Or rather his advice, not the man himself of course
I'm relatively new to the hobby/enthusiast aspect of photography and am in the market for a new DSLR setup. While searching for lens reviews I found Ken Rockwell's website and read through his articles for about 2 hours.
I don't want to sound like I'm discrediting his advice--surely he knows better than I do about just about everything related to photography. I've only been shooting casually for around 3 years with no formal classes or instruction. I'm pretty much bottom of the barrel. I haven't used more than one set-up, nor have I experience with film nor micro 4/3 cameras. Nada.
In contrast with his (IMO) helpful lens reviews, I found his general advice a bit...hmm, head-strong? I know advice is technically a form of opinion but I mean to say that some of it came off as if he were suggesting what he was saying is a fact and not a subjective observation.
For instance that (and I'm paraphrasing of course): 1) ISO and megapixels are merely marketing ploys. 2) That all lenses are sharp, moreso than one could ever appreciate or need unless you're a lens manufacturer yourself. 3) That something like a D3100 body and 4) plastic 18-55mm lens is all you really need-- and when you buy a D7000 you're [some say needlessly] spending hundreds of extra dollars on more buttons that make it easier to shoot, but there's no increase in actual quality.
I don't have the experience to discredit any of those claims. For all I know the man is a prophet of photography and many of us are wasting hundreds or rarely thousands of dollars. Are we?
The only thing I can really comment on is lens sharpness since pretty much the only thing I've been doing with my Sigma SD14 and Sigma macro lenses for the past 3 years is macro photography. At this point I'm one of those crazy OCD lens sharpness people--but I just don't speak up very often due to being so new. I actually bought the Sigma body specifically because of the unique color&texture capture abilities of the sensor which the common mosaic style sensors tend to fall short on. I spent many many hours taking the same shots on numerous macro lenses and found that all lenses are most certainly not created equal sharpness wise--nor color nor bokeh nor AF nor chromatic aberration wise. Or rather not that they're equal, but that they're all sharp enough that the small differences don't practically matter. I just plain disagree.
Those of you who have been around the block, can you please comment? Or those who use really high end gear in professional work? Does your perspective on photography match Mr. Rockwell's entirely, in part, or not at all?
