Saturday, November 16, 2013

Please help. Is a camera, not digital a piece of technology?

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Kavine C


I have a buddy who believes that technology is ruining everything. yet the individual is a photographer. so i want to explain that the camera itself is a piece of technological ingenuity. please help me build a case to explain to this person how contradictory his belief is.
the argument dosen't lie if its new or old technology but if its technology itself. a 100 year old human and a 1 year old human are both still human. even if its not a breakthrough it does not alter the fact of its origin. a piece of technological ingenuity



Answer
Of course today's digital cameras are a piece of "technological ingenuity", and with each year that passes they will become more and more advanced. For example, I think within the next 5 years we will see affordable full frame sensor DSLR's for the masses.

But is this technology "ruining everything".. Hmm, well for photography as an art I believe that the sheer amount of cameras in the world today, plus the popularity of the internet and the ability to view billions of images online, has seriously affected peoples perception of what constitutes a good photo. Today's digital cameras will not last more than a few years before they pack up and die. Even the top of the range DSLR's have a lifespan of 300,000 clicks (yes that's a lot, but it is still a limited lifespan). Plus with every camera bought, it is obsolete in a few months by the next latest and greatest wonder camera. The camera companies love making people think that their perfectly adequate last years model is in some way inferior to this years new release, usually by feeding them the Megapixel Myth.. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

Now I have a collection of MF and 35mm cameras. A couple are from the 1930's and still function as good as the day they rolled off the production line 80 years ago. Many of the cameras in my collection have no electronics, a few do not even need batteries!, so they will continue to function perfectly well beyond even my lifetime... A Canon 450D bought today?... Give it 5 years and it is fit for the bin. Some cheaper P&S digital cameras?, even less than that. So technology is ruining something, it is ruining the environment. The capacitors used in today's digital cameras are extremely polluting both in their manufacture and disposal. Batteries are of course bad for the environment, as are plastics and the production of digital sensors (a high reject rate). Now I'm going to steer away from the environmental part of the issue because to be honest, I don't hold particularly strong views on it.

I have a camera I will use as an example.. I have a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2 medium format camera. Produced in the 1930's, no electronics, just a nice lens and a nice format. The resolution of this camera rivals today's DSLR's, and it costs around £10 from eBay. You select the aperture, you select the shutter speed, you set the focus distance, and you press the shutter release... That's it!... And that's all photography is about!.. All the silly gadgets and gizmos manufacturers are cramming into todays DSLR's are utterly unnecessary to 99% of people buying them. Does somebody who wants to take snaps of their daughter in her school play need 15mp and 10 fps?.. Of course not. Yet consumers are lapping it up every year, selling their DSLR's and buying new ones because they have GPS or an extra MP...

When you consider what photography is actually about it does not matter how it is recorded, whether it is on a camera phone, a pinhole camera, a 35mm rangefinder, a DSLR, or a Hasselblad H4D, the end result is all that matters... But technology is turning people into lazy photographers. People no longer bother or want to learn about exposure, why bother?.. The camera will do a half-assed effort on your behalf.

I've said it before and I will say it again.. Digital is the best AND the worst thing to happen to photography as an art.

.

What is a good quality but not too expensive camera for an aspiring professional photographer?




christian


I currently use Camera Plus and Best Camera on my iphone and several other digital enhancement applications but I'll eventually need something with higher MP.


Answer
Whoa! Slow down, Scooter.

Higher megapixels is the least of your concerns if you want to move from where you are now to taking professional photos. You need to develop your photographic skills. You could jump start it and take courses in photography. In that case, you will buy whatever type camera the course requires. I do not recommend taking a course that requires a film camera because it is likely that it will be the only time you use a film camera. So it's an unwise investment. While there are devotees to that dying technology, there really is no future in it for an aspiring professional photographer.

If you don't care to go the formal education route -- as many photographers -- go to http://dpreview.com for objective reviews of what's out there. In my opinion, the next step from a cell phone camera would be a compact camera. Others will advise you to jump right into the dSLR world. However, they are more expense and complex. Moreover, you probably do not have the photographic skills that would allow you to get maximum benefit from them. That would be the next step when you come to the point where your compact camera no longer fulfills your technical needs.




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