why the aura that surrounds the one camera/lens idea?

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back alley

back alley

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this is not about if you like the idea of one camera/one lens...that has been hashed to death already!

what i wonder is...why is that idea so appealing to so many people...?

i have to admit that it is my number one recurring thought/fantasy involving image making.
i get caught up in the thinking that by being that simple an approach that my pics are going to be 'different' than they were before...that the quality is going to improve...

why do you think this idea just stays with so many?
 
I never see the appeal of it until I do it ... even on a minor scale.

Due to life getting in the way I've shot nothing but my Sigma DPM since I got it ... it's starting to make sense strangely. Though I have no intention of persuing the path to purity in this way! :D
 
It is the most radical thing a gear head can contemplate.
It can be a valuable exercise. Having limitations can help focus the mind. I don't think it makes things better, unless it does.
 
Wait till the call (cough cough GAS siren call) of that dp3m or sd1 gets to u :p Keith.... :D

Personally one camera one lens forever would drive me crazy.. I don't mind doing it for a short period..

Gary
 
Think it is easy to say but hard to do. Have tried recently to have 1 camera, 1 lens for a calendar month. Best I have done so far is 3 weeks with RX1, but shot 4 rolls with Linhof over the weekend so that didn't last:)
 
Some people have a keen sense of composition, so much so that they almost are able to "tell the future" in terms of decisive moment or are able to readily see what others do not. This kind of person is often best suited to using one or at most, two lenses since the ones paired on his head are truly creating the framing...the lens is merely a needed tool to communicate what he already sees.

Then there are those who are restless in their vision, they are often unconvinced that what they are seeing as a potential photograph with their own eyes is the best representation of a given scene. So they waffle about within the corral of indecision and somehow "know" that if they restrict themselves to the notion of using one lens to communicate the image, it will be too much of a risky proposition in missing other shots.

Then there is everyone in between......

I think this idea of using one lens comes up often because more often than not, camera owners distract themselves with far too much gear management and miss far more shots than they feel they have prepared themselves to be ready to engage in.

Chance favors the prepared mind....you can not be distracted and prepared at the same time in my experience.
 
I think the aura around the one camera/lens idea exists only in certain internet forum places ... :)
 
I think it's an attempt by some folks to get beyond their equipment.

I took me a fair amount of time to learn my most used gear so that it's use became seamless. I don't like buying new gear because of the learning time needed to become highly proficient in it's use. I often use both the old and newer gear until I know the new stuff really well. It's a PITA.

So, the concept is understandable.
 
No aura. Millions of fixed lens cameras have been sold over the years. No fuss, no muss. I only own an interchangeable lens camera because wides are hard to find in fixed lens. I have changed lenses once "in the field" and it felt positively cumbersome! A zoom would cave my head in.
 
So what are the origins of this doctrine ... does anyone actually know?
 
I started out in photography with cameras that only had one lens. I didn't even know there were interchangeable lens cameras. Like many others, I made it work. Then when I got my first SLR, I was introduced to the idea, but didn't follow it at first. Then I got more serious and realized there was a way to get better photos sometimes. Not every time. To go to a one camera one lens style would seem a step backwards to me.

I wonder if those who take up that quest started out with the idea and ability to have a lot of cameras and lenses. To them it may mean more to try that idea. To me, it just wouldn't.
 
Keith said:
So what are the origins of this doctrine ... does anyone actually know?
Click to expand...

I think Mike Johnson at TOP got it started (as per web stuff). It's a common art school/photo composition thing-- learning one lens at a time, and learning it really well, before adding another. This usually applies to core lenses 28,35,50, 100 etc. Once you get into the short and long glass the changes are more easily learned - they were for me anyway. I find a difference, but not much difference between a 300 and a 400mm. With wides, backing up or getting closer often is very similar to changing Lens AOV. I would rather back up with a 28 than switch to a 24 if i have room. Better corner correction in my 28. Learn your lenses. I hate zooms, but use them for work - work. My clients don't seem to care.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/05/a-leica-year.html

What Mike suggests is what I got in school and likely what he got in school. I think Mike went to an art school, I went to an academic school with a very small photo department that had a semi famous Dept. head. The guy knew his stuff.
 
CNNY said:
Poverty would be my guess.
Click to expand...

I bet that would be incorrect for most who make a conscious decision to keep life simple. Consider that even if you carry a bag full of lenses, you can really only look through and shoot with one at a time, remotes excluded.

I use one single 50mm 1.4 lens on one single Leica M3 camera, I could spend a lifetime enjoying that simple combo because I make the photographs happen, not the camera. Now with my 4x5 field camera, it is always on a tripod, so I have far less options to move around and steer the composition into play, so I always have at least 3 lenses and often as many as 5 in my small pack, all light stuff of course.

Bresson was a wealthy man, he could have afforded all the lenses one could possibly own but he simply chose a 50 and made photographs that spoke directly to his vision, not what camera he used...
 
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The aura, the idea that it is somewhat cool, are drawn from the heroes or favorite photographers, that is known to use one lens/one camera combo. Admittedly it also sharpen my vision although I can't measure how much, I know it does. For me personally, one camera one lens is applicable if I don't have to get the image, for my personal fun photography. But if I absolutely have to, as PKR said above, two or three zooms are my friends for the day.
 
KM-25 said:
I bet that would be incorrect for most who make a conscious decision to keep life simple. Consider that even if you carry a bag full of lenses, you can really only look through and shoot with one at a time, remotes excluded.

I use one single 50mm 1.4 lens on one single Leica M3 camera, I could spend a lifetime enjoying that simple combo because I make the photographs happen, not the camera. Now with my 4x5 field camera, it is always on a tripod, so I have far less options to move around and steer the composition into play, so I always have at least 3 lenses and often as many as 5 in my small pack, all light stuff of course.

Bresson was a wealthy man, he could have afforded all the lenses one could possibly own but he simply chose a 50 and made photographs that spoke directly to his vision, not what camera he used...
Click to expand...

Constant new discoveries in chemistry and optics are widening considerably our field of action. It is up to us to apply them to our technique, to improve ourselves, but there is a whole group of fetishes which have developed on the subject of technique. Technique is important only insofar as you must master it in order to communicate what you see... The camera for us is a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy. In the precise functioning of the mechanical object perhaps there is an unconscious compensation for the anxieties and uncertainties of daily endeavor. In any case, people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.

Henri Cartier-Bresson
 
Contarama said:
Constant new discoveries in chemistry and optics are widening considerably our field of action. It is up to us to apply them to our technique, to improve ourselves, but there is a whole group of fetishes which have developed on the subject of technique. Technique is important only insofar as you must master it in order to communicate what you see... The camera for us is a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy. In the precise functioning of the mechanical object perhaps there is an unconscious compensation for the anxieties and uncertainties of daily endeavor. In any case, people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Click to expand...

....I have shot so many hundreds of thousands of photographs over my career that my friends and family started telling me about five years ago that sometimes my right eye does not blink when my left one does.

I shoot with my right eye, it's the best lens I own.
 
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