Finding Some Harmony……
I get emails…… Whenever I do a few days of gear entries I get two kinds of emails, “l love it, do more!!!!” and “I’m sick of gear blog entries!” It’s o.k., no hard feelings, I understand, some folks love to talk gear, others don’t, I take no offense! I write articles about gear, because; ( a.) it’s my blog, and ( b. ) I do like to talk gear, I’ve been doing it for a long, long time! I do however agree with the statement in one email I got, the person quoted, “How much of difference does it make anyway!!!???” Truthfully, very little! I’m shooting my best images in 45 years, but I could just as well be shooting them with a Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, Leica, etc, etc,! I just like what I’m shooting now, that’s all….
We need cameras to make photographs, though art work in the form of images can be made with other devices. Lynn Rogers makes wonderful images with a flatbed scanner. It is however impossible to image everything with a scanner! Yes cameras matter, and lenses and tripods and accessories, but not as much as you might think. When I lecture I love to share an image and shock people with the technical details of t he image!
This image which I’m very happy with in all technical terms, was made with a Nikon P5000 Coolpix camera, a sub $500. point an shoot. I’m fond of saying treat any camera like a “real” camera and it will give “real” results!
I think what I’m saying is that what Rod Planck said many years ago still holds true today, “Technique trumps equipment every time!” So on that point I can fully agree with the gear heads and the don’t care for gear talk folks, in a sense you’re both right! Whatever you use, use it to full advantage, have fun, and enjoy the craft!
Blessings,
the pilgrim
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2014 at 5:28 pm
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Great post bill. It’s a realisation I have come to fairly recently. I decided I wanted a cheaper backup camera and something I can keep with me more or less at all times. I ended up with a 2006 nikon d200. It has made me realise you really don’t need the latest and greatest. If you don’t pixel peep, and use low ISO you’d be hard pushed to tell if it was taken on the d200 my much newer d7000, or even a brand new d600. Gears great. But we don’t need the best. Just a a moderately decent setup.
Dan, words of wisdom, I love the D200, and you’ve given me an opportunity to gloat, something I rarely do, but I’m proud of this story!!!
When we (the NPS reps) first saw the D200 it was at a show in New York or Las Vegas, can’t remember which, but anyway, we had to promise to not tell what we had seen, because the camera had not been officially released. We all were very excited! As we left the room the person that made the presentation, he will remain un-named, (but he is a high ranking product guy at Nikon) stopped me and said could you wait with me a minute. Everyone else left and he said “how do you like your camera?” I said it is just what we need, but he repeated rather pointedly, “How do you like “your” camera?” I said I don’t understand? He said I suggested to the Japanese that they call it the BF/D200. He went on to explain that a white paper I had written to the engineers, requested by them from all of us specified virtually exactly what they ended up building (features and specs). He said they built the camera you asked for!!! I always was partial to that camera, of course the D300 was much better and every model since has improved on that first D200, but it still does have a special place in my heart. By the way the Japanese laughed at he idea of putting my initials in the name, as well they should have!!! Wish I still had one!
Great story!
Bill, that’s such a great story! First time I’ve heard it. Wish they had included the BF. Now, if you could just convince Epson to create a scanner with greater depth of field and manual auto focus, I’d really be impressed.
Fat chance of that, but thanks for even thinking I might be able to! Can’t wait to learn Scanography from you!!!!
Bill, thank you very much for the sweet compliments.
Nope, deserved!