Very wise words........about digital camera equipment and buying habits

JParker · Feb 19, 2025

Youtube is flooded with photography content. Lots of quantatity, but unfortunately real high quality channels are quite rare. So many youtube channels are based just on click-bait, brand and format wars ("I have switched to......." The final death of"), serving to the 'spec-sheet warriors' and just selling the overpriced gear of their sponsors to the audience.
With the recent marketing trend to mirrorless it has come to an extreme: Very expensive cameras with total technical overkill that 99.9% of photographers don't need (like 20 or 30 fps) are sold to an audience with the bold claim that it will make them better photographers. Which is of course not true, and will not happen.

In my experience most of the real good channels are run by experienced professional photographers, like "Photography Online". Knowledge and improving photography skills are offered there.
And most of the rare very good channels are made by prof. photographers who don't run a youtube channel to make their living.
I recently found another one of that group, who is very based and honest, not sponsored by manufacturers, and who is talking right to the point, and also not shy of being critical of the behaviour of his audience as well :
London based professional photographer Martin Castein.
I think he is totally spot-on here, and also with many others of his very educational and interesting videos:

koraks · Feb 19, 2025

To summarize: no professional photographer ever sells a picture/shoot on the basis of what camera it's taken with. Which seems quite true to me, indeed.

But hey...gear is fun. Ask any amateur photographer. Look at the content on forums like Photrio. We fuss about equipment, materials, a bit about technique - but there's very, very little talk about photography as such. The same is true for YouTube. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen...?

Pieter12 · Feb 19, 2025

koraks said:
no professional photographer ever sells a picture/shoot on the basis of what camera it's taken with. Which seems quite true to me, indeed.

Well, with a caveat. Most professional advertising photographers feel the need to impress upon their clients that everything is state of the art in order to justify the high fees they charge. Studios need to be clean, spacious and well furnished with comfortable client areas. Clients can be just as shallow and superficial as any, needing the reassurance of current trends. Of course, being current and on top of trends can be important in the commercial photo world. No matter what, the work has to be first-class. An established photographer can get away with funkier digs and beat-up equipment (Hey, this was used to shoot the famous X campaign!). But in the end, beyond the experience of the shoot, it is the photos produced that count.

Also, most pros don't switch gear brands too often. They have a lot invested in a system, plus they are used to it and don't need to be distracted by unfamiliar gear.

BradS · Feb 19, 2025

I'll continue to spend my money however I damned well please. I don't need some one, anyone lecturing me that I'm doing it wrong, that I'm a fool because I didn't do just what he did.

Rockaway Studios · Feb 19, 2025

One of the two wedding pros I learned from back in the olde filme days would seriously disagree with “”no professional photographer ever sells a picture/shoot on the basis of what camera it's taken with. ”

he shot hasselblad, As someone entering the trade, I was at that point in my career when settling on a “Platform” was a major investment and decision…because a pro does not buy a camera, he buys into camera platform/system, I asked both pros about why they chose the platform they did. The other pro shot Mamiya RB67. The Mamiya guy gave a very reasonable explanation of how he got more for his money with the RB67 platform. Hasselblad guy‘s position was “For what I charge, the father of the bride expects to see a guy in a tux holding a Hasselblad.” Both photographers served the same martlet area/metro region, at two different price tiers, and yeah, the Hasselblad shooter asked and regularly got ~30% more money per wedding .

Both photographers were very, very good at their job, you would not go wrong with either one, but apparently choice of equipment DID help them one of them sell.

Sean · Feb 20, 2025

I'm pretty blown away by my Fujifilm X-T3. The X-T4 has come out -pass. The X-T5 has come out -pass. I'm not seeing any reason I need something better than this. The older gear can have its quirks but you figure them out and carry on. I have it paired with the Fujinon XF 16-55/2.8 R LM WR (nearly 4 primes in one). Now the new version of this lens is out and although smaller and lighter I can manage without it and feel like I know my kit too good now to fix what isn't broken. Grab shot of my buddies cat from a few days ago using this 'obsolete' kit. It's cropped in quite a bit and could probably do a 20x20" print just fine.

Film-Niko · Feb 20, 2025

JParker said:
In my experience most of the real good channels are run by experienced professional photographers, like "Photography Online". Knowledge and improving photography skills are offered there.
And most of the rare very good channels are made by prof. photographers who don't run a youtube channel to make their living.
I recently found another one of that group, who is very based and honest, not sponsored by manufacturers, and who is talking right to the point, and also not shy of being critical of the behaviour of his audience as well :
London based professional photographer Martin Castein.
I think he is totally spot-on here, and also with many others of his very educational and interesting videos:

I agree with your observation that the best photography channels on youtube are generally the "smaller" ones with not a huge amount of subscribers, run by experienced professionals and / or real enthusiasts. People who don't make a living from youtube.
Because if you make your living from youtube, you sooner or later will fall into the "advertizing / influencer trap". Because without that it is extremely difficult to earn enough money from youtube alone for a living.

Concerning Martin Castein:
I am watching his channel for quite some time now. He knows what he is talking about. Very well thought and solid information, especially for beginners, amateurs, enthusiasts, starting professionals who want to improve their skills as a photographer. And who want to spend their hard-earned and limited amount of money for equipment which is really needed and useful. And which serves the needs of the photographer, not the profit interests of the camera companies.

Concerning camera technology:
For more than a decade now we are in a phase of strongly diminishing returns: The advancements are getting smaller and smaller and less significant with every year.
I know several professionals who are doing their professional digital work with cameras which were introduced during 2007 and 2014. If you look at their results, it is state of the art, and in a blind test you cannot differentiate it from work done with the latest camera gear. And all of them tell me they will continue using their gear.

koraks · Feb 20, 2025

Film-Niko said:
For more than a decade now we are in a phase of strongly diminishing returns: The advancements are getting smaller and smaller and less significant with every year.
I know several professionals who are doing their professional digital work with cameras which were introduced during 2007 and 2014. If you look at their results, it is state of the art, and in a blind test you cannot differentiate it from work done with the latest camera gear. And all of them tell me they will continue using their gear.

Exactly!

@Sean, that's a really nice cat portrait.

bags27 · Feb 20, 2025

Not sure any of my more recent cameras produces images that surpass my Sigma Foveon DP-2 Merrill. I look at pics on line produced by the Leica S 006 and 007 and wonder why there needed to be an "improvement." "Advances" in technology may produce greater convenience, quicker processing, better video, or a whole bunch of other stuff. But they don't necessarily produce a better image.

So, why do I buy different cameras (mainly film)? Because as do many others, I just like equipment. And we always like to look forward to the next one, as if, despite experience, it will make us better photographers. Some people buy new clothes, thinking it will make them more attractive, We buy cameras.

Sirius Glass · Feb 20, 2025

Rockaway Studios said:
One of the two wedding pros I learned from back in the olde filme days would seriously disagree with “”no professional photographer ever sells a picture/shoot on the basis of what camera it's taken with. ”

he shot hasselblad, As someone entering the trade, I was at that point in my career when settling on a “Platform” was a major investment and decision…because a pro does not buy a camera, he buys into camera platform/system, I asked both pros about why they chose the platform they did. The other pro shot Mamiya RB67. The Mamiya guy gave a very reasonable explanation of how he got more for his money with the RB67 platform. Hasselblad guy‘s position was “For what I charge, the father of the bride expects to see a guy in a tux holding a Hasselblad.” Both photographers served the same martlet area/metro region, at two different price tiers, and yeah, the Hasselblad shooter asked and regularly got ~30% more money per wedding .

Both photographers were very, very good at their job, you would not go wrong with either one, but apparently choice of equipment DID help them one of them sell.

Like most things in life, ones performance and ability is chosen over equipment.

benveniste · Feb 20, 2025

JParker said:
I think he is totally spot-on here, and also with many others of his very educational and interesting videos:

I think his viewpoint is perfectly valid, but if you apply it only to digital cameras you're missing the point. It applies equally to lenses, lighting, camera bags, supports, or pretty much any type of gear you wish to name.

I freely admit I have more gear than I could reasonably use. Part of that is because I rarely sell gear when I upgrade. I still have my Nikon FA and Pentax 110 SLR purchased in the 1980s. I never really needed a medium format film camera, nor an IR-converted dSLR, but they are fun to play with occasionally. I'm a hobbyist, not a pro, so I don't have a "marketing budget." Instead, I have a "toy budget," and tend to buy what I need for a planned project or trip.

JParker · Feb 23, 2025

koraks said:
To summarize: no professional photographer ever sells a picture/shoot on the basis of what camera it's taken with. Which seems quite true to me, indeed.

It is my experience as well (I have professional relations to the fashion industry and fashion photography). The skills of the photographer do count for getting booked for the job. With what equipment the photographer is fulfilling his job, is up to him. Clients don't care.

But there is of course much more very valuable content in this video than that, especially for amateurs with a limited budget. That is the reason why I have posted it.

JParker · Feb 23, 2025

Rockaway Studios said:
One of the two wedding pros I learned from back in the olde filme days would seriously disagree with “”no professional photographer ever sells a picture/shoot on the basis of what camera it's taken with. ”.........

Both photographers were very, very good at their job, you would not go wrong with either one, but apparently choice of equipment DID help them one of them sell.

I don't doubt that in certain areas and market segments in the past it worked that way. But these times are long gone. Today it is extremely difficult to impress a potential client by the gear you use. And even more difficult to convince him to book you because of that gear. 99.9% of clients just don't have the knowledge about photo gear to decide which gear could perhaps be better for the needed task than a different type of gear.
You have to convince the potential client with your skills as a photographer. And competitive prices.

JParker · Feb 23, 2025

Sean said:
I'm pretty blown away by my Fujifilm X-T3. The X-T4 has come out -pass. The X-T5 has come out -pass. I'm not seeing any reason I need something better than this.

Welcome to the club . More and more photographers are realizing that the technology in digital cameras has plateaud many years ago. New cameras offer very little new, especially very little really useful new, but they have become very expensive.
For many years now the feature-sets and specs of cameras are surpassing the needs of standard amateur photographers by far.

JParker · Feb 23, 2025

Film-Niko said:
I agree with your observation that the best photography channels on youtube are generally the "smaller" ones with not a huge amount of subscribers, run by experienced professionals and / or real enthusiasts. People who don't make a living from youtube.
Because if you make your living from youtube, you sooner or later will fall into the "advertizing / influencer trap". Because without that it is extremely difficult to earn enough money from youtube alone for a living.

Yes, this "advertizing trap" and "influencer trap" is a real problem. And you get more independent, non-biased and honest information by those youtubers who stay away from that problem.

Film-Niko said:
Concerning Martin Castein:
I am watching his channel for quite some time now. He knows what he is talking about. Very well thought and solid information, especially for beginners, amateurs, enthusiasts, starting professionals who want to improve their skills as a photographer. And who want to spend their hard-earned and limited amount of money for equipment which is really needed and useful. And which serves the needs of the photographer, not the profit interests of the camera companies.

Yepp.

Film-Niko said:
Concerning camera technology:
For more than a decade now we are in a phase of strongly diminishing returns: The advancements are getting smaller and smaller and less significant with every year.
I know several professionals who are doing their professional digital work with cameras which were introduced during 2007 and 2014. If you look at their results, it is state of the art, and in a blind test you cannot differentiate it from work done with the latest camera gear. And all of them tell me they will continue using their gear.

Absolutely!

JParker · Feb 23, 2025

benveniste said:
I think his viewpoint is perfectly valid, but if you apply it only to digital cameras you're missing the point. It applies equally to lenses, lighting, camera bags, supports, or pretty much any type of gear you wish to name.

Well, from my observations it is indeed a phenomenon mostly seen with digital cameras, and at least much much less with other photo equipment.

benveniste · Feb 23, 2025

JParker said:
Well, from my observations it is indeed a phenomenon mostly seen with digital cameras, and at least much much less with other photo equipment.

Having moderated forums on lenses for a couple of decades, I guess I have a different viewpoint.

axestrata · Feb 25, 2025

It would be amazing if there were camera clubs where members can pay a subscription to rent/borrow gear, so as to have the opportunity to audition equipment without having to fork up large sums of money to figure out what works best for themselves and to avoid catching GAS.

MattKing · Feb 25, 2025

axestrata said:
and to avoid catching GAS.

I'm afraid that GAS is highly contagious, and you certainly wouldn't come to Photrio in search of a vaccine!

Pieter12 · Feb 25, 2025

axestrata said:
It would be amazing if there were camera clubs where members can pay a subscription to rent/borrow gear, so as to have the opportunity to audition equipment without having to fork up large sums of money to figure out what works best for themselves and to avoid catching GAS.

There are plenty of rental shops who will gladly rent lenses and cameras at daily and weekly rates, no subscription needed.

Sirius Glass · Feb 25, 2025

axestrata said:
It would be amazing if there were camera clubs where members can pay a subscription to rent/borrow gear, so as to have the opportunity to audition equipment without having to fork up large sums of money to figure out what works best for themselves and to avoid catching GAS.

"The force of GAS, resist one cannot." Yoda, Star Wars DCXXLVII. On the positive side, I got to the point after stoking the GAS, that I have no long felt GAS for many years. Enjoy the GAS.

Rockaway Studios · Mar 5, 2025

Pieter12 said:
There are plenty of rental shops who will gladly rent lenses and cameras at daily and weekly rates, no subscription needed.

i have made it a practice to use a rental service to audition most of my new lens or digital back acquisitions…I’d say that it has been very successful in convincing me quickly if I wouldn’t like or use some very expensive products, it’s also been useful to augment my quiver before a trip or during a heavy week in the studio. Notably, I learned that, although it sounds like a really cool idea, the Hasselblad XCD 80 f1.9 is a dig, heavy lump of a lens and I would hate to own it and schlep it around. That rental saved me a few thousand bucks. At the same time, my initial rental of the CFV50ii included the 65mm f2.8, then touted as the “Normal“ for the format, which I rented to have a normal length but had low expectations of over the 80 and the 21mm - it was and is a relatively cheap lens, both to rent and to own. From the first image with that 65, I could tell that it was a GREAT lens and was the first lens I hunted down when I bought into that platform.

i usually will rent Hasselblad gear from lensrentals.com a few times to try out before committing, and I’d say that the practice has saved over $15k in stuff that I just didn’t jibe with.

About a year before,, a week long rental saved me tens of thousands of dollars when I tried the Phase One IQ4 150mp. Discovered that, unlike the earlier IQs, it takes forever to boot, lacks a “Zero Latency” setting for use on a tech camera, and is also incompatible with my backup body- some of these things are annoying, but some are deal breakers. I probably will never own any Phase One gear built after 2016 and the introduction of IQ4 because, simply, an IQ3-100 is a better back and I could by 3 or four of those for an IQ4…the only thing I give up is the BSI sensor of the IQ4 but…the Hasselblad CFV100 has the same sensor in a reduced size (irrelevant- with a tech camera I can stitch on the sensor plane if I need a super wide coverage), and it has Zero Latency, and it mounts on a tech camera just as easily as a Phase One…but costs less than a used IQ3.

Phase One can be rented from Samys, Digital Transitions, or Capture Integration. even a rental is not cheap with that stuff, but it makes sense when considering a major purchase like that. Capture Integration I think can even arrange a test drive situation if you are considering making the leap.

wiltw · Mar 5, 2025

JParker said:
Very expensive cameras with total technical overkill that 99.9% of photographers don't need (like 20 or 30 fps) are sold to an audience with the bold claim that it will make them better photographers. Which is of course not true, and will not happen.

Just got curious about the 'benefit' of 30 fps frame rate for stills at the baseball field.

Pitcher mound to home plate is 60'6", or 726 inches
A reasonably fast pitch travelling at 90mph is moving 1584 inches/sec
So it takes 0.458 sec for the ball to travel from release to across home plate
At a frame rate of 30 fps, each 0.458 sec. it can capture, at most, 13.75 frames
So the distance the ball will travel from one frame to the next is, at best (shortest distance), 52.8"

So a photographer hoping to spray and pray in order to capture the ball very close to home plate has to first be lucky at timing the shutter press vs. the release of the ball. Yes, the CHANCES are 3x better at 30 fps than 10 fps, but there is still a lot of luck involved

Hassasin · Mar 5, 2025

Back in just-film days, many pros had no choice but to use Hasselblad as many commercial clients judged their abilities by equipment they used.

It is no news equipment does not make a photograph stand out,

it is also no news marketing departments play big role in what features go into a line up, be it cameras, cars, what have you.

Deliberate downgrades of easily implementable features, often at no actual add-on cost, is how one ends up paying more, much more, just for that one extra bit he needs (and for many others he does not) to improve the workflow, make things go faster, or just feel better about the purchase.

I recently bought the Fuji X-H2, because I wanted that 40 mp sensor and liked the handling of the H1. I kept the camera, as I procrastinated a bit too long and went beyond return point. But it is not built anywhere near as well as the H1, it lacks the heft I so much appreciated in H1, and the sensor is the only thing that put me in doubt on the return. Yet, gear is what it is, it will continue to be partly a fashion statement for the larger part of the audience and will sell accordingly.

Whatever keeps one in the hobby is not debatable.

Very wise words........about digital camera equipment and buying habits

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