Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 16:44:58 -0400
From: "Shawn K." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I said:
>"I was watching a rich suburban mom shooting pictures of her son's team
>at
>a high school track meet today. She was using A Nikon D2h and 300/2.8
>with a 1.4 converter--about $8000 worth of equipment and better than what
>I as a pro was carrying. Watching what she was shooting I'm convinced
>she
>got a lot of dull, stunningly sharp pictures ("here's Jake before his
>race"...). That is probably exactly what she wanted and was aspiring to.
>This sort of thing is only annoying because of what I could have done
>with that same equipment..."
to which Shawn said:
>This is an interesting attitude, because in the beginning part of your
>post
>you mention how no one cares about quality anymore, and its depressing to
>see third party zooms attached to expensive 1,000+ bodies. Well here we
>have the very scenario you apparently wish for and now that annoys you.
Not quite. Shel said "garbage in, garbage out" -bad gear has killed
great photography. I'm normally the gear-nut, but my point was that
even somebody with the best possible gear was producing what appeared to
be mediocre photography, and was presumably satisfied by her results.
Photography is simply becoming less elitist in its uses as more
gear becomes affordable to more people.
>personally think it's nice that a suburban mom spends her money on such
>quality equipment, and that she cares enough about her son to want the
>very best pictures possible of him...
Bravo mom, yes, but the frustration is that photographer skill is usually
much more important than equipment quality in producing quality images.
If the goal is more close-up, focused pictures then the gear helps and is
of service to tyros. Cameras, and computers, are slowly getting to the
point where they DO help unskilled people produce better results, but not
nearly as fast as the ad campaigns would have you believe. Both still
take skill to get good results.
If the goal is actually a couple of great photos of her kid, $8000 would
buy a certain amount of time from a skilled photographer.
Yes, this is less satisfying than doing it yourself, but I sort of resent
the idea that all it takes to make pro-quality photos is a pro-quality
camera. Certainly people wouldn't extend this idea to many other
professions. Give me the best tools in the world and I still couldn't
make any sense of my Ford Escort.
The sad-and-funny reaction to guys who put a $300 lens on a $1000 camera
is that most serious photographers would do better with a $1000 lens on
a $300 camera. Most of them would do better with a $300 lens on a $300
camera than some putz with money does with a $1000 lens on a $1000 camera,
except at some optical-quality level.
>Also, all this ruckus about AF is rather old news as well. Ditching a
>system because they don't have one particular AF lens you want is
>idiotic.
Not if your income or enjoyment of photography depends on it it is not.
The guys who are complaining that Pentax does not make a particular 600mm
lens or a 10MP DSLR are not the average amateur.
DJE
