece of equipment really came clean about their motivation, it would be that they're either unhappy with the way their current gear handles (or looks), or if they're satisfied with that, they still think that the gear they lust after would handle (or look) "better." My mainstay Olympus gear was perfectly adequate to handle my needs for a very long time. I switched because I didn't want to be stuck with EVFs in the future which is where Olympus decided to go. I tried the X-Pro1 because I wanted an optical VF on a RF/VF form factor body. The Fuji met that want nicely, I just couldn't make the electronics "think and see" the way I do.

The truth is that very few of us ever come close to maxing out the potential of even the most humble gear.

Golf clubs do not make the game.
 
hepcat said:
. . . . . .

Golf clubs do not make the game.
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I get remarks from family and friends - "Jees, why do you need all these cameras and lenses?" My answer is usually "For the same reason you need all your golf clubs." That usually shuts them up.
 
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