In fairness to the people who hang out here, most or all of them care about the images they produce, and it's just that - caring - that makes the difference worth paying some attention to.
Of course we care about our images, but the degree to which we "care" is what varies. Some people are sooo focused on absolutely perfect images, and sooo overly concerned about the technical craft of photography, that they forget to
have fun taking pictures
It's like the difference between professional football and enjoying a game of football with your sons or friends: the professionals are so serious about the business of football that it is no longer a fun sport anymore. By contrast, you and your kids can just relax and have a fun game ...
At the end of the day, it's all about money. If I am playing football for millions, and scores of people are watching, I
have to be deadly serious about my business, which means I have to throw the fun out the window. But when I play football recreationally, there is nothing like that distracting me, so we all can actually just have fun
In the same fashion, I do not try to make money with my photos, and I have no intention of doing so, which allows me just to enjoy my camera ... and I wouldn't have it any other way
My biggest ongoing gripe is the myopia that declares (universally it would seem among the "critics") that little cameras should have wide-angle lenses to capture "landscapes". That opinion I think is absurd, but other than the unwashed masses who are buying the superzooms in droves, I've gotten no support on my contention.
Well, you raise a very good point -- here and in the previous posts. A 28 mm lens doesn't do for me what my eyes themselves can't already do for me: see a landscape. If I decide to photograph a landscape, it is merely an attempt to preserve what I see
as I see it (either commercially or for pleasure).
However, with macro and zoom, these tools allow me to see the world
differently. They
amplify my own eyesight, allowing me to see the world more closely and intensely than I ever could without them. I can't stick my eye up to a tiny organism and see it in the same detail as I can with a macro photograph ... and by the same token I can't project my eye up close to a beautiful songbird up on a tree to see it up close either. Therefore, I agree with you, these tools (macro and telephoto) are therefore
the most important tools of the high-end P&S camera to the average person.
This is not to undermine the tremendous work done with landscape and seascape at all. But it is a fact that these kinds of photo merely allow us to preserve what we already can see, as we see it, to where we can transfer the experience to be appreciated by others. Macro and telephoto are greater than this: they enable us a similar transference of experience, yes, but they also
amplify our ability to appreciate the world along with it.
So good point.
.