TWiP 322 – An Unnatural Obsession
Hosts: Frederick Van Johnson, Evgeny Tchebotarev, & J.M. Giordano
This week on TWiP…
- Obsessing over others' gear choices
- Sony's rumoured ‘Lens Camera' system
- And an interview with pet photographer Jeff Otto
Ever wondered how pet photographers build such successful thriving businesses photographing furry critters? Jeff Otto reveals all in this insightful interview. You can learn more about Jeff by visiting his website at http://www.shaggyshutterbug.com.
Evgeny: GoPro Hero 3 – Timelapse
J.M. Giordano: Bending the Frame by Fred Richtin
Frederick: Sony NEX 5R
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Connect with Our Hosts & Guests:
Frederick Van Johnson: www.mediabytes.com, Twitter, Google+
Credits:
Pre-production by: Bruce Clarke
Post production by: Suzanne Llewellyn & Vince Bauer
Bandwidth provided by: Cachefly
Intro Music by: Scott Cannizzaro
Best quote from the episode: “[…] nikon guy, apple person […]”
I really laugh when I heard that.
– Google boy signing out 😉
Wow, to hear the P word on the show…
I can see your point, a) the gear is not so important and b) we are not getting paid to promote a certain brand. But as a Pentax shooter I’m glad for every Pentax I see, every Pentax that is sold, cause that means the chances that they go bankrupt are a bit smaller. It would be very sad to see them go, cause I just don’t like Nikon and Canon DSLRs. The good ones are big and heavy, the light ones aren’t very good and intuitive. Pentax manages to make small yet super solid semi-pro bodies. It’s a shame they don’t have any sales and marketing department, cause I think they could do pretty well.
But any DSLR or mirrorless can take great photos, the main difference usability, durability, feel, and some features that may make your life easier (I love the sensor shift function giving me basically a shift function for every lens, and it also works as an image stabilizer for photos and videos).
This show was interesting considering that there’s now sort of a spin off that is “all about the gear.” Most people talk about the gear more because they don’t know enough about photography to say anything else meaningful. Quality of light, shape, color, contrast, line, balance, etc., are all foreign concepts to the vast majority of photographers. TWiP doesn’t do people any favors by never talking about it. Every so often you’ll hear Frederick say something like “photography is about lighting, composition and all that magic,” but he never seems to get to the substance of those things. It would be nice to have a show once in a while where they talk about photography rather than photo industry news or photographic equipment.
Is it me or has this whole “it’s not about the camera” angle on TWIP veered into the realm of functionalism of the “food is for sustenance, cars are for conveyance and sex is for reproduction” variety?
Doesn’t the camera strongly influence the process of photography? Even if a camera phone could make a roughly equivalent picture in a given situation I would still prefer my DSLR because I enjoy how it feels and works in my hands.
To me the question of ‘should I take my camera?’ isn’t an admission that I have the wrong camera but simply an assessment of whether this experience is worthy of taking my camera along or just using my phone.
But then I’m not a pro so I have the luxury of caring as much, no more, about how I experience photography than I do about the photos themselves. This way even if my photos are not objectively great the joyful process that I have making them is genuine and irreplaceable to me.
Maybe the intensity with which our cameras enable our passion leads us to talk and worry about them too much? Thus OMD owners and D800 owners end up pitying each other while oblivious to the possibility that the very qualities each loves about their camera are truly negligible or negative qualities to the other.
Mike