Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: fredjeang on October 13, 2010, 05:44:20 am

Title: Just some thoughts...
Post by: fredjeang on October 13, 2010, 05:44:20 am: I'm amazed how sensitive these forums are on gear.

When you love a particular photographer, you love the result, regardless of the process, brand, and post-prod involved. That should be what drives us but in fact it all became a giant gear-selling-fair.

It generates traffic, but I'm affraid we end stucked on a traffic jam.

Cheers.
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: stamper on October 13, 2010, 05:58:52 am: What we don't know, and it isn't our business, is how many warnings a poster gets behind the scenes by the moderator about their behaviour. How many are stirring the pot? How many are genuinely ignorant and don't realise it? How many are easily riled and react without sleeping on it? How many who like to trade personal insults as a matter of nature? This site is one of the best when it comes to behaviour and I suspect that the behind the scenes moderation is responsible? I have been personally hurt by some posts and no doubt I have offended someone. What we have is a slice of life and we have to accept it or go elsewhere. 8) :-\
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: ced on October 13, 2010, 06:25:44 am: My thoughts are that one should take from the forum (especially this good one) what one needs and all the rest should be left where it is (in the ether).
Smile to yourself about the things that might rile you and if not don't get hot under the collar about trivial matters. :D
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: Graham Mitchell on October 13, 2010, 06:31:48 am: It's just tribalism. It's part of human nature and will never end. You see it in politics, sport, religion, workplaces, schools, etc. It also doesn't help that half of humanity is of below average intelligence ;)
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 13, 2010, 06:39:07 am: Who cares about some stupid photography when we can have gear?
Photography is for wimps, gear is for heroes ...
I think I'll go buy some lenses and mirrors and build me a 5000 mm lens for my Mamiya Press.
I'll have the greatest then and shoot the eyes of flies on the moon ...
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: ondebanks on October 17, 2010, 09:52:30 am: Quote from: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 13, 2010, 06:39:07 am
Who cares about some stupid photography when we can have gear?
Photography is for wimps, gear is for heroes ...
I think I'll go buy some lenses and mirrors and build me a 5000 mm lens for my Mamiya Press.
I'll have the greatest then and shoot the eyes of flies on the moon ...

The thing is, Christopher, that if that is indeed what you want to do - take high resolution photos of small features on the surface of the moon - then you do actually need special gear to do it. And people here, such as myself, would be glad to advise you of what gear would get you towards that goal (lunar rilles, craterlets and peaks - not fly's eyes, obviously!). So in some contexts, you cannot do stupid (or even clever) photography unless you have the right gear. One is not being a "hero" in having this gear, one is merely being equipped for the purpose in hand. It's not about having "the greatest", it's about having the minimum necessary gear to achieve the goal.

I hope I've now used the word gear enough, in a positive light, that you can approach it again without trepidation.

Love the pictures on your website, BTW. All taken with your Mamiya Press? I use a Mamiya Universal Press sometimes.
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 17, 2010, 10:16:44 am: Quote from: ondebanks on October 17, 2010, 09:52:30 am
The thing is, Christopher, that if that is indeed what you want to do - take high resolution photos of small features on the surface of the moon - then you do actually need special gear to do it. And people here, such as myself, would be glad to advise you of what gear would get you towards that goal (lunar rilles, craterlets and peaks - not fly's eyes, obviously!). So in some contexts, you cannot do stupid (or even clever) photography unless you have the right gear. One is not being a "hero" in having this gear, one is merely being equipped for the purpose in hand. It's not about having "the greatest", it's about having the minimum necessary gear to achieve the goal.

I hope I've now used the word gear enough, in a positive light, that you can approach it again without trepidation.

Love the pictures on your website, BTW. All taken with your Mamiya Press? I use a Mamiya Universal Press sometimes.

Of course my post was ironic and exaggerating, and I wish I had the spare money for some better gear too .... (Anyone very rich sponsoring me an Arca F-Line tech camera + lenses?).
But as you said - gear has a purpose, and the OP pointed towards the problem of gear abuse/misuse and the focus of discussions drifting away from the purpose.

I'm glad to read you cared to have a look at my website, which is quite new and the first time I am trying to present my stuff to the public (apart from the user critics here), though I once had an assignment to do the photography for a little rural exhibition about local conservation of historical buildings.
The two old landscape albums (Alps and Tuscany) are taken with the Mamiyosaurus, the new stuff is mostly made with a Canon G11 (some of the new albums are made with a loaned Leica M6).
I have taken great effort to repair and get repaired the Mamiyosaurus and the lenses and I'm proud of this ancient gear (three different bodies and the complete lens line from 50 mm to 250 mm). So I still have to get it back to work these days.
Though sometimes I'm promoting the use of film and especially b/w, but if I were a commercial, mostly non-artistic pro I surely would go fully digital and use the best gear affordable for the job/purpose.....
But its very interesting for me to work with this pesky little Canon G11. Its good within its league and it doesn't stop me from looking and developing my new photographic self.
That said I support what fredjeang was attempting with his initial post.
Generally said: Purpose first, gear second, though I'm well aware, that good gear may help expand and grow as a photographer.
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: paulmoorestudio on October 17, 2010, 11:58:34 am: Quote from: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 13, 2010, 06:39:07 am
Who cares about some stupid photography when we can have gear?
Photography is for wimps, gear is for heroes ...
I think I'll go buy some lenses and mirrors and build me a 5000 mm lens for my Mamiya Press.
I'll have the greatest then and shoot the eyes of flies on the moon ...

mamiya press? diy 5000 mm? come on get out of the walmart mindset.. think swiss or german,
engineering the level of nasa wishes it could attain.. it is all about equipment.. not "gear", not tools but
instruments with which just holding it brings your inner vision into alignment...you don't even have to fire
the shutter because you are one with the camera. now man-up, and be a real photographer, may you one day
attain a 150mm f2.8 xenotar and have it reveal the true meaning of nature as it did me.
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: Ben Rubinstein on October 17, 2010, 12:06:18 pm: Shot today with a lensbaby, it's fun to sometimes just have fun...

(http://forum.getdpi.com/gallery/files/8/9/8/tiferet_yisrael.jpg)
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: eronald on October 17, 2010, 12:13:11 pm: Quote from: fredjeang on October 13, 2010, 05:44:20 am

I'm amazed how sensitive these forums are on gear, and how lack of interest when it comes to other aspects.

I just bought a couple of books on chinese painting, one of which is a translation of the thoughts of an ancient chinese painter about his art, and how he taught it.

This is a place for a discussion on gear. And you know what, I like gear. As a kid I used to collect cameras, then I learnt to use the plate cameras I collected, then I learnt how to repair more modern (30's) kit, then I got some recent cameras, and then suddenly when I was around 40 I got interested in ... images.

I had lunch with a Canon rep a few months ago, and asked him to show me some stuff on my 5D2. He was scandalized I had such an expensive camera (!) and didn't know to use it that well. I was proud that I'd got to that point. :)

Edmund
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: eronald on October 17, 2010, 01:14:28 pm: I seem to have pointed my lens out my window a couple of days ago, between two posts :)

Edmund
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: cyberean on October 18, 2010, 01:53:05 am: Quote from: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 13, 2010, 06:39:07 am
Who cares about some stupid photography when we can have gear?

i love gears ... w/o 'em my
car would go nowhere ...
Title: Re: Just some thoughts...
Post by: Rob C on October 18, 2010, 05:38:11 am: Basically, then, Fred is right.

Rob C