Equipment Accumulation vs. Using Equipment

JohnArs · Nov 14, 2009

I am happy with what I have, I don't 'want' or need anything else"?

You can't get to this point bevor you have an 8x10 inch camera!
When you have your first 8x10 you really know I'm there!
Since I have the 8x10 I started to sell more then I buy!
So in my world it was the cure for the buying syndrom!

Hope it works also for you, Armin

Sirius Glass · Nov 14, 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by benjiboy (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
So what do you do when you have a house full of the best and most expensive equipment that money can buy, and you still feel you're pictures are crap ?

Choose one: one camera, one lens, one film, one developer. Then start reading books on composition. Use the light meter in a consistent way. Take a course or two on composition and/or elements of art.

Mike1234 said:
You can't be Sirius, Steve.

I am. I did not say get rid of the equipment. Just concentrate on the one's if you are having the problems that benjiboy is talking about.

I do not have those problems, so I use all my toys.

Siriusly,
Steve

Q.G. · Nov 14, 2009

Having more than you need is called "luxury".

There's nothing wrong with that, unless it gets in the way of feeding your kids or providing the necessary health care to your ailing parents.

If you find you're not just not needing the stuff, but also do not want the stuff, just get rid of it.

Where's the problem?

EASmithV · Nov 14, 2009

Ever tried large format?

Steve Smith · Nov 15, 2009

benjiboy said:
So what do you do when you have a house full of the best and most expensive equipment that money can buy, and you still feel you're pictures are crap ?

Take up painting!

Steve.

benjiboy · Nov 15, 2009

Steve Smith said:
Take up painting!

Steve.

Then the OP would be worried if he had enough of the right sort of brushes, and if they were of a sufficient quality to meet his "Vision",

Q.G. · Nov 15, 2009

benjiboy said:
Then the OP would be worried if he had enough of the right sort of brushes, and if they were of a sufficient quality to meet his "Vision",

Nothing wrong with that.

And perhaps it turns out the OP is the best painter the world has even seen.

So why not?

PVia · Nov 15, 2009

benjiboy said:
So what do you do when you have a house full of the best and most expensive equipment that money can buy, and you still feel you're pictures are crap ?

That's when you finally realize that it's not about equipment.

Q.G. · Nov 15, 2009

That's when you realize you are not quite clear about what to do with the equipment, even though you know you couldn't do anything without it.

PVia · Nov 15, 2009

Load film, choose lens, aim camera, focus, click!

If you don't like the photo, guess what? Couldn't be easier...

Sirius Glass · Nov 15, 2009

benjiboy said:
So what do you do when you have a house full of the best and most expensive equipment that money can buy, and you still feel you're pictures are crap ?

Stop taking photographs, go to the bar and tell everyone about the shots that got away.

Steve

2F/2F · Nov 15, 2009

I love old cameras. I love having many cameras. I love the collection aspect as well as the use aspect.

However, I am also very clear about what is truly important in the type of pictures that I most like to produce. If I had to just have one camera and one lens...as much as I love and adore everything else, I would have to pick my favorite Canon F-1 body and the 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. It would be hard to not have a view camera...but honestly, what I see as my "best work" would not be possible to shoot without 35mm and a fast lens. This is the setup that would allow to to keep working in the way that I most prefer to work.

removed-user-1 · Nov 17, 2009

Jeremy said:
This is the root of how I cringe when people say I must have a really great camera to make such-and-such picture because to the average consumer (and photographer nowadays, imo) the talent lies with the machine and not the operator.

Thank you for putting that so well! This is one reason I prefer shooting with purely mechanical cameras now, instead of AF/AE/digital. Once somebody knows that my camera (RB67 most of the time) has no automation, they know that I made the photograph.

Edit: I sort of forgot to answer the original question. Over the years I've gone back and forth from lots of gear to very little a couple times. My best work has been the images I made with manual medium format cameras and a minimal selection of lenses ranging from 60mm to 150mm.

When people ask why I prefer using the RB, I explain that it's because it forces me to work harder, but that's not quite the truth. It forces me to pay attention to the image I'm trying to make. This is a bit counter-intuitive; I mean, the conventional wisdom is that using an automatic camera, or having a wide range of focal lengths, frees up the photographer to work on composition... but I like reducing things to their simplest elements, including my selection of camera equipment. I just need one more lens and one more back for the RB.

Q.G. · Nov 18, 2009

rthomas said:
This is a bit counter-intuitive; I mean, the conventional wisdom is that using an automatic camera, or having a wide range of focal lengths, frees up the photographer to work on composition... but I like reducing things to their simplest elements, including my selection of camera equipment. I just need one more lens and one more back for the RB.

Indeed.
All too many people do not know how simple using a camera, photography, is. Just three technical parameters. The only thing more is not about how, but about what to do.

This simplicity is obscured by 'modes', offering to do for us what we can do ourselves without any difficulty. And when these modes are concerned, manufacturers suggest to the unknowing consumer that we cannot have enough. The more the merrier.

As a result, using an automatic camera does not free us up to do anything.
It just distracts us from what we should be doing, makes us think about what these 'modes' are doing, and how to coerce them into doing what we, not they, want.
Or makes us use the "off"-button, of course. If there is one.

So if you really think you have too many cameras, throw out anything that is 'automatic'. You will not miss it.
(And - linking this to a thread in the 35 m forum - throw out anything that takes 35 mm film. That's just not good enough. )

eddym · Nov 18, 2009

Q.G. said:
Indeed.
All too many people do not know how simple using a camera, photography, is. Just three technical parameters. The only thing more is not about how, but about what to do.

This simplicity is obscured by 'modes', offering to do for us what we can do ourselves without any difficulty. And when these modes are concerned, manufacturers suggest to the unknowing consumer that we cannot have enough. The more the merrier.

As a result, using an automatic camera does not free us up to do anything.
It just distracts us from what we should be doing, makes us think about what these 'modes' are doing, and how to coerce them into doing what we, not they, want.
Or makes us use the "off"-button, of course. If there is one.

So if you really think you have too many cameras, throw out anything that is 'automatic'. You will not miss it.
(And - linking this to a thread in the 35 m forum - throw out anything that takes 35 mm film. That's just not good enough. )

You're right! All those "modes" really put me in a bad "mood"!

removed-user-1 · Nov 18, 2009

Q.G. said:
This simplicity is obscured by 'modes', offering to do for us what we can do ourselves without any difficulty. And when these modes are concerned, manufacturers suggest to the unknowing consumer that we cannot have enough. The more the merrier.

I have a classic example. One of the many things I did to support myself in college was posing as a model for the painting classes. Several of the student artists asked me for advice about portrait photography (I was the school paper's photo editor). I once got into an argument with a student who insisted that the Minolta 35mm AF cameras of the day, with their "portrait cards," were capable of things that no other camera could do when photographing people...

Steve Smith · Nov 18, 2009

rthomas said:
I once got into an argument with a student who insisted that the Minolta 35mm AF cameras of the day, with their "portrait cards," were capable of things that no other camera could do when photographing people...

I have had similar arguments. Once you get to releasing the shutter, there can only be one aperture setting and one shutter speed. There is nothing magic that the camera can add.

Steve.

Aurum · Nov 22, 2009

I take the view that if you need to read a manual, to operate any piece of consumer equipment in its basic standard mode, whoever designed it is an absolute failure, and needs to be fired.
I see this a lot of the time with electrical equipment. Press this combination of buttons? WTF?
No!!!! Make it plain, Make it simple and MAKE IT OBVIOUS!

I mean how many people need an instruction manual to use a bottle of Shampoo?

Fireguy2002 · Nov 22, 2009

DOS...Fail

Mike1234 · Nov 22, 2009

Aurum said:
Make it simple and MAKE IT OBVIOUS!

I mean how many people need an instruction manual to use a bottle of Shampoo?

But every bottle of shampoo DOES have instructions.

benjiboy · Nov 25, 2009

Aurum said:
I take the view that if you need to read a manual, to operate any piece of consumer equipment in its basic standard mode, whoever designed it is an absolute failure, and needs to be fired.
I see this a lot of the time with electrical equipment. Press this combination of buttons? WTF?
No!!!! Make it plain, Make it simple and MAKE IT OBVIOUS!

I mean how many people need an instruction manual to use a bottle of Shampoo?

Customers used to buy tripods in my shop, and bring them back later complaining that there were no instructions in the box :rolleyes:

Thomas Bertilsson · Nov 25, 2009

Back to OP. Buy, own, and use as many cameras as you think you'll need.

However, my personal opinion is that I don't understand the 'a perfect camera for every circumstance' situation. I own four cameras that I use, a Hasselblad 500, a Pentax 35mm, a ZeroImage pinhole, and a Holga. Out of the subject matter I shoot, which includes architecture, portraits, figure work, landscapes, waterscapes, abstracts, still life, vintage cars and airplanes, and whatever else strikes my fancy, I haven't felt like I need anything else for a good long while now.

Now I feel as strongly about using the bare minimum as others feel about having the perfect setup for various situations and subject matter, so it boils down to being a deeply personal choice.

Figure out what cameras you use and keep those. Sell the rest, or give them to somebody that can't afford one but would like to use one.

I really think we have to look within and decide for ourselves what it is we want from our passion or the living we make from photography. How many 35mm cameras do you need and why? Don't they all do something very similar? Like open a shutter in the lens to let light through at a predetermined lens opening for a predetermined duration of time... I understand about automatic features. So if you have one whizzbango that can autofocus and the full bit, and one for precise manual focusing - what else do you need from a 35mm camera? I'd like to know, because I don't understand. I am dumbfounded by the question.

Good luck with your quest.

Andrew Moxom · Nov 25, 2009

I see many different views except what I think is the most important... Buy the equipment that helps you achieve/express/reach your true vision and that can deliver the photographic message you are trying to convey, without getting in the way..... Sometimes that requires some experimentation, and purchases that might be considered needless purchases before you get what you are after. That said, once you get what you are after, run with it and get the experience under your belt. Learn all the aspects of your gear, it's limits, things it does or doesn't do well to a point where it is intuitive. For me, I have been through enough gear along the way, just like many people. However, I have found my comfort zone equipment wise and I am working with it. Have I been sidetracked by equpiment, sure, but I've learned that it's the nut behind the wheel where most of the influence on image outcome comes from, not the equipment. Get what you need to convey your vision, and focus on that. If your vision changes along the way, which it will likely do as you grow as an artist, that might mean an additional piece of equipment to allow that to germinate, it might not. I don't have anywhere near as much G.A.S. as I used to equipment wise. I believe that's due to me being more in tune with the equipment I have and the images I am trying to convey. I don't get too bored easily and am not looking for the next upgrade whizz bang feature to try to buy better images. It all comes from within. I would choose shooting film over buying more gear any day of the week. It's okay to have many equipment options, the excpetion to that would be when there are too many choices. I find, the more equipment options I take with me into the field, the more distracting it is to get images I want to create, and can be more of a hindrance than being useful. My .02 YMMV.

A.

Aurum · Nov 26, 2009

benjiboy said:
Customers used to buy tripods in my shop, and bring them back later complaining that there were no instructions in the box :rolleyes:

*Sigh* It has been said before that if you build something idiotproof, the world will respond by building a better (?) kind of idiot.....:rolleyes:

munz6869 · Nov 27, 2009

Horses for courses. I use d*****l heaps for work, and there's still heaps of "thinking" involved because I use 'em as I have trained myself with manual film cameras, plus, being a theatre person I have a natural inclination to try and "light" everything just "so".
For architecture and travel, I'll use the 4x5 for the precision, quality, and slowness - it is really nice to stand still in one spot for a long time. For wandering around, the TLR is really nice, unobtrusive, easy to compose, etc. For events (like weddings), a 645 SLR for the quality and speed of changing film and lenses. For theatre, manual SLRs so I can use 3200 speed film quietly with a nice big aperture prime lens - they are all the useful/justifiable sets of stuff, but I still have fun with press cameras and 3d things, and anything else that comes by. It's no crime - the fun makes the actual work less like work. Sometimes the 4x5 is nice just because just setting it up provokes cheery conversations (mostly with old blokes!) that I otherwise would never get into.

Marc

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