I keep on hearing this bogus logic. Just because a camera is slow does not make for more thoughtful images.
You can contemplate and take your time with any camera. Actually I would say that the more functionality the camera has the more time and effort you can dedicate to the subject and hat you want to do with it.
If a camera dictates how much though one puts into an image ... well you have a problem that has nothing to do with your gear.
Last night with to the Sunset Music Festival. I am understating it when say there were 10,000 people in the crowd taking pictures with I phones.
I even shot one, (god help me)., though 99.99999999999% were all crappy pictures and video, but pictures none the less that will be published on the web the next day or even faster.
In the crowd I saw about 5 professional cameras, probably freelance stringers covering it on semi assignment.
Now I'm not saying a camera makes a photographer, but the real problem with the make a living at photography business today isn't digital, isn't the web, isn't the format. It's the fact that they're are twenty gazillion photos taken and instagramed every hour to the point the world is going visually blind and in capitalism if there is way too much of anything in the market place, whether it's good or bad, the overall price of that segment goes down, because a photograph is not as unique and precious as it once was.
I know of a young photographer that just got a major national gig shooting with an iphone and instagraming them, because the photographer get's a lot of hits on facebook. Now this isn't the norm but when you walk onto a sound stage to shoot a professional gig, there should be more investment than your plastic phone and your ability to push a button.
To shoot a good photograph, much less a very good photograph takes investment in time, learning and yes usually some equipment, so my point is I'm not advocating any camera or brand, because I could care less what anyone uses. My point is just shooting pictures to shoot pictures doesn't go very far and if you have a camera that will shoot 6fps, I can promise you, even in commercial work due to the economic pressures, you'll now and then shoot 6fps. Sometimes that's good. Usually that's bad.
I'm also not advocating $50,000 still cameras. Not any more because I think those days are over. Heck I think those days are over even for hollywood motion picture cameras, but I've found the broad strokes are easy, the fine, studied detail of what makes a good photograph are much harder.
But back to my original post. I'm not saying to run out and buy a hasselblad or Pentax, but given what they cost just a few years ago, $13,000 is a steal and I'd rather spend 12 to 13k on a camera that I will probably use for 5 to 10 years than one I'll use for 2 to 3.
I'm also not saying that if everyone in the crowd last night was shooting an old film camera that the photos would be better, but let's face it, they're wouldn't have been 10,000 bad photographs shot of the event from the same angle and published for the world to see.
But like it or not, some cameras make you think more than others.
Shoot 8x10 film and you'll really think about every detail. Shoot medium format with a computer as a ground glass and a tilt shift lens and you'll think about the image in ways, that click, click, click doesn't allow.
I've used the same Contax system for about 7 years, probably will for another 7 and unless somebody comes up with something I just can't do without. My dslrs I generally use for commerce . . . the day I buy them I am thinking about selling them.
IMO
BC