noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
Just a personal observation, but I hear WAAAAAY more bitching, moaning, and griping about the cameras and post processing from digital photographers than I hear complaints from film photographers about their cameras or developing and printing...
Consumer/hobby photo magazines have been useful to me in keeping up with new products, both in articles and the ads. So, some value there, plus a columnist here and there can be interesting. Same with pursuits other than photography.
But these days I struggle with printed magazines, as if perhaps my attention span is attenuated: I seem to keep putting the magazine down as I think of something I want to do on the computer, or grab a camera and head out the door.
I'm *way* backed up on print reading. Periodicals that come with association memberships often are just recycled without opening. Some have an option to read online only, and stop receiving the printed magazine. I opt for that to avoid the waste.
It does seem most of my reading is through electronic means these days.
But these days I struggle with printed magazines, as if perhaps my attention span is attenuated: I seem to keep putting the magazine down as I think of something I want to do on the computer, or grab a camera and head out the door.
I'm *way* backed up on print reading. Periodicals that come with association memberships often are just recycled without opening. Some have an option to read online only, and stop receiving the printed magazine. I opt for that to avoid the waste.
It does seem most of my reading is through electronic means these days.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
That's simply because film and film cameras are basically dead. The only people who use them are people who really want to work with them and have to seek them out. They accept them regardless of their warts.
When film cameras were new things in the marketplace, the same BS went on about them. Nothing has changed. People remain the same 'big, pink ugly monkeys' they always were.
G
noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
Mine are not dead - they're not even sick...
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Mine are not dead - they're not even sick...
I didn't say that the existing film cameras were dead. I said they're dead in the marketplace. The only NEW film cameras sold today are generally speaking all specialty purchases.
People like us ... who delight in acquiring a forty year old kit of great old camera stuff ... generally don't complain too much when there's a dent, or the meter doesn't quite work right, etc. We just note the issue and keep going.
People who buy NEW gear have a different set of expectations, and are given to venting their frustrations when the expectations are not met.
G
Spanik
Well-known
Probably, but I think rightly so.
A bigger issue for me is that it has become next to impossible to find any useful info anymore. Before the net you could find reasonably sensible information looking around in a few magazines. When the net started to become the big thing you found enormous amounts of useful information without any problem. These days you find 20 times the same blog rant and ads. It has become impossible to find any information. Only garbage around.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
The way I read reviews from the major sites like DPReview and Imaging Resource is to focus on the spec sheets and the photos of the equipment. I mostly ignore the test shots and the often idiotic comments of the reviewers. There's lots of information just in the spec sheets and photos of the equipment.
For user impressions, I go to a couple of reviewers who's opinions I have found creditable. Exactly who I read there varies a lot as different reviewers have different biases based on what they do in photography and what equipment they normally like/use. Most do not pose as "professional reviewers" or "professional photographers", most are either advanced amateurs whose love of photography is greater than their love of gadgets and equipment, or professional photographers who experiment with alternative gear to see how it performs in their daily work. All such reviewers make their personal biases clear and transparent, unlike the so-called pros, so when you read what they have to say you know the context of their thoughts and can easily ferret out the real information.
But mostly, when I get interested in a piece of equipment, I read up on the specs, look at the photos, download the instruction manual from the manufacturer or distributor website, and then wait for it to show up at the local store. Then I go there to look at it and take a few test pictures. I rely on my own impressions far more than anything else.
G
Spanik
Well-known
For some pieces of gear you can wait a looooong time.
TheFlyingCamera
Well-known
There's a simple solution to the gear insecurity problem: just pick one camera, one lens that lets you take the kind of photographs you want to take, stop acquiring, stop reading magazines or internet forums like Photo.net, DPReview, or any other advertising-based venue, and go make images.
Even this forum, with a very strong gear-fetish population, makes it easy to slide into insecurity because so many people are talking about the newest, latest, greatest xyz camera in must-buy terms. But at least there is balance in sections like this, and in the image-sharing threads.
One magazine I deeply miss was a Taiwanese periodical called Photographers International - it was a joint production between France and Taiwan, and because they had government arts grants funding, they were able to produce a mindblowing publication featuring six to eight portfolios every issue on paper that felt more like card stock than magazine paper, in quadtone equal to book printing, for $20 USD per issue. There were six pages of advertisements in the front, six in the back, and the back cover had an ad. Other than that, it was all about the work and nothing but the work.
Lauffray
Invisible Cities
I agree with the OP, reading about photography used to be much more fun, for me at least. I used to subscribe to dozens of online feeds, websites, streams and follow tons of photographers. Gear is not really the issue for me, it's more the type of work and articles that end up being shown that are really tiresome
Godfrey
somewhat colored
If my interest is sustained after a long wait, I just buy the darn thing and try it out. Very few thing can't be resold when almost new for 85-90% of their original cost, I just consider that the price of my education.
G
TheFlyingCamera
Well-known
I wish more folks would be willing to discuss, REALLY discuss, their work, and that more readers would be willing to engage with work beyond "great capture!", "well seen!" and actually respond to it - don't just tell me you like it, tell me what works about it for you, what you respond to, what you respond negatively to, and what doesn't work. But I think the anonymity of the internet that allows some people to be bomb-throwing trolls tricks others into feeling like honesty is not allowed for fear of offending. Either that or they don't have experience with providing critique so they don't because they don't know how to express the ideas that they have about the work.
williams473
Well-known
I think the frustration voiced by the OP is part of a larger adjustment we as people are making to contemporary living. We are just overwhelmed by the unfathomable amount of information we can access via the internet and other communication channels.
This was brought home to me the other night when my wife and I decided to take a drive to enjoy a beautiful evening out in the the country outside of Pittsburgh. Down in Washington County we found an old Presbytarian church built in the early 1800s, and spent some time walking around the building and cemetary. The last service was held there in 1900 so it's still very much as it was (having never been made a tourism detsination) complete with holes cut into the bare wooden floorboards on the "mens side" of the church where my frontiersman ancestors could spit their tobacco during the service.
The current caretaker lives in a modern home next door and noticed us wandering around, and in a really nice gesture left his dinner to come over and offered to let us in. We took him up on it and enjoyed a good hour just being in there, soaking in the ambiance and looking through the windows to the pastoral scene outside as the sun went down...
Driving home I was so refreshed, and I attribute that to the peace, quiet and stillness. And yeah, I know those folks had to contend with rampant illness, hostile natives, brutal weather etc., etc.... but people have lived in roughly those conditions for 10's of thousands of years - trying not to die is something we are used to as a race. But how dowe LIVE? It is only in the last 30 years or so that we have been somewhat "modern" in the sense of being roughly as we are today. Despite the benefits of our modern age, I just don't think we deal well with the "business" of it all - with the WAY we live. The pace is too frenetic. Like kids in a candy store we gorge on information, knowing it will make us sick, and then it does. I just don't think it's healthy, and so I do the same thing - I tune out.
By the way I took my camera along to the church - I ran a roll of color film through the GW670III and will likely never show the pictures, except to my wife. I was intentionally just making picturesque scenes that complimented my mood - the enjoyment was in the doing. Such images don't fit my portfolio, but the slow and contemplative process of seeing and shooting is SO good for my soul, mind and body... I know you all can relate....
This was brought home to me the other night when my wife and I decided to take a drive to enjoy a beautiful evening out in the the country outside of Pittsburgh. Down in Washington County we found an old Presbytarian church built in the early 1800s, and spent some time walking around the building and cemetary. The last service was held there in 1900 so it's still very much as it was (having never been made a tourism detsination) complete with holes cut into the bare wooden floorboards on the "mens side" of the church where my frontiersman ancestors could spit their tobacco during the service.
The current caretaker lives in a modern home next door and noticed us wandering around, and in a really nice gesture left his dinner to come over and offered to let us in. We took him up on it and enjoyed a good hour just being in there, soaking in the ambiance and looking through the windows to the pastoral scene outside as the sun went down...
Driving home I was so refreshed, and I attribute that to the peace, quiet and stillness. And yeah, I know those folks had to contend with rampant illness, hostile natives, brutal weather etc., etc.... but people have lived in roughly those conditions for 10's of thousands of years - trying not to die is something we are used to as a race. But how dowe LIVE? It is only in the last 30 years or so that we have been somewhat "modern" in the sense of being roughly as we are today. Despite the benefits of our modern age, I just don't think we deal well with the "business" of it all - with the WAY we live. The pace is too frenetic. Like kids in a candy store we gorge on information, knowing it will make us sick, and then it does. I just don't think it's healthy, and so I do the same thing - I tune out.
By the way I took my camera along to the church - I ran a roll of color film through the GW670III and will likely never show the pictures, except to my wife. I was intentionally just making picturesque scenes that complimented my mood - the enjoyment was in the doing. Such images don't fit my portfolio, but the slow and contemplative process of seeing and shooting is SO good for my soul, mind and body... I know you all can relate....
Lauffray
Invisible Cities
Where might one do that ? The platforms best suited for this inevitably turn into the insipid comment soup you mention, I've tried this approach with photographers I like and follow closely, a lot of people don't answer at all. If I have nothing interesting to say I usually don't comment, but when I do I also wish folks would answer
Spanik
Well-known
If they are good for your soul, mind and body then why shouldn't they be good for your portfolio? I would say they are even better for your portfolio because they are a better part of you in it.
williams473
Well-known
My wife says the same thing Spanik! It's a good point - I suppose I work so hard when out on the street - it's always exhausting, a little scary sometimes... but I love it. Even so I can't do it all the time, especially while balancing two jobs and family - it drains me versus what I did the other night restoring me... Probably a good topic for another thread - that's a very good point you raise. What is my aversion to the picturesque? Good comment...
TheFlyingCamera
Well-known
I don't have a good answer for that. If I did, I'd be spending lots of time on that forum, wherever it might be. I guess the best place for something like that ends up being an in-real-life critique session.
Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
This thread has raised so many points that I find it very difficult to formulate a single response. Perhaps, though, it is the case that we no longer hear a single voice of authority, as we did when the magazine or the book was the source of information on matters photographic. Instead, we hear many voices and are, perhaps, uncomfortable with the cacophony.
It's becoming an essential skill, in many fields, to learn how to ignore the irrelevant and identify the relevant. Perhaps in our hobby/art/whatever, we need to exercise the same ruthless editing, when choosing what to read and to what we respond?
It's becoming an essential skill, in many fields, to learn how to ignore the irrelevant and identify the relevant. Perhaps in our hobby/art/whatever, we need to exercise the same ruthless editing, when choosing what to read and to what we respond?
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
I was reading OP few times.
I'm not advising which camera to get for people who are using smart phones.
I like to use my iPhone, but where are too many cameras.
I take pictures I like, on cameras I could afford.
I don't read magazines, but I read a lot of books and still do it to learn something about photography, not about new digital cropper.
I like my contacts pictures on Flickr, I like pictures here and some other not for money sites.
It feels like photography to me.
I'm not advising which camera to get for people who are using smart phones.
I like to use my iPhone, but where are too many cameras.
I take pictures I like, on cameras I could afford.
I don't read magazines, but I read a lot of books and still do it to learn something about photography, not about new digital cropper.
I like my contacts pictures on Flickr, I like pictures here and some other not for money sites.
It feels like photography to me.
Ranchu
Veteran
All new cameras produce the same file. All new zooms look the same also. But everybody has to talk about the differences, many to get laid. The most important differences can't be measured. I don't pay much attention as it has nothing to tell me and nothing to do with me. Pay no mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v_dng3X7mk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v_dng3X7mk