Do SLR's put you "on the radar"?

Arcturus · Oct 3, 2013

I noticed something unusual today. Someone gave me a very nice Nikon n90s + lenses for free so I took it out for a try around town. Now I usually shoot 6x6 folders or small 35mm rangefinders so most people don't even notice my camera. I'm usually as invisible as someone taking pictures with their cellphone. But once I started shooting the big Nikon I noticed that I was getting a lot of looks from other people taking pictures. It was making me uncomfortable with so many people checking out my camera, some people were even watching to see what I was taking pictures of with such a camera. I didn't know if they were judging me or just curious. It does look a lot like a modern DSLR and has a somewhat "professional" look to it I guess, I don't know if that had something to do with it. Never have I experienced this with my usual smaller, older cameras. Does anyone else get this with SLR's?

RattyMouse · Oct 3, 2013

Arcturus said:
I noticed something unusual today. Someone gave me a very nice Nikon n90s + lenses for free so I took it out for a try around town. Now I usually shoot 6x6 folders or small 35mm rangefinders so most people don't even notice my camera. I'm usually as invisible as someone taking pictures with their cellphone. But once I started shooting the big Nikon I noticed that I was getting a lot of looks from other people taking pictures. It was making me uncomfortable with so many people checking out my camera, some people were even watching to see what I was taking pictures of with such a camera. I didn't know if they were judging me or just curious. It does look a lot like a modern DSLR and has a somewhat "professional" look to it I guess, I don't know if that had something to do with it. Never have I experienced this with my usual smaller, older cameras. Does anyone else get this with SLR's?

Nope. I never get looks like that.

Nathan King · Oct 3, 2013

This happens to me every time I take out my medium format SLR gear. Everybody suddenly stares at the camera and where it's pointed as if they're expecting to see a world class image.

I think people are curious since that is something most people rarely or never see.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

munz6869 · Oct 3, 2013

I reckon SLR's are the MOST invisible of any cameras I use - everyone has one and so no-one pays them any regard. Big wooden & brass cameras - that's a whole other story...

Marc!

Fixcinater · Oct 3, 2013

Did the N90s come with this lens? I can see that being an attention grabber...

Nikkor 300/2

Red Tractors · Oct 3, 2013

I find that my Film EOS cameras get funny looks while the K1000's go unnoticed.

Aristotle80 · Oct 3, 2013

My TLRs and 6x9 folders get a lot more attention than my SLRs. Having said that, I will say that something else happens when I use my SLR. So many SLRs are digital now people ask me if they can look at the picture on the screen. Or they'll ask me to "delete" a posed picture they didn't think went well. When I tell them there is no screen and no delete they express surprise or disappointment that it's a film camera. This only happens when I use the N2000, which doesn't have a winding lever. That sort of thing doesn't happen with most of my cameras, just the plastic shelled SLR.

j-dogg · Oct 3, 2013

I brought my 5x7 view camera out to just show it off to a client and ended up lecturing a group of kindergartners on how it works, per request of their teacher.

They seemed real interested in something that old that does the same thing Mommy's Iphone does.

marenmcgowan · Oct 3, 2013

I get more looks when I shoot my medium format cameras... I really get a lot of varied reactions when I load film.

summicron1 · Oct 3, 2013

large digital slrs have pretty much destroyed the concept of "candid photography" in the news business. Bring out one of those monsters and people automatically perform.

Decades ago the dictum of LIFE photographers was that you had to become invisible -- and with a small Leica or Nikon, both very quiet, you could. It is impossible to do so with a massive lensed DSLR, or even a film SLR, and while they do get a lot of different shots than you can with a small rangefinder, the is an intimacy that is lost. LIFE's brilliant photo story by W. Eugene Smith about a day in the life of a country doctor would have been impossible, or at least a lot harder, to shoot by a photographer loaded down with the usual couple of hulking giant lensed cameras.

Of course, very few photographers today are W. Eugene Smith, too. I keep saying, great photography is 5 percent what yu shoot with, 95 percent you.

http://life.time.com/history/life-classic-eugene-smiths-country-doctor/#1

how much you? The article says that Smith spent several days with the doctor taking pictures with no film in the camera so the doctor could get used to Smith, and he spent several weeks on this one assignment. There is no news publication in the country today that would spend that kind of staff time/money. Maybe a freelancer could do it, I dunno. And then nobody publishes that sort of photo essay any more either, so what does it matter?

hdeyong · Oct 4, 2013

Summicron, thanks for that link, it is incredible.
I'm starting to buy a photo collection book now and then, and Smith is on the short list.
Back on subject, I find a largish SLR will attract attention depending on where you are. In touristy areas, usually not, in small quiet towns where you're a stranger, you bet. Then, the excellent little Rollei B35 does it's stuff.

summicron1 · Oct 4, 2013

a news photographer in Iraq was killed by an Apache helicopter pilot because his long lensed DSLR looked, via targeting camera, like a bazooka or RPG.

"Shoulda used a Leica M3" was my first thought.

RalphLambrecht · Oct 4, 2013

I took my NikonD800 into town and one enthusiast wasasking me if I can still get fil,m for it.Itold him "on and off if you're lucky".

mr rusty · Oct 4, 2013

I really get a lot of varied reactions when I load film.

My wife told me off when I was loading my Mamiya 645 with my back to a nearby group of people at a tourist spot because she said me winding the handle with my back to the people when they couldn't see the camera looked odd!!

Helinophoto · Oct 4, 2013

I mostly shoot with dslr's/slr cameras (Canon 1ds mk II, Canon 1v, 5d mk III with battery grip), never felt any special attention, except from the times I use my white lenses on them. (canon 70-200 f2.8 L mostly).

However, I've been on two outings with my Rolleiflex'es in the city.
- Both times I either got loooong looks/stares or had to start lecturing people about what this actually was.

The most discrete you can use now-days, is a small DSLR/SLR or a black compact, they are everywhere.

Jeff Kubach · Oct 4, 2013

I get attention when I use my RB67.

Jeff

BMbikerider · Oct 4, 2013

In UK there has been a certain amount of unwanted attention attracted by 'real' cameras including film and digital SLR's. Some people who don't know any better automatically assume that you are either press or someone with a tendancy towards taking images of children to post on the web for pedophiles to savour, or on the other hand you are somehow connected with a terrorist organisation gathering information for the next attack. (It has never actually happened to me)

Both way, way, over the top in their assumptions, it is just plain unconnected thinking 'cos a camera-phone would be a far more effective tool and attract less attention

LightBurn Photo · Oct 4, 2013

ahha) I do get looks, but mainly coz of the unusual skin colour of my cameras!

Roger Cole · Oct 4, 2013

Helinophoto said:
I mostly shoot with dslr's/slr cameras (Canon 1ds mk II, Canon 1v, 5d mk III with battery grip), never felt any special attention, except from the times I use my white lenses on them. (canon 70-200 f2.8 L mostly).

However, I've been on two outings with my Rolleiflex'es in the city.
- Both times I either got loooong looks/stares or had to start lecturing people about what this actually was.

The most discrete you can use now-days, is a small DSLR/SLR or a black compact, they are everywhere.

Humm, I'm mostly ignored with either 35mm or my M645. The Yaschicamat 124 gets admiring looks and comments, but I've never had to lecture anyone on what it is. They all know it's a camera, and an old one, though those who stop to talk are surprised when I say you could get one almost just like it except more black, less chrome and a few different internal gears, brand new into the 90s.

mauro35 · Oct 4, 2013

I usually take photos with my EOS film camera in scarsely populated ares, which in Finland are not so difficult to find after all. Sometimes I do get strange looks from squirrels and hares though...

MartinCrabtree · Oct 4, 2013

summicron1 said:
a news photographer in Iraq was killed by an Apache helicopter pilot because his long lensed DSLR looked, via targeting camera, like a bazooka or RPG.

"Shoulda used a Leica M3" was my first thought.

Got a source for that item?

I usually get some looks when I wander around with the F5.

Arcturus · Oct 4, 2013

I've had the opposite reaction it seems with TLR's. I've never had a second glance using my Mamiya C330, and nobody has ever asked me about it. Maybe it's just this city, the weirder something is the harder people try to ignore you. With the plastic SLR though I felt I was in the gear game again. Like other SLR/DSLR shooters were checking it out to either scoff at or envy the gear, depending on which lens I had attached.

E. von Hoegh · Oct 4, 2013

Arcturus said:
I noticed something unusual today. Someone gave me a very nice Nikon n90s + lenses for free so I took it out for a try around town. Now I usually shoot 6x6 folders or small 35mm rangefinders so most people don't even notice my camera. I'm usually as invisible as someone taking pictures with their cellphone. But once I started shooting the big Nikon I noticed that I was getting a lot of looks from other people taking pictures. It was making me uncomfortable with so many people checking out my camera, some people were even watching to see what I was taking pictures of with such a camera. I didn't know if they were judging me or just curious. It does look a lot like a modern DSLR and has a somewhat "professional" look to it I guess, I don't know if that had something to do with it. Never have I experienced this with my usual smaller, older cameras. Does anyone else get this with SLR's?

Very rarely, but then I use 60s Nikons with primes, no zooms. Now if you want attention, get out there with a mahogany 8x10 on a big tripod.

removed-user-1 · Oct 4, 2013

MartinCrabtree said:
Got a source for that item?

This is probably the incident referred to: Reuters.com.

Xmas · Oct 4, 2013

A Leica M or Canon P looks just like a Fuji x100 so nobody pays much attention.

Now an RB67 gets comments.

Do SLR's put you "on the radar"?

removed-user-1

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