Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The camera hobby

It's something which comes up regularly: why care so much about the camera? It's the pictures which count, and if your pictures suck with a poor camera, they will also suck with a big camera.

I will admit that too great attention on the gear can be a compensation for some blockage in the creative arena. But...

For one thing, one can see it as two different hobbies. One is the pictures, one is the camera appreciation. You can do both, or either, but they need not compete.
I suspect that many of the people who like to argue endlessly about the technical subtleties of camera tech are not picture hobbyists, they are camera hobbyists. Nothing wrong with that. In fact the camera manufacturers could not survive without them.

But also, you can't make good landscape photos with a 2MP camera, pretty much. And you will struggle to make good sports/play/action photos if you don't have long lenses and really snappy autofocus (which at the moment means a big DSLR). So it's not like the camera never matters.

12 comments:

Patrick said...

gear doesn't matter until it does I suppose. In my case I probably don't NEED an EOS 5D Mark II, but darned if I'm not fascinated with what it can do. Now that I get to review a lot of cameras, I've still yet to get one better than the 5D Mark II (on a pixel/value level)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yeah, that's one more thing: men are always fascinated by "ultimate power", even if we can't even use it.

emptyspaces said...

It's funny how few people understand that photography is a skill. If I buy a Steinway, I don't sound more like Beethoven. Yet people see the big DSLR and think, "oh, no wonder he gets such good photos of his kid."

Michael Burton said...

Emptyspaces said, "people see the big DSLR and think, 'oh, no wonder he gets such good photos of his kid.'"

That's not entirely mindless camera-worship. Perhaps they see a big, expensive camera and think, "With a camera like that, obviously he takes photography seriously. No wonder he gets such good photos of his kid."

I've joked at times that I bought the camera Ansel Adams used to take his greatest photos, and that he must have worn it out, because my photos don't look anything like his.

Oh, how they laugh when I make that joke!

Tommy said...

Michael: "I've joked at times that I bought the camera Ansel Adams used to take his greatest photos, and that he must have worn it out, because my photos don't look anything like his."

So if you give a GOOD camera to a beginner and a BAD camera to, say, Ansel Adams...who'd take the better pictures?

Alex said...

Aged 16. Kodak instamatic, 126 film 100ASA
Scanned on a flatbed from the print.

Aged 30 something, LG VX9800 cell phone

Ricoh XR-P SLR age 25

So with age and experience and and an SLR I take a less interesting photo than I did earlier on a hand me down 126, and later with a cell phone.

I'd say Ansel Adams, if he knew the crappy camera well enough could still get the better picture.
He just couldn't shoot as late into the day, or try for close up pictures of icicles, or that mallard at 200 yards.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Well, it is a very good joke, Mike.

Michael Burton said...

I'm saving up to buy one of Eric Clapton's old guitars.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

See if you can get Mark Knopfler to test it first, see that it's not worn down like that camera.

river tam said...

Actually the collecting impulse - for anything - is about sexual inadequacy. Just kidding. But, you know, about that's what ol' Sigmund would have thought.

Alex said...

Mmm, River Tam, sounds like a nice name. I can just imagine it winding it's way through the wooded Serenity Valley.

But it ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

River,
Well it would explain those big, long telezooms I rarely use.