Love Affair with Photography: Part 2

So what camera to get? There are some that are quite expensive but even as a working man I can afford them, if I really, really want to, most anything within reason. I heard a salesman for Sage fly rods once say, “people cannot always afford the best, the best cars, the best houses are out of reach, but the best fly rod is within reach financially, and if you can afford the very best… why shouldn’t you own it”?

Obviously he was a salesman, and a good one.
He has a point though. The problem is of course there is no one camera that has everything and does everything. It is like buying the perfect do-everything boat or the perfect one car, they don’t exist, there are always compromises and which compromises does a person throw into the basket for buying?

Clearly, each person’s needs vary and oftentimes it is very hard to be honest with yourself about what you actually do. People want huge resolution thinking they will blow up photos for gigantic enlargements when they never actually do it. They think they need a professional machine when they are a part-time hobbyist at most. They discount things like weight and ease of use.

There are a couple things I have learned through years of use though. Number one, it is important to go fast and light. This is generally always a good idea whether packing a suitcase, setting up a business or whatever. The huge camera and the heavy case full of expensive lenses and the tripod and all, seldom gets taken. One reason is the sheer weight and clumsiness, the other is the cost if there is a screw up. I constantly hear Canon owners, and Nikon too, say they “bought into a system” and they have so much money tied up in all their gear, they are locked into that brand for the rest of their lives. This seems bizarre to me.
Coming in at number two, and tied to this, is to have something to use that is not your entire life’s savings. Addicts in Bangkok and Mexico, and drug infested places like downtown Everett, know how much they can get for your precious Canon gear too. So if you are afraid to carry it because it is too heavy, or too precious, it is very close to useless. It is kind of like that white couch your mother had in the “good living room” with the throw cover, that people could only sit on during Christmas Eve.

Some people take the response that if your photo is not in RAW and everything is super professional you will have the photo opportunity of a lifetime and not capture it correctly. I take the tact that if you have to do all that goodness, you will miss most of the photo opportunities that come your way, and if it really rocks, it will get published anyway. I was always told to take your camera wherever you go. Being in the Pacific Northwest weatherproofing also comes to mind.

Thirdly, is that LCD screen in back. After fiddling with a variety of them I think they are a must have for crowds and un-posed people pictures. Most of the top end cameras don’t have them. This lets you take pictures without getting up into people’s faces and being obvious about what is going on. Similar to the effect created with the old Hasselblad viewfinder this feature is a must have in my opinion.

The first digital I bought was a Nikon 950 and it ran $1000, which was pretty high. People at the time said I should have waited for prices to come down. This is one of the main bug-a-boos for digitals, whatever you get will be upgraded in one year or so. This is another reason to shy away from the top of the line full frame digital 35mm right now. The old film cameras moved slowly on innovations, the new digitals move rapidly. The time saved in the darkroom needs to be spent on staying on top of the latest technology.

Love affair with Photography: part 1

Cameras are important to me; photography has been an important part of my life and a lifelong hobby.

I remember my first camera I bought when I was in grade school, it was all plastic, in a plastic bag and cost exactly $1.00. It was a 120 roll film camera and I still have some of the photos I took. Next, was a Kodak Instamatic I received for Christmas, with the flash cubes, and I went on through the Polaroids, 35 mm SLR’s, my own darkroom, and into the present digitals. Right now I have approximately ten cameras (more or less), although I usually only use three or four of them.

Through the years I have in my opinion taken some pretty darn good photos. Some people have suggested I should do it for a living but that hasn’t really lured me yet and the more I learn about the professional aspects of photography the more I wonder if I would like it as a job. I think sometimes things you love doing as a hobby like fly fishing, when turned into the drudgery of daily income generation, somehow filters out the joy. I have worked things like weddings, and taking pictures of people’s children, and there is the pressure of not capturing the “most important moment” of someone’s life.

Digital cameras really rock, they have solved the biggest problem and expense of photography…dealing with film. Film isn’t just very expensive, it is also hard to deal with in comparison, and time consuming, and lastly it uses dangerous and polluting chemicals. I used to “bracket” exposures because if you had an important shot, or something that you really wanted to capture, then it was important to get the exposure down. Oftentimes it was unclear what you would really end up with. Now bracketing is cheap and easy, and mistakes can just be deleted. In addition, programs like Photoshop can be used to edit and do the “darkroom” stuff on photos.
So now a person can just shoot and shoot and it costs virtually nothing. There is some talk about what the ethics of photography currently are as far as what is the original image, and what is altered and changed digitally. Edward Weston used to feel there should be no image manipulation at all, even enlargement, and he contact printed his 8”x12” negatives with a lightbulb in his little shack in Carmel.

There are currently so many ways to manipulate digital images it is very hard to tell what is original and real, and what is not.

But images in general are easier than ever to record. Many cameras now are weatherproof and even water pressure proof for very inexpensive prices. The options are endless for today’s photographers. People today can even use film if they really want to be old school and film cameras now are super cheap.

So the question is…with all the choices what is the best camera to have?