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more expensive the gear the better the photographer?

Dan Fromm;1697707[B said:
]Public camera store price? [/B]I have no idea. RCAF 4 Wing spring photofair, $75, 4.2% of a Corolla.

Will a more expensive Nikon body take better pictures than a $17 used Nikkormat?
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I have a black F/FTN with the 1.2 lens. The original bill of sale from 1971 is about $450; I'd have to look for the exact amount. Say 25% of a cheap car. In today's money, what's that, $3800 - $4000?

The potential picture quality will depend on the lens, the actual quality will depend on who's using it. As you well know.
 
E. von Hoegh said:
I had a Contax II with the 50/2 collapsible Sonnar. (...)
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My 50/1.5 Sonnar is one of those magic lenses you occasionally find, seemingly capable of doing no wrong, so I haven't really given the J-8 a lot of exercise. It seems like a solid performer though, which has been my experience of the 6-element Sonnars in the past---no drama, no extreme signature, sort of a "just-the-facts-ma'am" lens.

As for collecting vs using, I won't have something that can't be used.
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But you will, if I understand you right, buy something on the basis that "this marvel of workmanship will be fun to shoot", rather than "this tool will achieve something in the final product that my existing tools won't". So will I, but there are those who will look at both of us and wonder why.

I have some sympathy for the original question, though. I'd be almost completely out of 35mm if not for the cameras that are too delicious *not* to use. Almost all of which, interestingly, are Hubert Nerwin designs. That guy had my number but good.

I forget, what was this thread about again?

-NT
 

Precisely. My working Nikon outfit was/is 20, 28, 35, 50, 55 Micro Nikkor and 105 and it will do anything I will ever want to do with 35; I have the other 35 stuff just for the enjoyment factor. IMO the Contax rangefinder is the best ever put on a 35mm camera, the rangefinder on my Linhof ST IV is no better. Don't forget Ludwig Bertele who designed all the Sonnars and the Biogon for Hubert's camera.

BTW I just bought a '69 K4 with a Helios 103 on it.
 
E. von Hoegh said:
I don't see myself as 'owner' but as a custodian for posterity.
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man, this quote made this 28 page long thread for me, thanks EvH ..
in many ways i feel the same way about things.

now back to using dodgy stuff
- john
 
I think Sudek used any materials smuggled to him. I don't think he even heard of a Linhof
 


I had a professor in college who was one of the highest paid commercial photographers at the time, mostly shooting product.
He used to tell this story to each class - he always kept a massive 4X5 setup on a rolling tripod, and massive lights arrays all around the shoot area, but then would do most of the work with his then state of the art Canon G5 point and shoot. At some point he bought a big filter carrier and flash bracket for that camera to make it look more serious, the reason being that several high profile clients refused to have their product shot with a tiny dinky looking camera.

So it really is mostly in the hand of the photographer. Sure - some cases require expensive gear which with out, a shoot cannot be done, but this type of specialty gear is rare, and those cases are about 0.1% of most of what anyone who gets paid to shoot needs.

In most cases, talented photographers will make the same great work with junk gear, like a holga or Iphone, and even with dinky 35mm cameras, that they would have with top of the line gear.


Bad photographers on the other hand, will stay bad regardless of how good, and more amusingly, how expensive the gear is. They will still use that brand new custom ordered 8X10 camera/SLR/MED format and specialty lenses to make god awful images of boring things, the same as they would have done with lesser gear.

In the newsroom - functionality is key. Because no one actually ever pays for that gear (agency pays, or gear is sponsored by the manufacturer) the only gear that gets used, lasts, and is useful - is what actually works in the field. Because 80% of leicas are broken when they leave the factory, they never really get massive use in daily/spot news, same goes for hasselblad (though now that they are made by Fuji in japan, they are slightly better).

Numbers: Is am AF 300mm F2.8 lens expensive? if you count it compared to its fractional value of a corolla, compared to some other 300mm lens, the numbers might say it is expensive but if you cannot get the shot of some visiting dignitary because you ran out of Fstops, and that shot cost your desk 5000$, it is not very expensive. If you are shooting your kids baseball game in a sunny sunday, it is very expensive.

Interestingly enough - both canon and nikon usually price the "pro" top tier SLR bodies about X3 above the high end "not pro" high end camera - however, some cameras are just so good, and so much easier to use - in the digital age, most (if not all) professional photojournalists i worked with opted to buy and use their own smaller, less expensive SLR bodies, rather then using the FREE large and heavy "pro" bodies for a myriad of reasons.

So those lesser cameras did need service more often, but they were so cheap relatively, that who cared...
 
thanks catlabs!
i appreciate your chiming in ...
i had a friend who lived in NYC and he used to do commercial jobs with a yashica t4
but from what i sort of remember ... he also had the 'blad nearby in case the client "freaked" ...
 
CATLabs said:
80% of leicas are broken when they leave the factory,
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???
 
I see it all the time too..

Here in New Mexico we have the Annual Balloon Fiesta event in October. Boy... That's when all the so called pro photogs come out sporting their expensive gear. There are the news media shooters that are of course getting images for the paper. But there are a truck load of wannabes with very exspensive digital cameras getting the action. Which is fine. I just think it's funny that a lot of of them don't know the basics of operating them. They just want the status of carrying around a huge camera. It's funny the reaction I get with the Rolleiflex. A lot of people don't know what it is and some will drop everything to check it out. I know I sound broken record on saying that I absolutely blown away with the quality of image that are able to to in such a small compact unit.
 
Excellent summation
 
CatLABS said:
I am not sure i got this, but you are being cynical right?
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(thread title )

and YES i am cynical ... then again, maybe
if i get a 20x24 de golden bush anda 18" de golden bush lens and accessory case and i will feel better
even thought i only photograph the grass on my front lawn my neighbors will think i am that much better.
 
Jim Jones said:
My M4 and five lenses look like wrecks after many decades of hard use, but work fine. QA doesn't come much better than that.
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My experience is same as yours.

Perhaps CatLABS is talking about different Leica from another planet.
 

that's terrible. i hope they find your bag and its contents and the thief and put him/her in a pillory.

but NB i think there is a difference between the person i knew from here, and the other whom i knew personally for 4 years ... who
were "lacking" something ... and someone like you who ( as seen by your beautiful work you have shared here on apug ) is anything but lacking.
i am guessing you didn't start off with the valuable equipment but something else with which to learn ...

john

ps. i hope when you have an expo of your serbian series you will be close enough to where i live so i can see them in the flesh ..
 
Jnanian, it seems to bother you how much that, dare I say "kid", that kid spent so much money on a more expensive camera than it evidently did him. If less than talented people did not buy expensive camera equipment, there would be even fewer "used" Leicas, Hasselblads, Linhofs for those of us who can't afford "new" but would still like to own them for whatever reasons we have....Regards
 

hi oldtimermetoo

if you have read my posts in this thread, you 'd know it really doesn't bother me that he had expensive gear, to be honest i am glad he did
because every class it reminded me that the gear didn't matter one bit. he wrestled with every exposure ... as i clicked away with my k1000 for 7 semesters
i just wondered why he got it since he could barely use the "inexpensive" gear he had. i don't think he sold the expensive camera but he continued making photographs
and might actually be making a living making photographs as i type this ... i don't know, we lost touch. the other person i alluded to used to be active here
but a few years after she purchased the big camera &c she kind of vanished. i don't know if she continued either.
 
With the usual caveats for the occasional exceptions to the rule, in capitalist economies the more talented can, when all is said and done, buy more expensive things than the less talented. Even when those things are not directly related to the talents that provided for their purchase.

Maybe what we see here is nothing more than yet another expression of the more generalized Peter Principle. There's a reason that, barring the caveats, the less talented are driving Toyotas and the more talented are driving Ferraris. Even when those doing the driving are unschooled in the art of automotive engineering.

Capitalism is, at its heart, nothing more than a thin societal and legal veneer papering over the fundamental principle of the survival of the fittest.

Think about it...

Ken
 
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