Middleman

It just occurred to me this morning that I'm a middle-aged, Midwestern, middle-income, middlebrow moderate.

Stands to reason I'd use a mid-level camera with a mid-sized sensor.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Bill Mitchell: "Still have the whole plate? (I guess that's halfway between 5x7 and 8x10.)"

Mike replies: Yep, right in the middle.

Comments

[MarkB]

And despite all of this "middle-of-the-road-ness" your blog is successful... will wonders never cease?

(P.S. Are the little "click me to buy this" images the new thing, even in posts without an explicit product mention? Hey, I don't mind if they are.)

[Ken White]

Don't you have cameras with at least three sensor sizes 4/3 and up? I see a Panasonic camera on your post. Is that the death blow for your adventure with the OM-D?

[Bryce Lee]

Bigger is better...I'll stay with the 35mm size and colour slide film.

Mind that D600 is tempting...
List price in Canada is $2,179.95 plus 13 percent sales tax. Brings the price to $2463.

[Paddy C]

Mike, I thought you were also a sometimes full-frame and MF guy?

[Rob Atkins]

...though there's nothing middle-ish about TOP.

TOP is tops!

[Lukasz Kubica]

It's only mid-sized in terms of diagonal ;-)

[Mike Johnston]

"I thought you were also a sometimes full-frame and MF guy?"

True. I'm not confined to Micro 4/3. But I do most of my shooting with it, and I've opined in ether-ink that Micro 4/3 seems like the sweet spot to me.

Mike

[Mike Johnston]

Thank you Rob!

Mike

[MartinP]

Hmmmm, shouldn't the biggest sensor size in this diagram be the whole-plate format?!

(Regarding the single purpose device of a while ago...)

;o)

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I do seem to be shooting a LOT more FX (Nikon full frame) than M43 -- because the D700 comes out for planned shooting, and I end up shooting 1000 pictures of two soccer games, or 1440 pictures of 4 roller-derby bouts. Which keeps the D700 solidly ahead of the EPL-2.

[David Aiken]

"It's only mid-sized in terms of diagonal ;-)

Posted by: Lukasz Kubica "

That's a rather slanted view :-)

[icexe]

If I ever get hold of a Sony RX-1, I'll make sure some of that full-frame goodness "trickles down" on you.

[GKFroehlich]

Hmmm. I use a very advanced full-sized sensor; guess that's consistent with my advanced age.

It has a liberal number of photosites; seems consistent with my political views.

It's a fairly heavy camera; I still get around okay.

[John Krumm]

You always seemed closer to high-middle brow to me, with occasional forays into a genuinely high altitude where only a few brows reside, so maybe you should stick with that APS-C K5 of yours. But then again it's the Midwest and I know people like to maintain their appearances. : )

[ben ng]

hahaha! I just love your comments and what you come up with Mike, it makes the world a better place.
You have hit the nail on the head of course.
A little person buys a big expensive car- so feels big and important. A person who takes average images buys "the best" camera equipment to "feel like a pro".The word "pro" is such a selling point, isn't it.
All this has nothing to do with composition, but very entertaining. Keeps the Industry happy and funds more research, so I don't have a problem with it.
The most beautiful music I ever heard was played by a homeless drunk on an old piano(out of tune) in a really rough pub in the England...but who cares...?

[Neal]

your whole diagram looks like miniature formats though? surely middle would be somewhere around 4x5 or 5x7?

[Walt]

I'm wide in the middle so...

I'm waiting for my 288 MPX Banquet camera to come out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banquet_camera

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

ROTFL.
Rock on.

I have a good friend here, once in the car, out of the blue she said one day: "Suddenly the other day, I felt so %*&^$ *normal*! Living in a small northern town, doing normal things, having a normal daughter... suddenly it was just too much!"
She said it with good humor though.

---
My little sister is so normal it hurts, and she works on it. She sometimes criticises me, and when she says "that's not normal!", it's meant as discouragement, but I never understood how.

... But as I've matured, I've come to see that being extreme is not all it's cracked up to be. It's almost never practical (I'm 6.4' for example), and it's no advantage except for getting occasional admiration, and that is worthless in the long run. (Though it's a hard addiction to crack, pun not intended.)

[Frank]

Talking about the "middle" ......

According to my memory, Mike's favorite standard lens is 40mm (equivalent) lens, rather than 35mm or 50mm.

That's another aspect of "middleman".

[Bear.]

Sounds to me like you should go buy a Leica S2 and some lenses for it as compensation for your middleocraty...

[robert e]

You forgot 'favoring the middle focal lengths'.

[Jamie Pillers]

Its d**n hard work staying in the middle. It seems like every media voice out there wants us to do or buy something else. I like it in the middle, where I can get stuff done. And its generally stuff I like a lot.

[Sarge]

In alphabetical order: Marvelous, Masterly, Mellifluos, Mercurial, Miltonic, Mordant, virtually an Immortal... Just don't be morbid, Mike (actually, you've only lapsed just once or maybe twice in regard the latter fairly lately).

[Ross Chambers]

You're in the middle of my bookmarks bar in Safari. Just a coincidence.

Can you remain in the middle with a presidential election looming?

[Henning Kraggerud]

isnt foveon larger now,for the last 4 cameras

[Peter Hovmand]

Likewise ... It is so nice to be able to have the camera in the pocket ... In effect you take more pictures!

[Mark]

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Stealers Wheel.

They certainly said it best.

[Richard Tugwell]

I always think these sensor size debates end up being "price of everything value of nothing" sort of things.... although my own stance on this might be the inverse of what you'd imagine.

[Bob Rosinsky]

I guess you are a true bastion of the photo middle class.

[mike]

Am I the only one who finds this "fraction involving a decimal number" a bit odd? I was a math major, so maybe it's just me, but "1/1.7" How do you pronounce that? I would understand "M by N" millimeter so much better.

[Steve Jacob]

I was always in the middle of the road until stopped by the police one night and fined heavily....

[Ben Rosengart]

@mike: I pronounce it "f over one point seven".

@Mike Johnston: you are a Leica among men, in my estimation.

[Kevin Purcell]

@mike: but "1/1.7" How do you pronounce that?

I pronounce it "type one over one point seven"

I always try to include the word "type" now when I write or say it to distinguish the name for the size from a real size measurement. If you look at datasheets and sensor companies PR you'll find they do the same thing.

"type 1/1.7" causes a lot less confusion than "one over one point seven inches".

@Ben: it's an sensor size name not an aperture :-)

[Amin Sabet]

This gave me a good laugh. Very clever!

[Ben Rosengart]

@Kevin: durr, that should've been obvious to me from context. Thanks.