- I am a photographer for the Armed Forces and was curious to see what camera people use. Buddy says as he starts toward me at the Rest Stop just north of the Mason Dixon Line.
Already I am planning the excuses for what I am carrying I knew that I would have whenever one saw the camera.
- It is a piece of junk but bought it because…
He sees SONY and recoils in nearly the same horror as buddy did in Portugal Cove South after offering me Moose Stew and finding out that I was a vegetarian that doesn’t even eat fish.
Even though I have been singing the praises for the Nikon D40 size mainly – I don’t follow my own advice. Been debating this for an eternity, and what has kept me back is all the things one gives up for the convenience of instant gratification. The cameras were large, they all seem to have lenses on them that are compensating for some lack in the males that carry them. To me they are the photographic equivalents of Hummers, I am always aware of something running out – the power, the card filling etc. I notice outlets more now than I ever did, and there is something plugged into one.
It seems that expectations have been lowered. The leiquinhas have lenses that open to f:2,8 even Joãozão has an aperture of f:4,5 which I thought was slow but with these cameras that seems to be one of the norms. I am supposed to be estatic when I can get 500 images from a charge when I can go years with Ubaldo and the twins and Joãozão doesn’t need a battery.
I hate the fact that a decent wide angle lens – the equal to 20-24mm in 35mm – is hard to come by at any decent price and/or aperture.
However I have been using my point and shoot more, mainly for colour, mainly for annotating for entries at first but more and more books of wander were being made with it.
The tipping point came with Clarke’s Beach the book as there were about four images in it that I wish were done with a better camera – why I don’t know as I want to go back to making postcards – real ones – no sleeves, 150x100mm. I also found that when photographing people at time turing the camera around was a great way to engage.
While I hated the palpable delay between the button being pressed and the image being made, I bought the Nikon 5400 – and it took as long, it had been superceded by two models when I finally bought it – because of the articulating screen, meaning I could photograph things on the ground without having to lower myself to their level.
It also worked with photographing people as I wasn’t hiding behind the camera and from a lower angle people are a bit ennobled.
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So finally digital did something correctly.
Problem is all those trendy camera companies, the ones the non photographers at the WGAS use – Canon, Nikon – non had the articulating screen.
Finally cameras following the amateurs – put in live view but all that did was prepare the world for legions of far sighted photographers.
Only three camera had live view and an articulating screen – the Sony 300/350, the Olympus E-1 and some Panasonic with a Leica lens.
I thought long and hard about the Olympus but since this was to replace a point and shoot I didn’t want a camera that weighed more than all the others combined. The Panasonic has a great lens but was overpriced – another thing I hate about digital is their brief life span – cannot see spending the price of used Leica M7 for a camera that will last a year or two.
So despite the horrible viewfinder, the clunky plastic feel, the fact that the lens makes it hard to pack any place, I bought the Sony again only for the fact that I can have a digital waist level finder. It will be the bloggin camera and I’ll see if it supplants one of the real cameras with people I meet along the way as I wonder if pulling out a camera will “spoil” the moment.
I buy colour 35mm film for $3.50/roll, I have it developed – not cut not printed – at Woodman’s here and any Dominion –well except the one at the old memorial stadium when I am rock bound which costs $2.00. on the rock I have a CD made – another $6.00, in 70 rolls the camera will have paid for itself .
Science and Art
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The teaching of the sciences and the arts needs to be conjoined and
sustained from the earliest stages of education. In the Foreward to
Platinotype my frie...
6 months ago
2 comments:
I was at an "art event" today here in Oregon City, a group (my aunt's doing) got permission from PGE to go on site to their old power plant on the river here. They are removing it in about a week. There were a lot of real "photographers" there with cameras that put mine to shame. I, following your advice, like the d40 and never really had a real camera for it to replace. (Is this a blog entry "justifying" your purchase?)
Anyhow, I also took the Holga, for when the battery died on the digital. It was interesting to change, I had to sit on rocks and walls and near streams to change the film, re-tape, etc. and in the mean time could look around, rest, and start again. It was strange, while I don't look at the images in the camera after I take them in the d40, I feel comfortable knowing I can. It is odd going back to the anxiety of not knowing if I got what I wanted.
And, as I thought, as soon as I had my Holga out the photo guys (all guys) started to talk to me. Huh.
in an earlier incarnation as i was trying to make northern ohio interesting, the entry was to be “what would robert frank use” which is based on what i did one semester in photo i when we felt that students actually know about the physical making of photographs.
the thesis was me guessing who in the past would have embraced digital photography by the work that they made. it was based mainly on the type of work they did. the group included walker evans, helen leavitt, nan golden, saint gary, elinor carucci. they were either annotators or diarists who while most used leicas did so – am guessing because of the size and unobtrusiveness.
even though in the hallowed halls of the wgas – now in second place – it has been stated my the new hire that he has no truck for those who wander about with a camera in the 21st century and i am considered a hateful photographer, i still see what i do as note-taking. funny he even used the same phraseology one used to use when minorities were not welcome he had nothing against atget and winogrand per se but would never see why one would want to do work like that now. that being the case i should be carrying something portable – the leiquinhas. but i am not the height of rationality hence – “note-taking” with medium format – or the hateful gene coming to the forefront.
the sony is neither. i am picking on sony – digital cameras are neither. i was talking to someone to-day on another subject, on demand printing and while it was nice and easy to do and we were excited about the possibilities that were now open to get work out cheaply, we weren’t really excited about the quality. it was accessibility but on their terms. digital slrs are the same they are great if you lower expectations - the examples are above. but another couple of examples, we protect the class of the lens but now we have an even larger piece of glass left more exposed (hah hah) than the front of a lens ever was and no one – well only one company – seems to care. i find that they are so difficult to use manually i simply put the thing on programme and fire away. it is not that they cannot be used that way but look at a manual film camera. each thing on it had one and only one function. the shutter speed dial wasn’t with the flick of a button a aperture ring. one didn’t toggle through anything… i am getting off the point.
we also discussed that now everything is made so that one’s life will be less stressful when one succumbs to digital, camera to blurb withouth thinking, no scanning spotting etc. i am guessing that this the premise of flickr, jpg and everywhere magazine,the plethora of snaps now on google earth and maps - make the snap upload the image…diverting again.
i got the sony to notetake and to photograph people for the next incarnation of clarke’s beach. i have almost paid for the camera in the three weeks that i have had it as i am experimenting more – living up to a modern winogrand maxim seeing what something looks like digitally. by the way i also don’t check my snaps after i make them, in daylight i cannot see anything, and so far with the people i am cornered i haven’t even turned the camera around to show them. i am doing more colour.
and no you trying to make me feel better doesn’t because while the d40 may not be a “real” dslr at least it is a nikon. it’s cute, real photographers use them as their “backup” or “fun” camera – which is what they say when they cannot afford the super macho version of the fun camera. but it is relatively simple straightforward and small. sony doesn’t know what it wants to be.
personally it seems that i am using one for it is great for party tricks, back in charm city i would photograph the people in the lobby head upstairs print them and be back in minutes with a snap. but i have always done that digital has simply shortened the wait time. with joãozão, joe cimino got his snap unawares in the post a week later, rather than that afternoon i don’t think he really cared.
an experience that is the opposite of yours- am in the mens portable bog at a wedding with a leiquinha on my shoulder – yeah i know again in toilets with cameras – when buddy says wow you don’t see one of them anymore meaning a film camera – after the initial shock of having a bloke make conversation in a public bog, made some comment worthy of the shaman he thought i was.
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