It occurs to me that I might explain why I take the position I do about
the idea that equipment can make you a better photographer.
Better equipment will allow you to express the better photographer
within you more easily, but won't by itself make you a better
photographer. To me "better equipment" means using a hammer when you
want to drive nails instead of trying to bang them in with a pair of 9"
Klein side-cutters.
Anyway.
Before I came to PDML, I participated in USENET discussions. In one of
the groups I subscribed to there was a "photographer", for want of a
better word, whose online persona helped me to form my point of view. I
will not name him - although if there are any former USENET denizens
here, they may recognize who I'm writing about.
This photographer's entire online persona consisted of boasting about
how great a photographer he was and denigrating how execrable the rest
of us were.
But what, you might ask, was the basis for his claim to superiority?
Simply this ... as soon as Canon announced any new camera, new lens, new
doodad of any kind, he was the first to acquire it. Having the latest
and greatest from Canon made him the greatest photographer in the world.
His better equipment *made* him the better photographer.
He was always going on about how his new Canon camera could do this for
him and do that for him and how the rest of us were a bunch of
illiterate Luddites because we failed to acknowledge his superior wisdom
& imitate him in availing ourselves of Canon's latest
do-everything-for-you technology.
I once asked, "If your camera is so great and automatically does
everything, why does the camera even need you?"
Never got an answer to that one.
But, he always had the latest and greatest, best equipment, so that
*made* him a better photographer. As to just how good a photographer he
really was ...
I think that if he were to ever take his head out of the dark and stinky
place he kept it in, so that he could actually look through the
viewfinder; and if he were then to really apply himself ...
In about 10 years or so he might be almost as good as Kenny Boy.
It's also why if I ever find myself "orphaned" by Pentax, I'll switch to
Nikon, and not to Canon.
-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1435/3413 - Release Date: 01/30/11
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
