Too Many ???

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

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At the beginning of the year, I look around and think, “I have too many cameras.” I can make excuses and say I am a working stiff and need a range of specialized tools, but today’s digital cameras combine versatility and image quality in surprisingly small packages. Depending on the work you do, lighting gear, camera supports and lenses may be more valuable than more bodies. While I think it can be wise to have a back up body in case of breakdowns or, in some cases, several identical bodies so you can shoot with several fixed focal length lenses without losing time changing lenses, I’m not so sure that it is wise to have bodies with differing controls.

Hooray for the simplicity and similarity of different film cameras. Almost all of them have a shutter speed dial, an f/stop ring, focusing mechanism, a shutter release and a film advance. Master one and you have mastered almost all the features of the next one. Not so with digital cameras. Difference in menu structures and button and dial placements and functions abound. Of course you can work two different cameras - but, can you do it without thinking? I’m not suggesting that you stop thinking while you are taking pictures, but I am suggesting it’s sort of a waste, delay and serious impediment to think about what do I scroll or select to change focus or exposure when you should be thinking about the subject. And the different placement of controls on different makes and models of very versatile digital cameras may mean sticking with one brand, even one model type, makes good sense. Am I going to have to give up some of my play-toys?
 
I had a pain switching between Nikon SLRs and Leica RFs, concentrated too much which camera I was grabbing. I solved it by switching to Nikon RFs (couldn't afford switching to Leicaflexs and glass).

I can't speak to digital cameras and I only used one at a time and these days it doubles as a phone and electronic Swiss-Army-Knife. Switching from Olympus to Nikon to Canon in the early days was, well, a pain.

With so much processing done in camera I'm hard pressed to think of an Open Source operating system for cameras that do much of anything involving interchangeable lenses.

I'd love to hear from the folks out there to have successfully or unsuccessfully.

B2 (;->
 
" Am I going to have to give up some of my play-toys?"

Not as long as they're play toys, but you might if they're working tools.
 
You need to see the amount of menus, settings and devices regular broadcast and production technician is able to deal with. Cameras, video, audio mixers, encoders, decoders, receivers, transmitters, routers, modulators and so on. All kind of software to know and now they want these technicians to configure networking devices. Those where you have to do it via command line. And it is lower than IT paid job and it is shifts and long overtime.

Anyway...

In fact, here is no difference between film and digital cameras. Does some FujiNoFilm cameras have ISO, Aperture and Shutter dials?

Even more, digital cameras allows to learn exposure deep and for sure by taking in M mode. Only after getting DSLR and setting it to M mode for first year I was able to learn about exposure. Film and books were no use before. Every frame was counted. Spending roll of film to learn? Forget it. S16 first and then green box.
 
For the almost three years, I've pretty much simplified. I've only used Fuji and Ricoh cameras. Oh, I still have other cameras but they've seen zero use. Which leads to my New Year Resolution: Sell some of this stuff.
 
Pretty much a Nikon DSLR guy and a Leica M guy. For the reasons you state above Bill. My Nikon DSLR's are pretty much set up with the same menu systems and buttons (rear AF, shutter, command dials) and the Leica M's that I have (used film versions & used M9 versions) work practically identically, and use the same lenses. So it's a bit easier on this aging brain. HA!!!

Best,
-Tim
 
Too Many Cameras ?

It depends on your circumstances or if you need to convert them to cash to buy something else, or it might not bother you at all, and that might be due to your personality, storage room, finances or a wife that does not interfere with your man-cave furnishings .

Jay Leno does not mind the variety of cars he has and some people do not mind the huge number of different cameras and lenses that they have.
 
Well, the only problem of having "too many" cameras is not having the time to give them all some good exercise.

PF
 
I agree with Bill
And I have also to count the many times that I forget that setting buried in a hundred menus and spoiled the results.
This has incremented my nostalgia for film
Bu it is not paradise either.
Hard to find film and much harder to find labs
 
I have to add:
before any session a lot of wasted time checking menus
And if you have Sony, it is unique in that it dries the batteries even turned off.
Thus the day before a session I have to charge a number of batteries to make sure that the camera does not stop working
 
Timmyjoe said:
So it's a bit easier on this aging brain. HA!!!

Best,
-Tim
Click to expand...

With you on that one and its for that very reason I`ve cut down drastically on my camera bodies and lenses.
Less decisions to make and ; what the …. was I doing with half a dozen film bodies and half a dozen digital bodies anyway.

Same goes with the lenses …. I don`t enjoy that difference anymore .
I`m just interested in getting the shots with something that works for me.
Too much emphasis on the process and the gear was ,for me, spoiling the enjoyment.
 
Bill Pierce said:
I’m not so sure that it is wise to have bodies with differing controls.
Click to expand...

It seems to be an inevitability unless you are fortunate enough to find that one system covers all your needs - I'm not, and its a real pain having to use several very different cameras.
 
farlymac said:
Well, the only problem of having "too many" cameras is not having the time to give them all some good exercise.

PF
Click to expand...

This is how I feel too.
I have a fairly small 'collection' of old folders that never get used, a few cameras - Nikon F, F2, F2A, Leica M3, Rolleiflex - that get an occasional outing and an M6 that I really use all the time with a 35mm attached. I am also still enjoying a love affair with a Hasselblad X-Pan. I don't have any digital cameras. I know I will not change much now and envisage a time when only the M6 ever gets used.
As for the idea of selling the unused cameras and lenses. I believe that the Japanese have a saying that goes; "if you haven't used it in the last six months you don't need it". Well, need and want are different ideas. I have a little space to keep these lovely things, consider them ornamental and I don't need the little money they would yield. Lots of 'things' are like this in any household no matter where. I may become a camera owner more than a camera user - so be it.
Bill don't sell anything that is good to look at and nice to hold, you don't need to. They carry memories, feed the soul and often enhance whatever they sit on.
 
I have three 35mm film cameras: an Olympus OM1, OM4 and OM4T, and six or eight lenses. I have one 6x6: a Minolta Autocord. I have one 4x5 and three lenses: a Linhof Technikardan, and 90mm, 150mm, and 210mm Schneiders. I am shooting mostly digital now, as I am printing platinum/palladium, and I prefer digital files to scanned film for my digital negatives. But I know I will return to film for certain projects in the future, so I am in no hurry to sell my film cameras. It is nice to have them available when I want to use them.
 
Funny, I was starting to think about this over the past month. I have way to many cameras and lenses since I have six different systems. The thought of downsizing to a couple of systems seems practical and maybe my photography will improve as I'm not searching for the shutter speed dial or forgetting which way to turn the aperture dial to stop down the lens.

Now comes the hard part. What goes and what stays? For digital I have a Nikon DSLR and 4 lenses. A Fuji XE-1 and 4 lenses. For film I have a Leica rangefinder and 3 lenses, Olympus OM4TI and 5 lenses, Contax RTSII and 4 lenses and 3 FSU rangefinders with a few lenses. Oh and a Hasselblad 503CW with 80mm 2.8.

Due to my current work schedule there is very little spare time to use them all regularly. So it would wise to cull the herd. Thinking that keeping the Hassy and Leica for film, and the Nikon for digital would cover the photography I do. Also it will decrease the GAS attacks and having redundant focal length lenses for 6 different systems.
 
I have never had more than three cameras at any one time. When working as a newspaper shooter, I always had two of the same bodies (whether film or digital) usually with a wideangle zoom on one and a telephoto on the other. For me, it allowed me to really get to know a particular system and its performance under various conditions. Now retired, I have just a Fuji X100S with the two conversion lenses and a Yashica Electro35 GS with its conversion lenses. Been thinking about a second Fuji X100S so I can permanently mount the TCL and WCL lenses.
 
bmattock said:
I don't suffer from angst over cameras as a general rule.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, good point. I do suffer from angst if I have too many. Basically, 3-4 is my limit and if something doesn`t get used, I sell it while I can still get decent $ back. Of course, this digital I am speaking about.
 
My mind seems unwilling to master any digital camera.

Fortunately all my "classic" manual focus 35mm film cameras
from the 60's - 80's operate basically the same simple way.

Chris
 
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