The Online Photographer

Gunna Disease

Bear. commented yesterday: "GAS is merely a symptom of GUNNA. One day, I'm gunna do it. Really, who regularly shoots at 18 or 20 FPS? Or regularly prints 30 x 40 inches and needs FF 42 MP, or even MF 50–100 MP resolution? Sure, some do. But for most, it's because they're gunna use it—one day—which they don't. GUNNA does not arise for pros because their gear acquisition is driven by the necessity to make profit, not discretionary spending."

Mike replies: I used to suggest, in the old days, that people sit down and write out a clean-sheet list of the features they want and what level of performance they think is sufficient. Then, they have that list to compare actual cameras to. The list should include "ideal" size and weight parameters so we can consider how close a camera comes to what we prefer, and also what lenses it has to have available for it.

Over the years my own list has been subject to "inflation." For instance, in the 1980s, I thought I needed 2 FPS (essentially an "auto-winding" mode); I wanted to make enlargements up to 13" wide; my ideal weight for a camera body was 18 ounces; and I thought I needed a 35mm ƒ/2 and an 85mm ƒ/2 as basic lenses. Now, I've learned to appreciate up to 8 FPS (which the X-T1 has), although that seems profligate and I can't imagine needing more; I would like to make prints up to 17" wide, which is much bigger than 13" wide; ideal body weight is still the same, but now I think I need about five lenses including zooms, even though I have seldom owned that many lenses for one camera. And of course now I think I need IBIS, which has been  thorn in my side, distorting my GAS, for a while now.

There are also features we don't know we like until we try them (face-detect AF for instance) and things we used to take for granted that we don't get any more.

The perfect photographic device? Not
any more, although it was nice and simple.

As an example of the latter, I always thought I liked simplicity in cameras. My old Leica M6 had four global settings on it—you had to load (and later unload) the film, a finicky and always controversial process on a Leica rangefinder admittedly; mount a lens; install a battery for the meter—once a year, whether it needed it or not—and set the ISO. And it had six controls: shutter speed, aperture, focus, the film wind-on lever, and the shutter release. The sixth of the six controls, arguably superfluous and indeed something I never, ever used myself, not even once, was a little lever for previewing the framelines for lenses you didn't currently have attached to the camera. The point is just that I took it for granted at one time that cameras could be simple devices. You can't get simple digital cameras of good quality, of course. They don't exist. Every camera has dozens if not hundreds of settings and dozens if not hundreds of controls—and, often, dozens of custom configurations, too, which barely existed back in ye olden days.

I like your "gunna" idea, because I've always suffered from a bad case of Gunna Disease myself. But I think sitting back and deciding what you actually need, in an abstract way, without reference to specific pieces of gear, helps keep it tamped down, at least somewhat.

Mike
(Thanks to Bear)

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Harsh reality

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Kev: "I like your recognition of the new features that turn out to be rather good and you didn’t know you needed. This is the core bloody issue that drives GUNNA or GAS for me. E.g.: focus peaking—what a brilliant advance that makes so many things possible that were previously not. I have however always dismissed face-detection—maybe I should give it a try!"

Mike replies: Have a look at this 2011 post by John K.

Peter Barker (Peterbee): "I've been meaning to make this comment once or twice before so here goes. Anyone can certainly make a list of features and performance levels and torment themselves with GAS fantasies or $3,000 blowouts—that is one way. But there is an alternative, and that is to ask yourself what you can do with what you've already got. Isn't that after all what OC/OL/OY is about? Isn't this a rather more creative approach?

"The Japanese photographer Hiroh Kikai found himself in such a position when someone lent him the money to buy a Hasselblad in the early '70s. He knew he could never afford all the lenses and accessories to go with it, so he set out with the basic setup to see what he could do. The result was the wonderful Asakusa Portraits series which he is still adding to, half a century or so later. I'm going to say it: isn't that not so much an alternative approach as a better one in the second decade of the 21st century?"

Mike replies: Ah, Hiroh Kikai.

Ray Maines: "The only thing I can contribute to this conversation is that 3 FPS isn't enough. I don't know how many is enough or too many, but it's somewhere north of three."

Open Mike: Mr. T

["Open Mike" is the open-topic, all-things-considered Editorial page of TOP, and it appears on Wednesdays.]

Somewhat to my surprise, I think I've successfully managed to become a tea drinker. Ctein would be proud.

One time when I was sixteen, I stayed out all night long on Saturday night and had to go to my after-school-and-weekend job, at the Bay Point Pharmacy, where I was a cashier, stockboy, and delivery driver, on no sleep whatsoever. Before work that Sunday morning I stopped in at the little deli/café a few doors down from the Pharmacy in the same shopping mall, and imbibed two mugs of a wretched substance adults reputedly drank to help them stay awake.

Since then I've been drinking coffee more or less daily for 45 years. ("The years, they do get behind us"...I used to be able to remember who said that.) But lately it became clear that it was no longer good for my health, so I quit.

You're either a cat person or a dog person, a stick shift person or an automatic person, a color person or a black-and-white person, a team sports fan or an individual sports fan, a coffee drinker or a tea drinker. Yeah, I know various people claim to be agnostic on these points, but I don't believe them.

(Just kidding.)

As a coffee person, though, I've really had to work at liking tea. I've tried several vendors and many different teas, and experimented perhaps a bit too obsessively with all sorts of variations on brewing methods and things like different types of water. I've been at this for a couple of months.

After a lot of work, I arrived at my "daily drink"—white peony tea, or bai mudan. Bai mudan is available from many sources; here's one. I use the heavily processed and highly filtered water I have to have here at the house, which I then run through a Vinturi red wine aerator to add oxygen to the water. (This appears to be the same device for less money.) I'm not even entirely certain this works—obviously it's difficult to conduct blind experiments on myself. But I've brewed tea with and without several times, and I'm pretty sure it makes it easier for me to taste the flavors of teas. I don't have a very good sense of either taste or smell.

According to the supplier, the tea I've chosen has 10% of the caffeine of coffee. I usually drink two steepings in the morning, and a third in the afternoon, using the same three grams of tea leaves. Since each successive steeping has less caffeine in the brew, according to my reading anyway, the afternoon cup should have very little caffeine. Although, again, I have no way to really know. Some nights I sleep well, some nights I don't, and it doesn't seem to have much to do with the tea.

But...I'm happy. White tea (again, allegedly—I just read about things; I'm not a scientist) has certain health benefits, especially if you add a little lemon to it. And I like the taste. It has no astringency and no bitterness.

So I've settled into a new habit, for the next however many years. Who says old (photo) dogs can't learn new tricks?

Mike

P.S. Given the title, aren't you proud of me for getting through this entire post without once writing "I pity the fool"?

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Do Pros Use Pro Gear?

Tim Bradshaw commented: "You are right about the 'professional' thing: everyone wants to be a professional, or perhaps to be able to pretend that they once were a professional. This is why you can buy 'road-worn' guitars and why brassed Leicas are so desirable.

"I'm a non-professional (non-gigging) guitarist and I occasionally find myself hunting for flight cases for my amps and pedalboards (a pedalboard is a thing to which you can attach a set of FX pedals and a PSU for them and it means you can drop the whole lot onto a stage in one go, which is vital for a gigging guitarist but pretty much irrelevant for anyone else). I have to catch myself each time.

"But there's an interesting thing. I've known some people who were professional guitarists and, while they would probably own a pedalboard, they very often would work with much less up-to-date and 'professional' kit than amateurs would. There seem to be two reasons for this. Firstly, if your gear is an expense which reduces your income from playing, then you tend to be a bit chary of just buying the latest thing, however 'professional' it is. Secondly, if you are playing every night then you want two things from your gear: you want it to work, every night, and you want it to do the same thing, every night. And that means that you tend to stick with the battle-tested gear you've had for quite a long time. And every time you get a new bit of kit, you have to spend time exploring it, during which time you are not getting paid.

"I wonder if that is true for photographers? I bet it is, especially in the digital era: how long, really, does it take someone to become really familiar with a digital camera? They have hundreds of parameters so the configuration space is just huge. And all the time you spend exploring that configuration space is time you are not getting paid (or time you are getting complaints because your pictures are bad). So my guess is that professionals either really do not explore the configuration space of their cameras and use them mostly on out-of-the-box settings, or they don't change cameras very often, and probably a combination of both. Compare this with a film camera from the heyday of film, where there are almost no configurable parameters.

"Except, of course there are: the combination of film, developer, processing practice, paper, paper developer, printing and paper processing practice also has a huge configuration space. And I bet people didn't change film/paper/dev/process very often (I know I don't)."

 

A few additional thoughts from Mike: When I did darkroom work professionally as a custom exhibition printer, I standardized on two photo papers. The only reason I didn't standardize on one was that I needed a fallback I was deeply familiar with in case one of them was discontinued or one of the manufacturers changed the formula on me.

Both of those things had happened numerous times—the most notorious example of the former was when Oriental Seagull suddenly stopped being imported into the United States, and the most notorious example of of the latter was when Agfa made a radical but unannounced change in the formulation of Portriga for environmental reasons.

I figured if I had two papers I knew well I was probably safe, although Agfa was, at the time, making a slow-motion change in the formulation of Multicontrast Classic—over the life of that paper, the paper base went from a rich warm cream color to a much whiter eggshell white that was barely warm at all. But that was for the most part a gradual change.

Another thing in support of your points: I worked for a studio pro in the early '80s who probably ~$200,000 worth of equipment in a studio that probably cost $10,000 a month to rent and run and staff. He naturally owned and shot with all formats, and his main cameras were all motorized Hasselblad 500 EL/M's, but his 35mm cameras were Nikkormats, not the pro F cameras. He was very scornful of the idea of paying for Nikon F cameras—that would have been when the F3 was current, I think—because the Nikkormats did the job just fine.

The only thing of substance I'd add to your comment Tim: you said "you want two things from your gear: you want it to work, every night, and you want it to do the same thing, every night." To that I'd add, you want to be working with (or playing) something very familiar to you, so you know its ins and outs and you're comfortable with it. I'm sure you were assuming this, but it bears saying "out loud."

On that heading, cut to the early 2010s for a third case in support of your arguments—I once found myself sitting at a sushi bar next to a professional photographer. Not an accident—the owner of the restaurant introduced us. He told me that he had recently bought the then-latest highest-end pro Nikon DSLR, a D4, which had only recently come out. But, four months after purchasing it, his D4 was still sitting in its box, back at his studio, unopened and untouched, because he hadn't yet been able to budget the time required to learn it. He figured it was going to take him three days to go through the manual and shoot his tests and get comfortable handling the camera. But that would have been three days of concentrated work, and no suitable three-day stretch had opened up. I was struck by the fact that he hadn't even unwrapped it to take a look at it, which I doubt is something that many amateurs would do with the latest hot new camera that cost thousands of dollars. But the "toy factor" was nonexistent for him.

Final thought: in the art-photography world I came up in, it was said by some that changing cameras would set you back a year—that is, it was a year before the new camera fully became second nature and you knew it inside out.

I don't know how long it takes to get "the feel of the wheel" with a digital camera, but I'm betting it's a year or two longer than people typically keep them. Just kidding.  :-)

UPDATE Tim Bradshaw adds: "You are right about the 'being familiar' thing, and I have a nice example of that. I've got several guitar amps (amplifiers), including a really beautiful made-for-me Supro-inspired one (shameless plug: if you want one of these, the 'Dirty Girl' amps person is who you want to talk to: he's very good). And I also have an early 1970s Marshall 'Artiste.' People despise these: it's often regarded as one of Marshall's failures (including, I believe, by Jim Marshall). There are articles on how you can gut one and convert it into a Plexi, because that's an amp you might actually want.

"But if I had to rescue one amp in a fire it would be that one, because I've had it for a long time and I know how it works: I know where the good sounds are, I like those sounds (perhaps I did not always...), and I know how it talks to guitars I own. If someone offered me a vintage Plexi in exchange for it I'd turn them down without a thought. In fact I live in mild terror that it's going to go wrong in some really expensive way, because if it does I will need to get it fixed, even if it costs more than its worth. Because I don't really know whether I could just buy another one (they're pretty cheap) or whether it's that specific amp I like."

(Posted by) Mike
(Thanks to Tim)

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Harsh reality

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Michael Perini: "My experience agrees with this completely. Musician or photographer, at the professional level you don't change things lightly. You have to know that your learned inputs will produce the same outputs. They are results-oriented rather than process-oriented. Process needs to bee refined to the point where it disappears. Nice."

Edward Taylor: "I am not sure how much of this is really about photojournalism or street photography or sports photography or decisive moment type work, but for an awful lot of professional photography, these issues are not really that big a factor. I use new cameras out of the box frequently and have rarely missed a shot as a result. After all, if we are taking a portrait or doing a landscape, or doing macro photography or fashion photography, or anything repeatable, being totally familiar with all the controls on a camera and all its idiosyncrasies is really not necessary, and it is perfectly reasonable to learn that stuff on the go. After all, we get to see each picture after we take it. If you think your new camera is somehow preventing you from getting what you want, just pull out your trusted and familiar backup camera. We are not limited to one camera or one shot the way a musician is limited to one set up while live on stage."

cecelia (partial comment): "Well put! I have been using my OM-D E-M1 Mark II for about a year now and have finally gotten to the point where the camera has gotten out of the way. Even though there are many tempting new cameras, I am thinking that a backup OM-D E-M1 Mark II is probably the smartest investment."

c.d.embrey: "I learned photography while working in Hollywood. Everything, camera, lighting, grip and editing equipment, is so expensive that most gear is rented by the job. The producer's budget is the deciding factor on what you use. Regional commercials were shot in 16mm, national commercials in Super35 (DX). Feature films ran the gamut from 16mm to anamorphic 65mm. The first thing a tyro has to learn is the names of things, and the argot of the craft. A person doesn't have three months or even three weeks to learn the mechanics of a craft.

"If you are not a quick learner, you will be replaced by someone who is. Remember that one 'dumb-sh*t' will nullify three 'attaboys.' Journeymen need to master everything if they want to do to move to the top of the list. I've never met a concert violinists who couldn't play 'Orange Blossom.' The best people are problem solvers. Many times I've walked onto a set to find that the Director/Creative Director/Whoever has changed their mind about what they want to do. You have to think on your feet, and tell them 'no problem' without breaking stride. Many cameras have a C1/C2 etc. dial. You need to have them set in advance. Different scenarios that have been tested by you. Never ever experiment in front of the client. But it is OK to recycle something you learned 20 years ago—the client will think that you are an inventive genius  8-)  C1 and C2 are like a bassist having multiple basses with different tunings (for different songs) within arm's reach."

Jeron: "Oh, I bought a D7100 a few years ago, after shooting with a Nikon 1 V1 for four years almost daily. I know the V1 inside out. It 'just works' for me. I don't have to focus on the camera. The D7100 however seems to work against me. I did set aside time to go through the manual, but for some reason it doesn't stick, and every time I grab that camera, it's on some weird mode or setting and I need to fight it to change it back to normal. If my life depended on getting the photo, I'd take the V1. To be honest, that's the first time this happened. I use my cameras for several years, but they all became second nature quickly, film cameras and digital cameras. But that D7100, however, it's like we're not meant to be together. Needless to say, I haven't shot many keepers with the 7100...."

Eric Rose: "One of my last pro jobs was a contract I had with a local hospital to create images for an annual report highlighting the neurology department. I photographed brain surgeries, testing equipment, doctors using the equipment, and of course the usual head and shoulders shots. To a tee, each doctor as he or she came in said the same thing; 'hey, why are you using that old camera? I have the latest digi pro DSLR and the best glass money can buy; my camera is way better than yours. Maybe I should have been hired to do this gig ha ha ha.' Yeah, really funny. Most of my peers use cameras that are not the latest and greatest unless there is a compelling business reason to spend the money. For non pros it's about ego, for pros it's about ROI.

Mike replies: A nice comeback: 'You have a bigger stick, I just swing mine harder.' Or in that situation you might have said, 'if I had a better scalpel, would I be a better surgeon?' But sometimes with clients it's more politic to just think it.  :-)

Andrew: "For living proof among the highest levels of photography, one need only look at the annual 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year' competition. You've never seen so many 10-year-old DSLRs in your life. Good ones, no doubt (Canon 1DXs and 7Ds, Nikon D3s and D300s). But the serious folks at the local photography club wouldn't be caught dead with the gear these guys use. Not to mention, the number of amazing, winning wildlife shots stopped all the way down to ƒ/11. It's really an amazing contrast to the rhetoric you get on the photographic Internet these days. Truly a breath of fresh air."

Quote o' the Day: Bill Pearce

 

"I already have too many ways to waste
time, and too little time to waste."

—Bill Pearce

 

 

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Upshot

I had to laugh at JohnMFlores's comment to the last post, which was, in its entirety,

Yes

...But, overall, I think the point is made, in my mind at least: cameras don't actually cost all that much. I'm thinking that perhaps I should stop boxing myself in to one stratum of the pricing tiers by conceiving of things as "inexpensive" and "expensive." It's really just all relative.

Personally, at this moment, I can tell you what seems reasonable to me: I balked at paying $1,649 for an X-H1 body (before the big price drop) and did in fact spend $1,213 for a Panasonic G9 body (when it reached its cheapest price during the holidays). So there's my own price sensitivity in a nutshell.

But that's just me. (And I'm still not sure I made the correct decision. I'm having opportunity-cost remorse over the X-H1, and half of me even thinks I should stick to B&W with the X-T1. I like color but I love B&W.)

I do continue to believe, and assert, that expenditures make much more sense if you get one of two things out of whatever you buy: One is "use," and the other is "joy," not that the two are mutually exclusive. I guess really the only truly wasteful way to spend money is to get neither use nor joy out of your purchase. Buy it and stick it in the closet and never touch it, and feel nothing but a pang of regret and guilt whenever you happen to accidentally lay eyes on it—that's how something really becomes expensive. Please don't ask how I know. And please don't tease me.

For pros AND...
I do have to object in part to the refrain common in our comments that the E-M1X is "for professionals" and if you need it for calculated business reasons then you'll make the buying decision purely on that basis. Yes and no. I've been in this game a while, and I can tell you that "professional" equipment is made for two categories of consumer, not one. One is, yes, pros who need it and people who will do a hardheaded cost/benefit analysis before investing; the other is well-heeled amateurs who want to use what the pros use...or who just want the thing, full stop. There's no telling what the percentage of each might be, as I'm sure it varies for each individual product, and by region, and based on what ideas are popular at any given moment in time, and even possibly by the state of the economy. And sometimes the two things are different facets of one and the same supernice Texan dude (cough cough Kirk LOL). But a little story along these lines: long ago, in Virginia, there was a professional camera store that catered to professionals. It was a very slick shop, stylish, and stuffed with exotic, expensive gear. It sold mainly studio lighting equipment, in the days when the average studio pro might invest $30,000 to $100,000 in strobe-and-head systems, light stands, clamps, cables, light shaping equipment (gobos, skrims, reflectors, softboxes, grids, etc.), flash meters, camera stands (the average hobbyist today has no idea what a camera stand is), backdrops, and so on. (A pro I assisted for claimed he had $30,000 worth of Matthews C [Century] stands, which in some circles used to be called "Hollywood stands.") Of course the store strongly emphasized the professional portion of its clientele. But the manager of the store, in an unguarded moment, confided to me that only 50% of its sales were to working pros; the other 50% were to wealthy people, some of them women, who had artistic inclinations and time on their hands and the intention to become fashion or studio photographers, and the wherewithal to outfit themselves to do so. The store downplayed this segment of its clientele, but, to paraphrase the manager (who was a woman), "without wealthy lawyers' wives I'd be out of business."

(This is an aside, but the same woman lectured on the use of the Minolta Flashmeter IV, which until the advent of digital cameras was the most complex device intended for photography I ever encountered, at least if you bothered to understand all of its functions. She also confided to me that if more than three weeks went by between these Flashmeter IV lectures, she had to brush up on its features and operation by rereading parts of the manual before her talk. Made me laugh...if the person who taught it couldn't even remember how to use it....)

So the E-M1X isn't just for working pros who need its capabilities and advantages, and you shouldn't believe otherwise. It's half* for pros who need it and half* for people who want to be like the pros who need it, or who want to be outfitted to try the things it's made to be good at. Those people are a very important part of any "pro" product's market, too.

That's my 2¢ about $3k. More mañana.

Mike

*Actual percentages may vary

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Harsh reality

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Mike Plews: "As enthusiasts this discussion revolves around what we want versus what we need. Reality sometimes settles the issue for us. My way of dealing with this is to call things based not on what they are but rather on what they were supposed to be. For example, I have a Toro two stage snow thrower that can shoot a frozen dog turd into outer space. I call it my Epson 3880. If you look out over our back yard you can see my D850. It has a 750 gallon tank, a distribution box and three 80 foot laterals. Right now Mrs. Plews is waiting for the local septic service to come and pump out our Nikon. For much of the '90s we had a dog named Deardorff. Nobody in our family is named Deardorff but I asked for a Deardorff for Christmas and I got a beagle. It's all good."

Mike replies: Mike, I am going to have to come meet you and Mrs. Plews someday. It won't be to see your Nikon, though.

Øyvind Hansen: "If you can afford it it is very reassuring to own the 'flagship,' at least until the next version comes out. It keeps the upgraditis at bay. There´s still horizontal GAS to contend with though...."

John Camp: "I read all of Kirk's blog entries, and would comment there more often if I could only figure out how to do it. (Something to do with Facebook, or maybe Google, or maybe both.) In any case, he's down at his local camera store so often he ought to sublease a space in the back room and move in a bed and a microwave. Then he could try out cameras in the middle of the night, at his leisure. He also ought to give the occasional workshop on portraiture. I'd sign up in one minute."

kirk Tuck: "I'd love to reply to the mention of my buying habits, vis-à-vis camera gear, but I'm heading out the door just now on my way to the bricks and mortar camera store in order to buy a new Fujifilm 90mm ƒ/2 lens. Perhaps, finally, it will be the magic lens that makes my career mildly successful. If not, it may be another month in which we boil the leather camera straps to make soup...(sigh)."

Mike replies: Should we take up a collection for you?

Of camera straps, I mean.

I assume well-used, grimy, sweat-stained ones make better soup?

(Actually, I'd better watch myself here...best not provoke karma under this heading!  :-)  Or I'll be eating camera-strap soup myself.) 

Is $3,000 Too Much For a Camera?

I really wonder about this.

On the one hand, I've been "cash strapped" most of my life and I think $3k is a huge amount of money to spend for a camera, verging on "outrageous."

On the other hand, I've done it. Never actually $3k+ on a single body exclusively I guess, but close, and I've bought a $3k camera and lens, or one body plus a second backup body, or an outfit. Not once but several times. I regret almost all of those purchases—all but one that I can think of—and I wish I had most of that money back. (The one exception was my Leica M6 and 35mm Summicron, which I got good use out of and resold for almost what I paid for it.) But I have to admit I myself have spent that kind of money for gear.

On the third hand (because there's a third hand here, yup), some people have money, and buy things like boats, multiple cars, multiple motorcycles, and second homes. I even know people who have helicopters. Little tiny "personal" ones, but...helicopters.

In that kind of context, I'm just not sure $3,000 for a camera body is all that much. When you put it in perspective.

I know people who have spent $3k or more on the following items: a painting; a photographic print; a pool cue; a pool table; a lawn mower; a vacation; a bicycle (really, there are $3,000 bicycles) and a single component in a stereo system (that is, speakers, power amplifier, turntable etc., in case you don't know what I'm talking about).

I can't think offhand of any other things that people I'm personally acquainted with have spent $3k on, but there must be more examples. Can you think of any? Examples of people you personally know who have spent $3,000 on something that most of us consider ordinary, or perhaps discretionary or unneeded? Anyone know someone who has spent $3k on a bottle of wine or a watch or a pony for their daughter or a piece of furniture?

Don't feel obliged, but, want to tattle on yourself? What's the most extravagant thing you've ever bought for more than $3,000? 

I don't believe I know anyone who has spent $3,000 on a meal. But then, how would I really know? Probably someone I know has done so and I just don't know about it.

I know I don't want to spend $3k for a camera again, especially one that's going to be outdated a few years. But it's all relative I guess.

What's the most you'd be comfortable spending for a camera body?

Mike

[UPDATE: I think I figured out where I'm coming from on all this. When the E-M1 Mark II came out at $2,000, I had a strongly negative reaction...because I had been anticipating its release and considering looking at it seriously. When the E-M1X came out at $3,000, I felt no reaction at all, because I'm not in the market for a camera at the moment and wouldn't buy an E-M1X anyway because it doesn't suit my tastes and needs. So I guess that's what accounts for my initially puzzlingly different reactions to the prices. —MJ]

[UPDATE no. 2: It didn't occur to me until after I wrote this post that for most of the late '80s and '90s, my annual budget for film, chemicals, printing paper and related supplies was right around $3,000! And I was being frugal—rolling my own film from bulk and buying proofing and workprinting paper on sale. —MJ]

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Harsh reality

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Featured Comments from:

YS (partial comment): "One thing I've always been astounded by, in the years of reading the blog, is despite cultural (we're like three continents apart) and age differences, there's always something you write that will strike a chord with me. I suppose that's why you've been able to do it for so long, since it clearly resonates with others too!"

Peter Wright (partial comment): "I believe you have put your extravagance bar far too low. The Swiss have a watch industry where $3,000 is not even the entry point, and it's doing very well thank you very much. I doubt if any Leica bodies or lenses can be had for as little as $3k. Likewise, $3k is hardly enough to get a basic vacation on a continent you don't already live on. I could go on. I don't thing 'extravagant' starts to kick in today at less than $10,000 for any of the items you mention. A $3k price on a camera for someone who needs it? Won't hold them up for a second!"

PaulW: "Other than housing, health, or transportation, I have never spent more than $3k on anything. I look forward to seeing the comments on this post! By the way, $3k is not considered extreme any more for a bicycle. My local shop has a number of mountain bikes with MSRPs over $4k and a couple priced at $7,500!"

mike in colorado (partial comment): "I think it was about $3k that I spent in 1999 on an Arca-Swiss F-line 4x5 camera. Without a lens. I was at a point financially and photographically that it made sense to me. I used that camera this morning, so I'm at less than 40 cents per day of ownership."

Jim Simmons: "Neither of my cars cost me more than $5,500, but I spent $7,000 for a sofa that took five months to arrive from Italy. And believe it or not, no regrets. Most expensive camera: Arca Swiss F-Metric at $2,800, 15 years ago."

Kaemu: "In the San Francisco Bay area, its not unusual to see people ride bicycles that cost between $5k and $15k. Not something I would do, but I also prefer not to think about the money I spent (squandered in some cases?) on photographic equipment. Not sure any good would come from that."

Ben Rosengart: "I have seen many, many musical instruments costing upwards of $3k, including guitars, pianos, mandolins, even ukuleles. When cared for properly, they don't depreciate (I think pianos might be the exception here)."

John Camp (partial comment): "Spending large sums of money can be stupid, ridiculous, crazy and a lot of other things, but it's also an expression of freedom."

Joseph: "Well, I spent exactly $3,000 on two gallon Ziploc bags full of smoked Kuskokwim River salmon strips. I knew the person who caught, dried and smoked the fish. And I also knew the $3,000 would buy three $1,000 scholarships for Alaska Students attending post-secondary education. I was bidding against a colleague at a fundraiser; he kept on raising me $100 until we got to $1,000. Then I said the hell with it and tripled the amount. My mother had died a couple of months before and there was a surprise $3,000 check from a very old insurance policy that showed up in the mail just before I left for the event. It was put to good use. I love Kuskokwim salmon."

Andy Sheppard: "I'm still spluttering over the $3,000 pool cue...."

Mike replies: David Jacoby makes one "Cue of the Year" each year for $25–35,000.

Geoff Wittig: "I spent almost that much on a book. Just one book. I was visiting Seattle with my son who was checking out colleges circa 2006 and also visited with one of my old college friends who lived near the city. On one trip downtown we were killing some time and checked out a 'used and rare' bookstore. There sitting in a glass case was a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, the fabulous 1930 Grabhorn Press edition. This is by common consent perhaps the most beautiful 'fine press' book ever printed in America. For sale, for $2,750. After several (begging) phone conversations with my long suffering wife, I bought the book. Which meant trusting the bookstore to ship it to my home back east. Several anxious weeks later it did arrive. I think it's still the finest work of art I own, though I have some beautiful photographic prints thanks to TOP that are in the running. No regrets."

Clay Olmstead: "I know people who have spent that much on a set of golf clubs, and then pay more money to use them—and greens fees aren't cheap. You can go out and shoot all the pictures you want for free."

Brian: "My wife just spent $3,000 on a dog!"

Mike replies: I almost did that! My foundling from the park, Lulu the mutt, needed a TPLO operation for the canine equivalent of an ACL tear. It cost $2,700 and ten weeks of nursing and rehab. She was grateful!

See Spencer H's comment too. Props to him for loyalty.

Jeron: "All is relative—it depends on how much money you have and the value you assign to things. Most people I know will easily pay $3,000 for a set of rims, and consider it a sensible purchase. To me, that’s an absurd amount of money for a totally irrelevant object. If I were rich, I'd just buy whatever seems to do the job and not worry about it. Not having to worry about such issues is what I imagine is the sweet thing about being rich...."

Mike replies: Most people think so, but I'm not sure. Even very rich people go bankrupt. And less rich people can be very secure. There is a great book about this that I learned a lot from called The Millionaire Next Door.

Aaron: "High-end espresso machines often cost $3,000+. I haven't bought one (yet), but know people who have. I certainly know plenty of people who have spent $3k+ on jewelry, particularly engagement and wedding rings."

Will Lovitt: "As the manager of my local camera store says, 'You only cry once.'" 

Alfonso Rubio: "Three thousand dollars is about the average price for a business-class return ticket from Europe to the West Coast. It is also the price of the Canon 5D Mark IV. My Vespa 300cc cost me €4k last Spring."

Nick: "In addition to photography, my other great money-sucking hobby is the uber-geeky card game, Magic: The Gathering. There are 20,000+ different cards for the game, and some of these cards were printed in very small numbers (especially the older cards, before the game caught on in a big way). There are different formats for gameplay with different rules on which cards one can use in one's deck. The typical format (Standard) in which most people play has decks that run ~$200, and which must be frequently upgraded and replaced. The next most popular format (Modern), features decks that can run well over $1,000, but which need to be upgraded less often. Legacy, the next largest format, often features decks that cost around $4,000, and Vintage, the format that allows almost all of the cards (including the oldest and rarest) features decks that cost more than $10,000. The most expensive individual Magic Card, Black Lotus, can retail for over $6,000.

"I (thankfully) do not play Legacy or Vintage, but my total collection of Standard and Modern cards cost me well more than $3,000."

C.R. Marshall: "Three grand is nothing. My wife has a horse. Three grand is what she pays for board for six months. Not counting lessons, clinics, shows, a trailer, a tow vehicle, saddles, boots....

"She has friends who take their horses to Florida for the winter. It all comes out of her paycheck and she finds it worth every penny. Here in central Wisconsin, I see plenty of folks pulling multiple snowmobiles in the winter (and big boats in the summer) behind big trucks.

"It will cost me more than $3,000 by the time I am done with my Peter Turnley workshop in New York this summer."

Rodger Kingston: "Back in 2005 or 2006 I spent $4,000 for a limited 1930 first edition of Hart Crane's The Bridge—the Black Sun (Paris) edition, with photographs by Walker Evans. I sold my collection of signed Aaron Siskind books to pay for it. But that volume, which was Evans' rare first book, had been the essential and missing crown jewel in my Walker Evans collection, which I was later able to sell for $100,000."

Dan Gorman: "If memory serves, my wife and I spent about $3,500 on a king-size custom-made bed 8–10 years ago. Seemed like a hell of a lot of money at the time, but I've never regretted it for a moment. You can't put a price on a good night's sleep. Zzzzzz, Dan."

Philip Wynn Ramsden: "My credit card was hacked for a $3,000 lunch in Sydney a couple of years ago. I was in Sydney with my card at the time and was not invited. The card company re-imbursed me, thankfully."

David Miller: "Two principles guide my financial decisions: 1.) Live within your means 2.) Given adherence to Principle 1.), unexpected income should not be wasted on sensible purchases.

"Principle 2) has permitted me a couple of purchase well over the $3,000 mark:

—an X-Pan camera with three lenses: awakened my vision; gave rebirth to my photography; changed my life

—a top-of-the-line daVinci Designs tandem bicycle as a 40th wedding anniversary present for me and my spouse: opened our lives to new shared horizons; carries us for two or three thousand miles together every year including two trips around much of England; changed our lives

"So far it's working out pretty well."

Dave Rogers: "Bodhi, my 10-year-old Golden Retriever, tore his medial cruciate ligament one morning when he was doing one of his random, tear-around-in-circles-as-fast-as-he-could on the end of a twelve-foot leash drills. Then he screamed and fell. I'd never heard a dog scream before, and hope never to again.

"I live on a second floor condo, and I could carry Bodhi up the stairs; but going down put us both at serious risk. We moved in with my then-girlfriend, now wife, and had the surgery, itself an ordeal because they sedated the morning of the surgery, then decided to not to perform it because the surgeon didn't like what he saw on the X-ray; thought he might have had bone cancer. He aspirated vomit coming out of it, but survived and the radiologist determined it was just arthritis, so we did the surgery a week later.

"Recovery went well, and he was going up and down the stairs like nothing had ever happened. With the false start and the radiologist, I think we were around $3,200 when it was all said and done.

"A few months later, it appeared as though he had developed a dent in the side of his head. Trigeminal nerve wasn't working, and the muscle on top of his head had atrophied. Our vet said we needed to see a veterinary neurologist. A $75 consult and 20 minute exam told me he had a brain tumor that was pressing against the nerve. I would have four months to a year with him.

"It was four months to the day.

"He was fine every single day until the last one, when it was unambiguously time to say goodbye. We had 24 hours for friends to come by and say goodbye. There's an outfit called Lap of Love, they'll come to your home and do what has to be done. It's a remarkable service and very well done and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

"It was $450, and after we had carried his body down in a litter to the vet's car, I settled up with her and we said goodbye.

"A few minutes later, I got a call from my friend who was with us at the end. She was also the one who brought Bodhi and I together almost a decade before. She said that she knew it probably didn't count as a 'good deed' if she talked about it, but she'd already paid the vet before she'd ever come to my house, she hadn't processed my card.

"Bodhi and I had about eight months, I think, after the TPLO. It was worth every penny. It's a remarkable surgery, but it gives amazing results. We enjoyed every day, though the last 90 were bittersweet.

"A bit off topic, so I won't be offended if it doesn't make the cut. But some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

Jennifer Blankertz: "The most I've ever spent is $8,500, on a rowboat. Of course, a Van Dusen 1x isn't exactly your average rowboat.  :-)  "

Mike replies: Cool. My great-aunt Dickie rowed until she was in her late 80s, and got into the boat ceremonially a few times in her 90s. Her rowboats were made of wood, but in that category she also had the best of the best. She died aged 101.

Ben Shugart: "I'm victim to frequent bouts of GLS (gear lust syndrome), but I rarely suffer GAS where photography is concerned. My last camera purchase was a used Nikon D300 in 2011 for around $750 and I'm still very satisfied with the photographs I get with it. Somehow, though, that practicality doesn't extend to my mountain biking hobby...er, obsession. $6k for a fully human-powered two-wheeler seems perfectly reasonable."

Timothy Gray: "In 2007, I spent $3,000 on a then-brand-new Epson Stylus Pro 7800 printer, including the Epson Two Year Extended Warranty and several rolls of paper. At the time, I felt sick to my stomach having spent such an amount on something I knew so little about (I was sending out for printing at the time and a colleague suggested I bring printing in-house). Well, it is now 2019 and that printer is still going strong. It has helped me win art competitions and photo awards and exhibit and sell many prints. Yes it was quite an initial outlay and yes the inks are expensive, but for something that has given me such joy over the years, it’s been well worth the price of admission."

4-Cylinder Ferrari?

Olympus E-M1X

Please read the disclaimer before proceeding!

Disclaimer: NOTHING AGAINST Olympus, Olympus fans, Olympus users, anyone who's interested in this camera, anyone who's shopping for it, anyone who likes what it represents, anyone who's interested in its tech, anyone who thinks they might be able to make use of what it offers, anyone who's considering buying one, and, especially, any actual work (pictures or videos) that might be made with one. No hate...for it, you, Olympus or E-mix pics/vids.

If you'll look at the front of the new Olympus you'll see why I've been calling it the "E-mix," pronounced ee-micks, because "M1X" looks so much like "mix." Apropos that, isn't it a great thing that the alphabet contains the otherwise nearly superfluous letter X? What would the camera industry do without it?

Uh-oh, I'm digressing.

Character defect.

Before you read on, though, did you read the disclaimer? I want to make sure everyone read the disclaimer. Otherwise I'll get slammed with all sort of accusatory comments and emails over the weekend, and I'm in much too good a mood for that.

It's true that I'm probably supposed to be getting carried away by all the specs and the launch celebration like everybody else. I guess I resist celebratory launches—I'm like a grouch at the Super Bowl who wanders around muttering about CTE. However, if there was ever a product in our category I'm not in the market for, this would be it. And you should know that.

Okay. So, a question for you: Is it just me, or does this product (behind all the hoopla) maybe make less than perfect sense?

(What'd he say?! Whoops, please re-read that disclaimer again now.)

Don't get me wrong. I use Micro 4/3; I'm on record repeatedly as liking the 20-MP 4/3 sensors; and I'm not a professional so I'm not in the target market for the E-mix. But at first blush there seems to be some kinda cognitive dissonance going on with this new Olympus beastie, except maybe for critter and airshow photographers and others who need a lot of reach. It kinda feels like a supercar with a little motor, like maybe...I don't know, a 4-cylinder Ferrari.

For those of you who might be car-illiterate, or more so than I, Enzo Ferrari, as I understand the story, originally considered himself an engine maker, and his cars were deliberately and specifically 12-cylinder race cars—he originally built road cars to subsidize and homologate the racing program. Enzo's son Dino convinced his father to race V6 and V8 cars in the '50s, but when Ferrari built road cars with smaller-than-12-cylinder engines, starting in 1968, he didn't call them Ferraris at first—he called them Dinos, reserving the fabled "Ferrari" moniker for 12-cylinder automobiles.

Ferrari did make some 4-cylinder engines, originally designed by Aurelio Lampredi for Formula 2. But a Ferrari road car with a 4-banger? Not on your life.

I presume if I got anything too badly wrong in the foregoing paragraphs, reader and car aficionado extraordinaire Jim Hayes will set me back on the right, ah, track.

By the way, I like 4-cylinder engines too, although I'm really a 6-cylinder fanboy. I like V6's and straight 6's best. My dream car, for instance—yes, I know this is quirky—would be a Miata with a transplanted GM LFX V6 engine. Yum.

But I digress.

Again.

Back to the E-mix: I could be wrong. It just seems to me like a Pen-F, E-M5 Mark II, or GX9 is an all-around better housing for a 20-MP 4/3 sensor than a camera that mimics the style and purpose of the biggest pro Canons and Nikons.

Just wondering what you're thinking of Olympus's thinking here.

Remember that disclaimer!

Mike

ADDENDUM:

Actual 4-cylinder Ferrari—a 1957 500 TRC. But get this...it was a V4.
(Thanks to Hugh Crawford. Photo: Ferrari.)

UPDATE Jim Hayes adds: "I dig your analogy Michael! Enzo Ferrari reportedly never had much interest in road cars; just selling them to fund his racing. Big 12-cylinder road cars sold for much higher prices and made more profits, so that made marketing sense. When it came to racing he would build cars for any class he wanted to participate in, so if he needed an engine with fewer cylinders and less displacement, he would do it. They even experimented with 2-cylinder engines.

"While there was never a 4-cylinder road Ferrari, there nearly was one. He commissioned Bizzarini to build a miniature GT based on a 4-cylinder 1- liter engine derived from the current 12-cylinder 3-liter cars. Bertone designed a coupe for it. It never made production at Ferrari but was sold to ASA and eventually surfaced as the ASA 1000GT around 1967.

"It looked like a miniature Ferrari. The car was tiny and the engine, which looked Ferrari-ish, was jewel-like. I've seen a few and they are the size of a small Fiat of the era. Only about 40 were made and they are collectors items."

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

psu: "FWIW Thom Hogan is using the same analogy. 😃 🚗 "

Mike replies: I swear I did not read or see anyone else's thoughts about the camera before composing my own. But..."great minds think alike"?

Stephen Scharf (partial comment): "I think the E-M1X was designed exactly the way it should be to do the job it was designed to do. As a very long-time Canon 1D-series user, that is very clear. The E-M5 MkII, Pen E or G9 camera frames and lens mounts are not torsionally stiff and strong enough for the types of long (and relatively heavy) lenses that would need to be mounted on this camera and maintain critical optical tolerances, let alone providing the requisite durability and reliability. Pros don't care a whole lot about all the newest specs, they care about toughness and durability. And shutter life."

Chris C: "It's bigger and heavier than the medium format Fuji GFX 50R!"

Ken Blumberg: "I've been a dedicated OM-D owner for the past seven years (E-M1 Mark II and E-M5 Mark II currently). I enjoyed your digressions and especially like your Ferrari analogy. What brought me to switch from APC to Micro 4/3 was the form factor. I think the E-mix is a miscalculation. I'm looking forward to the E-M1 Mark III."

kirk Tuck: "So. Deep breath. Not every camera is designed and purposed for walking around Downtown Austin with the instrument draped over my shoulder, sporting a nice, smallish lens and being unobtrusive. Some photographers, especially those who photograph all kinds of sports (think Olympics) wildlife and other pursuits that require long, fast lenses, spend hours holding up said long lenses in their hangs, anchored by a camera body. If you have ever done this kind of work you have probably found out that a larger camera with more gripping space helps to hold the entire package more comfortably. In the same pursuits having a robust body is also a good thing. As is a fast frame rate. In the "old days" when everything revolved around print photographers convinced themselves that they needed big (think V12) sensors. Now some prefer smaller sensors in order to reduce the size and weight of those long lenses while still delivering ample image quality. They are helped in this pursuit by the current target media: electronic screens. About 60–70% of Internet content goes to cellular phone screens.... This means that the final results from a smaller sensor camera will seem identical to big sensor cameras when viewed in the medium of choice for the majority of audiences. But the small sensor camera users still want the robustness of the larger body as well as the comfort afforded by the larger contact area for their hands.

"And since I keep saying hands I would also mention that these working photographers (Olympus' target market for a camera like this) will appreciate image stabilization that is head and shoulders above competitors' offering.

"So, what we have here is a well-considered specialists tool that can also be a 'halo' product for Olympus. It was never intended to be an 'all-around' much as a Ferrari was never meant to be used pulling stumps on the farm. We need to get into our heads that all cameras are not all purpose. Heavy-duty users will see the advantages in this new camera and buy one if the advantages align with their very real needs. I think it would be a good choice for theater photography when paired with the Olympus 40–150mm ƒ/2.8. I hope Olympus reads this and sends me the new body for a long, long test run."

PhotoDes: "Well, I don't own Olympus or a 4/3 camera, but I see nothing conceptually wrong with the M1X. After all, sensors and processors have been improving steadily over the past 10 or more years—I suspect a 4/3 sensor today is better than my APS-C sensors of years ago. There are advantages to the smaller sensors, within their limits, and cameras shouldn't be sized to the sensors anyway as long as hands stay the same size.

"An interesting and significant new alternative as I see it."

Ciaran: "Mike, I agree with your question of 'does it make sense?' for the E-M1X, certainly from the customer's perspective. I doubt that many customers have been calling for a bigger, heavier Micro 4/3 camera.

"However, from Olympus's perspective, a bigger, more expensive camera with more batteries provides a vehicle for new technologies, which in their first generation tend to be bigger, more expensive, and more power-hungry than their predecessors. This appears to be the case for the E-M1X. Rather than developing a new higher performance processor, they employed two of the existing True Pic VIII processors, driving up size, cost, and power consumption. Judging by the pictures of the main board and exploded diagram on Imaging Resource, they are using all of the space that a big body gives them.

"Olympus seems to be taking a bigger step into computational photography with the E-M1X, and this is an area that they could differentiate themselves in. (It is also technology that works well with small sensors, as Apple and Google have shown us.) The size of the box is important for a computational device. There are good reasons why the highest performing gaming and Photoshop PCs are desktops, not laptops; desktops have the room, the power, and the thermal management to house the latest processor and graphics card. Similarly, the E-M1X has much more room and power and enhanced thermal management (heat pipe!) compared to the Pen-F, for example. To do the same job with less volume and power might be doable, but it would require greater engineering resources and/or time (miniaturization is hard). Constraining themselves to a small box would be a disadvantage to Olympus, especially when the big boys have their big cameras to bring new technology to.

"Olympus may not sell a lot of these, maybe not enough enough to recoup development expenses, but it gives them the opportunity to get their new tech into the field and benefit from customer feedback while possibly gaining some favorable interest in follow-on products. And now they have a big body for future first generation technologies, relaxing the constraints for size, cost, and power during design."

Mark Jennings: "Enzo’s personal taste? Hard to say. He drove a Fiat most of his life. He tolerated his road car customers, and their taste tended to be a lot of romantic ideals. Ferrari himself just wanted to win, and V12s in the '50s were somewhat more reliable: lots of tiny, low mass parts moving at low speeds. Ferrari V12s typically weren’t the most powerful engines in a race, but they finished a little more often."

Jack Kurtz: "I'm a working photojournalist who uses the E-M1 Mark II and Pen F bodies. I like them a lot. I am a huge fanboy of the E-M1 Mark II and the small primes.

"But the E-M1X is kind of a head scratcher. I think the biggest challenge with Olympus' current cameras is that they've hit the limits of their 20 MP sensor, and this doesn't address those limits. I switched to mirrorless, and specifically Micro 4/3, from Canon 5D series cameras and L lenses because of the smaller/lighter ethos mirrorless promised. E-mix feels like a step backwards.

"As intriguing as some of the new technology in the E-M1X is, it doesn't solve any problems I currently have. I don't photograph planes, trains, or critters, so, even though the autofocus is very cool, I don't need a camera that picks up on a plane, train, or critter.

"I'm hoping some of the new features in the E-M1X trickle down to the E-M1 Mark II through firmware updates. (Specifically, access to both SD cards when you're using Olympus' iOS app, Ol Share.) I'm glad Olympus is still innovating and I think the eMix is a great proof of concept camera—but I don't see myself buying one."

Marcin Wuu: "I don't follow. It seems exactly the same case as the Panasonic G9—too big a camera with too small a sensor. Or is there a limit to how ridiculously oversized those things can get, and the G9 is exactly it?"

Mike replies: The G9 isn't a large camera when you see the actual object in person. It's merely not small, is all.

The light is not quite right in my "studio" in the morning, but here are a couple of quick comparison snaps for you—

G9 with 12–35mm next to X-T1 with larger handgrip and 14mm ƒ/2.8

Next to c. 1977 Nikkormat FT-3 with AIS Nikkor 85mm ƒ/2

Now go look at this. As you can see, that's not apples and apples.

Ed: "Who I'd like to hear from is an actual working pro sports photographer who uses Canon or Nikon and has had a chance to use this Olympus and compare."

Mike replies: That describes Stephen Scharf (who shoots motorsports such as motorcycle racing), who we'll probably hear from if/when he gets a chance to take the E-mix out for a spin.

David Dyer-Bennet: "I run a battery down in my EM-1 Mark II most days shooting roller derby. With a little anticipation you can change batteries at a break in the action, but I know people who don't want to think that far ahead. And I wouldn't be surprised if somebody shooting 4X the photos I do wouldn't run the battery down sooner, maybe multiple times per bout. (I'm already using the 40–150mm, so focusing big glass, and using CAF, so I can't increase my power draw too much.) This certainly isn't the body for the dedicated landscape photographer, and probably not for the street shooter (I don't do enough of that for my opinion to be more than a guess though). But it does seem to be designed for fast continuous action, sports and wildlife."

Whitney Dunn (partial comment): "The size arguments seem misplaced. It’s not for everyone, sure, but neither is a D5 or 1DX. They’re niche almost by definition. The role of these type of cameras isn’t to find a broad audience but to complete a system. You need a body with the best autofocus we can deliver, that will stand up to serious abuse, and deliver regardless of the conditions? Here you go."

Art and Fear (the Ceramics Lesson)

A plug for an old fave, Bayles' and Orland's Art & Fear.

The famous anecdote from Art & Fear about the ceramics class:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A," forty pounds a "B," and so on. Those being graded on "quality," however, needed to produce only one pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an "A."

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

When I first read this I was almost incredulous, like angels had been culling my life for cautionary tales.

When I was in art school, I was required to take a ceramics class, and I really didn't want to. The ceramics teacher was a great guy, a guy named Bob Epstein who was also a photographer. He and I would encounter each other in the Photo Department darkroom sometimes, late at night, as we worked. So, tongue half in cheek, I made a deal with Bob—I told him I didn't have any time for ceramics and I asked him whether he would give me a passing grade in the class if I managed to make one perfect pot. He said that's not really something you can do, because pottery is a matter of process and progress, of the evolution of your skills and your understanding of the materials, and it's not really static and simple in the way I was conceiving of it—words to that effect. But he knew I was committed to photography and that it was all I was interested in, and that I didn't want to spend any time or effort on ceramics. He could easily have been offended by me and my attitude, and he had the authority to insist that I take his class more seriously. But he stepped aside and got out of my way instead. He knew I spent a lot of time at school, in the darkroom till late at night, so he knew I was focused and worked hard.

I did make one mug, working very carefully. He thought it was too regular, bland, with no respect for the clay, and naturally he was right. But when we fired it, the glaze from the upper half of the mug ran down, one color into the other. Bob said that was part of the process—fortuitous mistakes—part of the elemental aspect of the materials. My one mug might have been a good effort for a maiden try by a rank beginner, but it wasn't perfect by any definition. Bob, being kind, passed me anyway, because he knew my heart was in photography and he didn't want to cause any trouble for me.

And then ten years later Art & Fear comes along, and it has this little anecdote that seemed to be a direct admonition for my little display of hubris, of arrogance, my little gambit, with Bob. By that time I had realized, of course, that Bob was just being generous, knowing I wasn't going to learn anything from him or from the clay anyway, because I was close-minded and wasn't going to put any time into it or explore it openly.

Clay was not the medium for me—I knew that. But perhaps I could have been more mature and more open to what I could have learned from Bob. I was pretty arrogant in those days. I thought I knew everything. Of course after half a lifetime of additional learning I know much, much less now—fortunately for me.

Here's the "perfect" mug. It's the physical embodiment, from my very own life, of the little anecdote in Ted and David's book.

Another helpful book on some of the same subjects as Art & Fear is Steven Pressfield's The War of Art.

The thing in the background in the picture, if you're wondering, is a British officer's sword from the Crimean War.

Mike
(Thanks to Bob E.)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John W: "Ahhh. Well done Mr. J. Two mementos of hubris in the same image."

John Camp: "One of the coolest guys I ever met was a potter named Warren MacKenzie, who died earlier this month at 93. He was pretty famous (for a potter) and was much respected in Japan. He started out as a standard art student, in Chicago, I think, but read a book by a guy who was probably the preeminent Western potter of the 20th Century, Bernard Leach of England. MacKenzie apprenticed himself to Leach for three years, and did almost nothing but production pottery (because the pottery studio had to support itself) and in that time really learned how to do the work. Much of the 'art' of pottery comes with the physical act of throwing the clay, and, as with your mug, accident; you get serendipitous beauty. (There's been a tradition in Japan, which is ground zero for the most beautiful pots in the world, of collecting production pots made in Korea—they are made hastily and fairly crudely, but some are stunningly beautiful.)

"Anyway, MacKenzie came back to America, slowly became accepted as one of the two or three best potters in the country. He lived not far from me in the St. Croix Valley in Minnesota, and one of the cool things about him was, he had, like, a shed where he'd leave his pots, with a basket to put your money in if you wanted to buy one. Nobody was there to supervise or make sure you paid. You usually never even saw anyone. This continued even for a while after he was becoming a museum-collectible artist, but eventually he had to stop it, I guess, because people would come and take as much as they could, and he learned that they were re-selling it for much more than they paid him.

"I bought a half-dozen or so pieces from him over the years, and once confessed that I'd broken one of them, and he laughed and said that he was delighted that we were actually using the pot, which was what it was for. (We kept it full of wooden spoons on the kitchen counter, and I snatched a spoon out of it and managed to pull the pot over on the tile kitchen floor. I almost caught it, but didn't quite.) Anyway, pottery is as engaging as photography, but you can't do everything.

"While you might look back on yourself and think what you did was arrogant or smug, I don't think so—I think you were choosing your life's work."

Blake Andrews: "Art & Fear is an old favorite and it's nice to see it resurface from time to time. Co-author David Bayles lives just up the road from me near Eugene. He keeps a very low profile and is probably better known in distant art circles than locally. But I did seek him out a few years back and then got to know him a bit. He's still making photos, and engaged with the artistic struggle, and also Parkinson's. An amazing man. Thanks for sharing his book."

Greg Heins: "When I first encountered Art & Fear, I could only wish—passionately—that I'd read it about 30 years earlier. But soon I remembered that had I done so, my mind would have been closed to what it was trying to tell me.

"It's the first book I recommend to young photographers."

Tom: "It was a pottery teacher who taught me how to see light. The regular teacher under whom we studied painting and drawing was away and so the pottery guy stood in. He gathered us round and produced his portfolio from his student years. We spent a couple of hours discussing where the light came from and how it illuminated each subject. It was the single most important art lesson I ever took."

Moose: "Re 'A plug for an old fave, Bayles' and Orland's Art & Fear....' Sheesh, forgot to read it last time you recommended it. In my Nook. Now, 'Another helpful book on this subject is Steven Pressfield's The War of Art.' I second that recommendation. I also suggest Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist."

Open Mike: Note to the Young

["Open Mike" is the anything-goes, often off-topic Editorial Page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays.]

A note to young people: it's critical to practice what you want to do, and, usually, mastery will come to you in the thing, or a thing, that you practice consistently and for the joy of it.

But be sure to practice exactly what it is you want to do. Don't practice something else thinking it will help you with the thing you want to do. Don't practice one thing thinking that you'll get to the more important thing later. You'll get good at whatever you practice. If you spend all your time shopping for cameras and comparing specs and "testing," that is exactly what you'll become good at. (This story is probably apocryphal, but supposedly a Leica lens designer once said, "the best way to test a lens is to use it for a year. Everything else is a shortcut.") And beware spending too much time doing things that aren't what you really want to do.

Practice exactly what it is you want to do. Whatever it is and however you do it.

Heed my words, grasshopper!

That is all for now,

—An Old One

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

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bt: "That was like a post I posted here a few ago: 'Be careful about what you get good at.' Because that's what you'll end up doing."

Hélcio J. Tagliolatto: "Nelson Rodrigues, the most acclaimed Brazilian playwright, a caustic and direct writer, at a press conference one of the interviewers asked, 'What advice would you give to young people?' He had no doubts: 'Young people, grow old!'"

Ben: "This is good advice, but there is a bit more...you should also practice skills that are necessary complements to what you want to do. Looking at and thinking about photography, for example, if you want to make photographs. Reading, research, and organization if you want to write. Marketing if you want to sell something: your photography, writing, services, etc.

"But beyond all of this, you must practice bringing difficult tasks to completion. This is a unique skill that many lack, and all of us struggle with. But practicing hard work and seeing things through to the end develops a set of skills that will be useful in whatever you choose to do. 

"P.S. To echo Mike's example, shopping is never hard work, and bringing a purchase home does not count as 'completing something.'"

Reflexive Shopping

This is cray-cray, but sometimes I do it. I go on "shopping autopilot" and shop even though it makes no sense.

For instance, at the moment, as I've mentioned, I'm shopping for a plain little black bag to keep the G9 in to make it easier to take it with me on drives. I want something black (car interior: black) and nondescript so it doesn't call attention to itself in the car. But then I wrote about Billinghams, and did some research on Billinghams (I actually heard from Martin Billingham, the founder of the company), and before you know it I'm off perseverating on a Billingham Hadley Small Pro (same as the Hadley Small but it has a detachable strap and a top handle). Looks really neat, nice and small, really like it...so I was thinking about getting it. And then I suddenly came back down to earth and thought, you idiot, it's not even what you're looking for.

Why do I do that? It's like I turn into some sort of shopping robot.

Think that's bad? It gets even more embarrassing. Occasionally, this has happened: I shop for a camera, get into the nightly habit of making the endorphins flow by reading reviews and feature lists and looking at pictures of the camera online. Then I buy one. Pull the trigger and buy one, meaning it's here, I've got it, "in the flesh" as we mindlessly say (nothing "fleshy" about a magnesium alloy and polycarbonate digital camera, but the only alternate phrase seems to be the equally inappropriate "in person")...and then I kinda miss the "reward" I got from shopping, whatever that was, so I find myself absentmindedly going back to those behaviors and continuing to "shop" for the very thing I already have.

Like I say, crazy.

I'm not saying I do it every time, or often. I didn't do it with the G9. But I've done it in the past. I wanted a Leica M6 for so long that, after I got it, I still wanted to keep shopping for it. Shopping for it had become a habit, a pastime, an activity. I'd gotten used to it. It had become a thing I did. And it was hard to stop doing it. But I had my M6 sitting next to me on the desk while I was checking eBay for the latest M6's for sale. To quote Bill the Cat, "Aaack!"

So anyway, a few corrections. I'm pretty sure now that my Billingham is a 225, not a 335 as I said in my recent posts. Four hundred dollars now, and maybe $180 when I bought it, not $280? (I used to have a memory, but I forgot where I put it.) That's it, above. It looks a wee bit woebegone in this pic with the heavy camera smushing it down, but it's actually just nicely worn in, like a serviceable pair of leather shoes. Nothing wrong with it. Mine is about 33 years old, and it's been used.

Also, the Domke I had was an F-802, not an F-803. The two bags are pretty close to identical except the F-803 is considerably smaller than the F-802. Despite which, the F-802 costs less; go figure. ($90 vs. $110.)

Sorry for the errors.

But on the present topic, I was actually looking at the Billingham 225 online and I clicked on one of the other color combinations, and the following demented thought actually unfurled across my brain-pan: wonder if I should get one of those....

What?! Fortunately, some other part of my brain quickly chimed in with, you already have one of those.

Idiot. I'm a trained seal.

I want one of these. Even though it's not what I, um,
want. How's that again?!

Reflexive shopping! Gah. And to think, some economists think consumers are rational actors!

I wonder if people ever start shopping for one thing and then shop themselves into something entirely different, and then find themselves placidly regarding the lovely thing they just bought while it slowly dawns on them that it's perfect except for one thing, which is that it isn't at all what they need. And that whatever they needed, they still need. I'm not saying that's ever happened to me, but I could see it.

Mike
(Thanks to Stan B.)

P.S. This post isn't about camera bags, it's about photo-dawg behaviorism.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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Dave Van de Mark: "The last paragraph of your post is the story of my life and explains why I am broke.  :-)  "

Eric Brody: "I think your (and my) reflexive shopping goes back to the Shutterbug era, though the Internet has greatly intensified it. I am not surprised—should I be?—that we have similar behaviors of continuing to shop even after the item has arrived. The shopping process in the Internet era is genuinely addictive. I have actually been disappointed when I finally obtain the item of my desire. I perseverate, I make spreadsheets of price, weight (in ounces, pounds, and grams). For items that are hard to find, I check all the online stores each morning and through the day (I'm retired so I can do this)...all day. Recently an object of my desire was actually available, and I had the funds for it, but I kept putting it off until it was no longer available. Then I felt better. 'Crazy' is the right word."

Yonatan K: "Not just photo dawg behavior.... It is the 21st century incarnation of hunter-gathering."

Bernd Reinhardt: "Tell me about it Mike. My 2005 Volvo S80 needs a new transmission for $3k. "I'm not going to put that much money in the old car. Time to get a Subaru Outback. It's a wagon with AWD. What? $15k for a six-year-old car with 70k miles? No way. What, it sold already? For $23k, I can get one out-of-lease with 40k miles. Oh wait, a company loaner with 5k miles and full warranty for $26k. Great, I think this would make the most sense. How much is the tax? Three grand?!? That's the price of a new transmission for my Volvo. 'I'm getting the Volvo fixed next weekend.' That same night, I'm sitting on my couch looking at Subaru Outbacks...."

psu: "Shopping is safe as long as you are not always buying. That's the secret. The Internet is in many ways the Golden Age of shopping (not buying) as a hobby."

Patrick Medd: "Over the Christmas and New Year period I found myself being repeatedly sucked in by the Fuji cashback offers available at that time in the UK. The offer period was long (from Black Friday until 10th January) and, coupled with other sale offers which came and went during that time, I managed to acquire a 14mm ƒ/2.8 lens, an X-E3 with 23mm ƒ/2 Fujicron, and a 50mm ƒ/2 Fujicron. This despite the fact that I already own, at the last count, at least 847 different devices capable of recording an image onto film or electronic sensor.

"All of the above Fuji purchases are now sitting on the side unopened, as I consider that I really shouldn’t have bought them and ought to send them back while I still can. But I won’t actually get round to doing it. Meanwhile, as they sit there awaiting their fate, a recurrent idea comes to me that this is now really the time to do the Leica for a year project and before you can say ‘eBay’ I’m looking at Leica M3's and investigating providers of CLAs of an evening. This despite the fact that I already have a Leica M5 which would definitely meet the criterion of being a Leica.

"In summary, all the above just goes to illustrate that photo-dawg behaviourism isn’t a hobby, it is a DSM-classifiable self-destructive psychiatric disorder which requires an evidence-based treatment programme now.

"That Billingham bag does look nice in that colour though. Think I will just go and compare specs and prices online…."

Mike replies: Here's a skosh of evidence-based encouragement Patrick: an M5 would perfect for an OC/OL/OY project. Ideal.

Of course, you will need the right bag...(never mind, you'd better go find a professional for help!)

Jack Baty: "I bought a nice new bag two weeks ago, read your article yesterday, got to thinking, and immediately ordered the Hadley. Guilty."

IPatrick Dodds: "I've been not-shopping-just-fantasising for a digital Pen F that I am definitely not going to buy for some months now."

Random Excellence: Ned Bunnell (Blood Moon)

Ned Bunnell, Blood Moon

Ned writes: "Here’s the story. Since all my big lenses are in storage while we renovate our new-to-us old ranch house, all I had was my iPhone XS and Ricoh GR. I’m really not into moonscapes, so I just to took a quick snap with the phone.

"As you can imagine, the moon was no more than a spec of dust on my XS display. I knew there’d be thousands of similar images of this tiny moon on Instagram. I love visual challenges, like in the old days when I’d quickly sketch editorial or product concept illustrations for a client. So I spent no more than 15 minutes playing with different image combinations using Darkroom and Snapseed. The base image of the sailboat was shot with my GR several weeks ago.

"What I find interesting is that with over 200 likes on my Instagram feed, quite a few folks congratulated me on the amazing capture or wonderful photograph. This surprised me, so I added a description in the caption explaining it was actually two images combined."

(Posted by) Mike
(Thanks to NB)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

Blog Note

Having just moderated 400+ comments over the past few days, I thought I'd mention a few nuts and bolts FYI—

Names: In the "Featured" comments, I reproduce commenter names exactly as written by them in the commenting box. The only rule I have is that I do not reproduce "handles" that are business names or come-ons (for example, "Best Seattle Drone Photog"), or URLs. (Or crude/profane handles, although that almost never happens.) Most often, I solve those problems by not featuring (and sometimes not even publishing) the comment.

Emails: Another issue is that in some cases I can email a commenter for clarifications (for example, the other day I asked a commenter if he really intended to say "discussed," which looked to me like it didn't fit in context, and it turned out the word he wanted was "discreet"), but I can't do this if people leave made-up email addresses which do not work. In cases where I can't contact the commenter, I just do the best I can.

Typesetting: TOP follows American typesetting conventions rather than British. So, for example, we enclose commas and periods within double quotation marks, "like this," rather than outside single quotation marks as our UK cousins are wont to do—in UK style that would look 'like this'. In terms of spelling and locutions, I leave Featured Comments as written (colour not color, winning line for finish line, and so on) except that I apply conventional American typesetting and punctuation in accordance with normal site style.

Pet peeves: I admit I have a...few (yes, let's go with "few"). Loose is the opposite of tight; lose is the opposite of win. Loose rhymes with juice. Lose rhymes with snooze. The loser is losing because the one who's winning is loose as a goose. And, "possessive its gets no apostrophe." You just have to memorize that—possessive its gets no apostrophe—as it doesn't necessarily make sense. Thus, speaking of a company, It's evident its website is beautiful shows the correct form of both its and it's. Just memorize "possessive its gets no apostrophe" and you'll have it. (And there's no such thing as its'  .)

Whose Guidelines? Here are the full Comment Guidelines if you're really interested. Note that the formulations in the Guidelines are what I work from, not rules you're required to know! They're just there if you're curious (no, Mike, the Pet Peeves paragraph is done—don't go their).

My bad: We have the best readers and commenters on the Internet in my biased opinion. Many of our commenters are smarter than I, some are superior grammarians, virtually all are more knowledgeable in their own fields, and some are better writers. Thus, a good portion of the errors that abound around here are mine and mine only.

Fondly,

—Mike the Ed.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

David Elden: "One for the apostrophe police SWAT team:

Mike replies: That's so bad it's hard to tell how bad!  :-)

Simon Miles: "The possessive its is just like his. No apostrophe is his. No apostrophe in its. Simple. I've never forgotten since coming across this simple aide memoire."

Longviewer: "Think I shall name my next pet Peeve. Should make for fun conversations."

Mike replies: I seriously might steal that. Brilliant.

Casey Bisson: "Re 'The Pet Peeves paragraph is done—don't go their,' I’m impressed you had the strength and determination to publish that. I am too weak to attempt such a joke. (I tried to write 'week,' but I really couldn’t bring myself to submit the comment that way.)"

Michael Perini: "I was going to comment, but find myself paralyzed by Grammar Anxiety [sic]"

Mike replies: Forgot the period.  :-)

Seriously, most of the time I won't even comment on grammar or spelling or punctuation posts. There should be a name for it, but there seems to be a law that whenever I comment on posts like that, I make a mistake myself.

Ben w: "None of the possessive pronouns take an apostrophe—his, hers, ours, theirs, yours and, indeed, its. It's just how it's done!"

Mike replies: Well said sir.

Billingham Bags

I know, I know, what David Paterson said...in the last Featured Comment on the previous post...but I can't help one more comment about bags. And that is to point out that any time you get a lot of use out of something, you win.

I circle back around to writing about Billingham (here's their website, which has the least informative "About Us" page I've ever encountered) every few years.

I put Billingham in the "High-Status Luxury Veblen-Good brands" category in my Guide to Bag Brands. However, Trevor Johnson said in the Comments that he bought his large Billingham bag in the 1970s and it's still going strong—"I would certainly not describe Billingham as a Veblen good," he concludes. Kent said that he bought a large and small Billingham Hadleys 12 years ago, and, "given that both bags are still in great shape, and that I can't see any reason to replace them, I'd have to say they were a good investment. Good value for the money, even. People like 'em for a reason."

Billingham 335

I mentioned that I bought a Billingham 335 when Ronald Reagan was President (that was the 1980s, Jaywalkers), and I still have it and it's still fine, although it doesn't look new. I'm not a big camera bag guy unless I'm transporting stuff—I prefer to be out and about with one camera on a shoulder strap—but, having invested in a good one at the start, I really never had to buy another camera bag until I needed one that would fit a laptop computer.

Those didn't exist when Reagan was President. Portable computers were invented in the 1980s, but laptops in their current svelte notebook form weren't around then. My stepfather had an early portable computer and by today's standards it certainly wasn't very portable. I don't think his would have fit in the average suitcase, much less a camera bag.

Anyway I didn't get a new bag until I needed a bag for airline travel that would hold my laptop. I used the Billingham 335 for years and years. So it was an excellent investment, and, yes, a good value.

I wouldn't buy a 335 today, though. Too heavy. (And won't hold a laptop.) Some say the closures are finicky, too, but I'd take issue with that—familiarity with the bag is sort of like the film loading procedure in an old Leica M, with their odd removable baseplates; it might seem fussy, but once you learn it you kinda learn to like it. It becomes a mild sort of guild secret that only initiates know. I could open and close my 335 blindfolded.

But I'd pick a different Billingham now. An S3 would be a perfect mid-sized field bag for a small but nimble Fuji or Micro 4/3 walkabout kit. The Hadley Pro is larger but actually cheaper. The Eventer is probably the best one of all (and holds a 13" laptop) but for some reason it's much more expensive than all the others. I think it's the best looking of all of 'em.

Aren't they all expensive? I guess, but it depends. I thought my Billingham was expensive when I bought it—I think I paid about $280 back then*, and I can't recall now why I briefly hallucinated that I was rich enough to afford that—but it has long since paid for itself, in the form of all the other bags I didn't have to buy in all the years I used it.

During the tenure of the Billingham, Kodak sent me a freebie—a black cotton canvas Domke F-803 with Kodak's own branding. That one literally wore out. Frayed all to hell, and got holes in the corners. And after a while it looked like hell, too. During which time, the Billingham barely aged at all.

I still think I have Billingham in the right category in my Guide to Bag Brands—they're luxury bags, with their Edwardian horse-set country-house English style—but, no, that doesn't mean they can't be a good investment, and a good value.

You just have to keep them a long time or use them a lot, that's all. A Billingham Eventer bag will still be perfectly serviceable in 2050, I have no doubt. If I was 35, I'd buy one.

And now, I'll heed David's plea and stop yakking about bags—until I circle 'round to them again, several years from now.

Mike
(Thanks to David, Trevor, and Kent)

*Adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that's $640 now, and new ones (in canvas, like mine) cost $440 now.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

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Featured Comments from:

Rod Young: "My wife bought me a Billingham 335 for my birthday over 30 years ago. It was the first present she bought me—we'd not long just met. She was obviously impressed—by the bag, of course. Glad to say both wife and camera bag have aged excellently! Agree it's heavy—it stores my gear at home while I use a lighter bag for walk arounds—but it has the looks and over-engineering of a classic so it deserves the odd outing every now and again."

Dr_Nick: "I have Lowepro and Think Tank bags that are over a decade old that still work well. I had a cheap $30 Lowepro sling I was using as my daily bag for non-photo stuff for years and it’s still fine if I want to use it. I’m not sure Billingham deserves a biscuit for not falling apart."

Jeff: "I own the Hadley Pro and have used it successfully for years (not as long as my 20 year old smaller Fogg b-laika that was $350 but still going strong). But if I wanted a larger bag, I would now skip the Eventer and go with the newer Hadley One. Bigger than the Pro, with laptop protection, and with some other terrific upgrades and added functionality. It retains a top handle and includes a trolley strap on the back, a removable shoulder strap, covered pockets and zippers, which are more rain resistant, and several insert options (half inserts...one or two...a full insert, or none at all). I put gear into both the Eventer and Hadley One (the only way to judge in my experience), and was sold on the latter."

Roy Feldman: "As someone who photographs on a regular basis in downtown Detroit I try to maintain a bag that looks worse than the bags of the street people I encounter. Domkes after a few years and washing machine cycles take on a patina that doesn't say 'Camera inside, steal me.' I have actually tied one to my car and dragged it on a gravel road."

Bernie: "I support everything that you said about Billingham. I have been buying them for some 25 years myself—starting at a time when Billingham was most reluctant to ship it to me in the heart of mainland Europe (never figured out why). If you like the style then Billingham is the company to buy. I have been through most copies (brands copying the style) and none matches Billingham. But let me repeat: you've got to like the style and not everybody does. "

Mike replies: Yes, very true, very true.

Stan B.: "Just got me a brand new F-803, and am looking forward to wearing it out! Those Billinghams look too much like penny loafers, or perhaps more precisely, very expensive wingtips...."

Mike replies: Did you get a "RuggedWear canvas" one or a "waterproof cotton canvas" one? They wear quite differently I hear. Mine was cotton canvas and I don't think it was waterproof.

Thomas Mc Cann: "I had a large Billingham stolen from a hire car in Dusseldorf one time. I had the camera body and a lens with me as I walked around this beautiful city but the bag had two more lenses, passports, and airline tickets. Didn't notice it was missing till we got to the airport when my wife had to reassure the police that I was in fact her husband, and not a white slave trader, in order for us to be allowed leave without passports. Aer Lingus were very understanding about the missing tickets.

"Back home I replaced the bag but two weeks later received a letter from the Dusseldorf police saying the bag had been handed in, and would I like it back at a cost of €17? When I got it back its contents were intact. Unbelievable."

Mike replies: Amazing story.

Long ago, maybe the 1950s or even earlier, my late Uncle Cam found a $100 bill in the back of a taxicab. He asked the cabbie if he was a betting man. The cabbie said yes. So my uncle told him he'd just found something in the back of the cab and said he would either pay the metered fare for his ride, with a tip, or he'd give the cabbie what he found, whichever the cabbie wanted. The cabbie really was a betting man, and he chose to take the risk. So my uncle handed over the $100 bill.

A nice payday for the cabbie—a hundred dollars in 1950 would be equivalent to roughly $1,000 in today's dollars.

Mark L (partial comment): "I bought the original Hadley back in the 1980s, and replaced the insert last year. I love it so much that I will now only buy gear that fits it."

Roger Lambert: "For me, the true appeal of my Billingham bag is not merely the satisfaction of a wise investment. It is that every time I use it I appreciate an object constructed of the very finest materials and highest standards. And those materials are downright sensuous—thick redolent leather, luxuriously substantial yet silky canvas, and heavy solid brass. Every single time I use it, it makes me smile."

REVISED Camera Bags Brand Guide

(I'm finally caught up with the comment moderation—84 comments on the "Settings" post, 205 comments on the "Camera Bags" post, and 102 comments on the "Portrait Lens" post.

Sorry to be so late getting them all up, but that was exhausting!

Nevertheless, thanks to all who contributed. Some really great comments on all the posts. Please do scroll down one last time and look at least at the "Featured Comments" on all those posts. —Ed.)

Having been somewhat more completely educated now, please allow me to modify...

 

MIKE'S SEAT-O'-THE-PANTS BASIC GUIDE  to
CURRENT CAMERA BAG BRANDS

 

Good Utilitarian High Value brands: AmazonBasics, Manfrotto

Sensible Well-Established Mainstream brands: Tamrac, Lowepro, Tenba

Wotancraft Trooper size comparison

Cool, Hip and/or Retro-ish brands: Crumpler, Domke, Peak Design, Ona

Stylish Women's-Fashion brands: Jill-E, Jo Totes, Lily Deanne by Think Tank, Kelly Moore (lest you be in any doubt of the target market, Kelly Moore has a camera bag called the "Sues Vegan Organizer")

High-Status Luxury Veblen-Good brands: Billingham, Artisan & Artist, Fogg, Oberwerth (and on the topic of target margeting, Oberwerth, which Google Translate says means "upper worth" in German [not quite accurate, our German readers tell me], has an $800 bag not-so-subtly called the "Wetzlar"—which Leica will be happy to sell to you with its own branding for $200 more! Oberwerth also has a strap—just a camera strap—that costs $226, which is more than Tamrac's highest-priced shoulder bag. But then, that's the definition of a Veblen Good.)

Best Bags for Working PJ, Artist, and Professional Photographers: Think Tank, Porta Brace (better as portable packing cases than carry bags, methinks), Wotancraft

 

Honorable Mentions

Cheapest decent bag: AmazonBasics Large DSLR Gadget Bag, $22.65

Longest-lasting bags: Billingham (I've had my Billingham 335 shoulder bag since Reagan was President and it still looks good and works fine. Our readers seem to like the Hadley particularly)

Best camera straps: UpStrap (it's also Jay Maisel's favorite brand)

Best airline-friendly rolling case: Think Tank Photo Airport International V3.0 Carry On

Best feature (that I know of, anyway): Quick-access zipper on Tenba DNA Messenger bags. I love that

Highest-rated bag on Amazon: Domke F-2

Waterproof, shockproof hard cases: Pelican (waterproof polypropylene copolymer hard cases—LensRentals ships its rental cameras in a soft case inside a Pelican case inside a cardboard box)

Best-looking bag: Ooh, I ain't goin' there. Probably a Fogg? You'll pay for that, though. Plus, the only cameras pretty enough to go in a Fogg bag shoot film. As we used to say on CompuServe, <grin, duck, & run>

[Drum roll, please] Best camera bag brand overall: Think Tank Photo (by popular acclaim!)

 

How'd I do? Is that better? I got rid of the "-ster" on "hip-" that was causing so much consternation. And yer welcome. See what I do for you?

:-)

Mike
(Thanks to the 205 commenters on the previous camera bag post)

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Stanleyk: "Can't argue with the F-2. I have one that's at least 15 years old and going strong. It's been through multiple cameras. Currently I changed out the inserts and use it for a GFX 50R + 63mm + 45mm and a Mamiya C330 + 80mm + 65mm. I bet I still have and use this bag ten years from now."

Kenneth Tanaka: "Hey, that's a very good, well-sorted list, Mike! Adding to the best non-photo bag bags list, my own most frequently used 'goldilocks' bag is the PacSafe Metrosafe LS250. Terrific for general travel and for carrying small, mirrorless kit. I've been using these for a several years and they're excellent! Think Tank is my favorite brand of photo bag, followed closely by Lowe Pro. (No, I'm not self-conscious about the branding. It's often facing toward my body, anyway.)"

Geoff Goldberg: "Have had a lot of these bags, and still find the F-Stop the best of them all. Others have their virtues, but their larger backpacks are designed and made very nicely."

David Paterson: "Mike—enough with the bags already. But really.

"Please."

Mike replies: Well...y'see...I felt my list really should be improved...before I left the topic behind y'know...didn't want to let the flawed list stand...thought I could do better after having done more research...y'see....

Oh well. Okay.

Random Excellence: Frank Stefanko

Frank Stefanko, Corvette Winter

From what I read about it, this is one of the most famous pictures of Bruce Springsteen, showing the singer as a young man with the Corvette he bought with the proceeds from Born to Run (and still has). It was taken by his friend Frank Stefanko, and is also one of Frank's best-known photographs. Strangely, I had never seen it before the other day, when I happened across it while researching Southside Johnny's Hearts of Stone. Frank Stefanko took the picture for the cover of that album too, among many others. Frank has had a longtime working relationship with Springsteen and with Patti Smith, and has made numerous photographs of both.

The JPEG shows a rendering of an oversize limited-edition platinum/palladium signed and numbered by Frank that Morrison Hotel Gallery is currently offering for $13,000. You can read more about the picture—one of Morrison Hotel's most popular—in the listing.

I've never been a big Springsteen fan, due to massive overexposure to Born to Run at the hands of my dastardly freshman dorm-mate Paul Nowosadko, who played that album a million times, over and over and over and over again, until well past the point where we all wanted to strangle him. He was too nice a guy to strangle, but we suffered for letting him live. The same situation with Blood on the Tracks caused a serious rift in the friendship of two female college friends, too; one felt that album should be reserved for reverent occasional listenings, while the other felt it should be the soundtrack for every waking moment. A serious we-need-to-talk problem.

Anyway, now I'm a Stefanko fan.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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Richard Popham: "Brings me back.... One of my college roommates drove the rest of us crazy with Jackson Browne's For Everyman. We finally hid it on him and he bought another. But—it was his stereo."

Jonathan: "It took me well into my late 30s to really be able to cope with Springsteen due to overexposure to that particular song. Though I have a massive life long aversion to Meatloaf, in particular Bat out of Hell, I was stuck on a five-hour drive with a friend once with that being the only tape on the tape deck...yes it was that long ago, it was a small car too so the music really surrounded you...I'm even feeling a little anxious just re-telling the story...."

Mike replies: ...Made me laugh.

Tim Auger: "I sympathise. When at boarding school aged 13–14, I suffered Ricky Nelson. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Always bl**dy Ricky Nelson. I was forced to learn by heart not only the songs but the scratch noises on the vinyl LP (you call them albums, I think). Sixty years later, I still feel the trauma."

Mani Sitaraman: "I first saw that environmental portrait many years ago, and it is unusual for being a double portrait, of a man and of a car (and of the man and his car), as any classic car enthusiast will recognize, instantly. With the snow and the house in the background, it adds two more dimensions to the environmental clues about the subject. But even without the analysis, you don't have to be a Springsteen or 'Vette fan to see that that's a great picture.

"My other favorite picture of Springsteen is more straightforward, and is by Joel Bernstein, and is also available at the Morrison Hotel online gallery. To those acquainted with the time and place, the Jersey Shore in the late 1970s, Bernstein's picture is an instant classic, too. Tonally, though, Stefanko's image is quite a bit more interesting."

The Biggest Flaw I See in Pictures*

In one way it's curious that Henri Cartier-Bresson is known for "the decisive moment," and for things like Joel Meyerowitz's description of him darting and pirouetting through crowds like a hummingbird, wielding his Leica like a hibachi chef's knife, because it downplays the amount of time he must have spent sitting around waiting.

Because as I understand it, one of his picturetaking strategies was to find a nice setting, and then wait around until something happened in it. Who knows how long he had to wait, but he was a committed, uncompromising guy, so I imagine that sometimes it must have been pretty long. A guy on a bicycle comes along a cobblestone street at the bottom of some stairs; a little girl runs up a long set of steps between some whitewashed buildings; a fat man ambles across a kids' playground; a man hops over a puddle behind a railroad station.

One PJ I know, who is a nice guy and not otherwise prone to criticizing others quietly calls modern digital-tsunami photography "camera-pointing." I think I can be just a tad more subtle, in the hope of being helpful...what I think is that too many photographers take too many photos that are just settings.

The settings need a "punctum," in Barthian terminology.

And what is punctum? A brief definition: "The book [Barthes' Camera Lucida] develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum: studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it" (Wikipedia).

A visual example would make my point more clear:

This is a good example of a picture that is just a setting. I think it's a nice setting, but it's not quite a picture. It's empty of the needed "touching detail." To be a successful picture it needs a punctum. Two young lovers sitting cross-legged against the stone wall, heads bowed together; the hand and arm of a passerby who is disappearing beyond the left-hand side of the frame; a sheet of white paper blown on the wind against the dark stone; an airplane in the sky in the extreme upper-right-hand corner of the frame; something obtruding from a window.

It could be anything. But it needs something.

Many pictures without a particular accent (in which case we might call them "scenes") can work, but, still, most we see are just settings. I think it's the biggest flaw I see in all the photographs I look at out on the Web. Endless waves of pictures washing ashore in which the photographer has found yet another setting, but that is all.

If he had liked the "geometry" of this street corner in Albany well enough, I'm sure old Henri would have waited patiently for ten minutes or an hour for something to happen—something to create a moment, decisively.

But I'm lazy, so I snapped this exposure, settled for a setting, and moved on.

Mike

*But not yours. Please don't reflexively assume I am talking specifically about you, because I'm not!  :-)

[UPDATE Thursday: I'm seeing a lot of misconceptions in the comments, for which I always blame the OP—failure to communicate in a few cases is inevitable, but failure to communicate in many cases is usually the writer's fault. I probably shouldn't have brought up "the decisive moment" or studium/punctum and I probably shouldn't have used just one example. My problem is that I don't like to use real pictures found out on the wild Web when I need negative examples—I don't think that's fair to the people who took the pictures, to single them out and criticize them for what I see as failings.

However, rather than further overspecify my meaning—and that partly because I'm still way, way upside down on comment moderation and it's driving me crazy—I think it might work to say it more simply. What I mean is that taking a random, approximate, undemanding snap of something isn't enough, alone, to make it work as a photograph. There needs to be something in it; it needs to have something. Something that gives it a point, something that draws in the eye, something that you can connect with, something to make you pause and think, something about it that has some measure of beauty, something, anything, that helps an exposure rise above the common mass of everyday average sorta-almost-maybe exposures. Something that touches the heart or engages the brain or reflects the truth or comes together in a form that has particularity or peculiarity, or grace or order, or surrealism or oddity, or meaning, or some other uncommon quality or qualities. Something, whatever it is, to make a picture a hit, not a miss...to someone.

As the now-probably-dated** expression has it: ya feel me?

**Because by the time an expression filters down to me, it's probably not current any more.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

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Featured Comments from:

Dean Zepick: "David duChemin's classes on travel photography talk about this. Just sit for an hour in a location and wait."

Mike replies: The strategy has another advantage too, which is that when you stay stationary for a while, people stop paying attention to you. Try it sometime, if you haven't—when you first appear and take up your position, you'll draw attention, but after everyone nearby has satisfied themselves that you're just standing there, you become invisible. They won't notice when you occasionally raise your camera or look down into the viewing screen.

Andrew Molitor: "I am pretty sure that most of the suggestions you have for punctum would actually be characterized as just more studium by Barthes. In fact, as best I have been able to determine, punctum means the telling, wounding detail, that only a supremely sensitive soul, to be specific, Roland Barthes, can detect.

"I cannot tell if it is that my reading habits have changed lately, or if there has in fact been a massive spike if references to Barthes in the last year or two. He keeps popping up."

Mike replies: A punctum by definition has to be specific to each individual viewer, because it's defined by the effect it has on each of us. That's why Barthes uses Barthes, because he's the only frame of reference he has access to, by definition. And I can't judge whether any of my examples might work as a punctum, because I can't see them! I don't see them because they don't exist. If I haven't see it, how can I guess how seeing it would make me feel? I'm only giving some examples of details that might have been in the frame. But maybe something else would have happened, something I can't foresee or imagine.

For me—and therefore quite possibly not for you—the first picture in this post is an excellent example of punctum. The little kid climbing out of the window is a detail that actually has the ability to continue to be startling to me even long after I've already seen the picture. I just can't quite guess what was going on here or what was running through the photographer's head, whether the girls were posing innocently or knew about the kid in the window, whether the whole thing is to be taken at face value (i.e., the girls didn't know about the kid in the window and the photographer was paying so much attention to the girls that he/she simply didn't pay any attention to the kind climbing out of the window) or it was all a deliberate put-on.

I have to say I love that picture completely.

Joseph Brunjes: "This subject is beautifully discussed by Sam Abel in his National Geographic lecture about his book, The Life of a Photograph. It used to be on iTunes U but I just found it again on YouTube."

Dennis: "I suspect this is a can of worms that probably warrants a much bigger conversation. The punctums (puncti?) you listed are mostly people with the others freezing motion of something moving through the scene. So I think that will make some readers assume that you're trying to say those are the types of things an image must have. I can think of plenty of photos that lack a decisive moment, but still include a personally touching detail. Like a tricycle left on the sidewalk in front of a house (instead of just a house). Meaningful words on a sign in front of a church or diner. Even a whimsical clash (or coincidental match) of colors. There's plenty that can be done to turn a setting into a scene."

Mike replies: Exactly so. That falls under "the perils of using only one example."

JOHN GILLOOLY: "Upon an additional reading of this post, I think it might explain a bit more. It seems that most people are able to find stadium and punctum in their own photographs—almost every one of their own photographs. In the commercial setting, this has taken a bite out of some less critical areas of the business. At most institutions, there is somebody that 'loves taking pictures' and that person is quite enthusiastic to offer their photography skills for free. While the photography may be quite bad objectively, they see both studium and punctum in their images. I think this is also why it tends to be very difficult to successfully edit your own work. It's not easy to separate your experience with the photograph enough to determine whether it objectively possesses these qualities. Or shall I say, whether others are likely to find those same qualities in the image."

David Comdico: "As a sturdy and simple heuristic, I think the setting/punctum rule elaborated here is useful. For example, when wading through the vast number of images we are inundated with it seems to me a reliable reference point.

"When faced with more sophisticated work and deeper analysis, obviously things get more complicated. For starters, take the texts associated with these ideas: Cartier-Bresson's essay in The Decisive Moment and Barthes' Camera Lucida: both have had a monumental impact on photography—nd, being subtle arguments, are (and have been) easily misread.

To give two brief examples: Cartier-Bresson warns against the simple staging of photos: 'The elements which, together, can strike sparks from a subject, are often scattered—either in terms of space or time—and bringing them together by force is "stage management," and, I feel, contrived...the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving. Sometimes you light upon the picture in seconds; it might also require hours or days. But there is no standard plan, no pattern from which to work.'

"In Camera Lucida Barthes states, 'However lightning-like it may be, the punctum has, more or less potentially, a power of expansion. This power is often metonymic.' And then goes on to associate (and expand upon) a dirt road in a Kertesz photo with that of a personal experience in Hungary and Romania. That is, the subjective nature of the punctum will tend to erase the image itself and expand beyond it through associative substitution.

"This can, obviously, go on at length (there is much more that can be said about the demonic properties of metonymy). But nevertheless the Pareto Principle still applies."

[Heuristic: "Involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods." (Merriam-Webster). Metonymy: "A figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated" (Literary Devices.net). For example, "suit" for "businessman." Pareto Principle: Also called the 80/20 principle, that " for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes" (Wikipedia). —Ed.

Mike's only comment to David: in my heuristics, I like simple and sturdy!  :-) ]

Hans Muus: "What a coincidence: my most recent photo, shot January 3, 2019, made me think about Roland Barthes' 'punctum' just a few days ago. At the end of a very grey and dark day suddenly a late sun shone almost horizontally from under the cloudy canopy and lit these houses with a very distinct triangular shape of light. This shape, together with the old fashioned sun screen in the dark at street level and the open dormer windows on top welcoming the sun, drew my attention. I focused and framed the picture. I didn't wait for anything else, just made a bit of haste because I couldn't see how long the sun would last. And then, with my eye glued to the viewfinder and about to press the release button, a young woman's head appeared, as it were inviting the sun much more strongly than the open windows would ever be able to do on their own. You could say it was she who pressed the button and made the photo.

"I didn't take another one, this was it. And I will never forget the feeling I got, of revelation almost, when her head appeared in the viewfinder."

Mike replies: That's a picture.

Thanks for the nice example. And since we're already talking about Cartier-Bresson, he described a similar feeling when the fat man slouched across the courtyard where the kids were playing. I wish I could find it—where he talks about it, I mean—but I can't.

Manuel (partial comment): "The 'decisive moment' is often misinterpreted as the instant something happens before the camera and must be shot immediately, or will be lost forever. While this take is true to some extent, it's a rather superficial one. As Cartier-Bresson himself explained in at least one interview I read, the decisive moment is when everything inside the viewfinder lines falls into place, thus creating a meaningful and interesting composition. You hit bull's eye when you mentioned the bicycle picture: it was when the rider moved across that particular point—between the handrails, which drive the eye to the bicycle—that the scene became a meaningful photographic composition; that was the decisive moment."

[Below is the picture we're talking about, and we're just using it as an example, not holding it up as any great paragon of perfection. Henri is a great photographer, but no photographer is a god. —Ed.]

Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Blog Notes

I had a stressful and busy day yesterday, and the upshot is that I've lost the use of my car—I guess because, in the opinion of the Universe, I didn't have enough to worry about. You know how that can be.

I'm forced to return to related obligations this morning, and then this afternoon I'll be getting to the comments on the last two posts. There are at this moment two hundred and fifty three unpublished comments awaiting moderation, about half a day's work. So, no new post today, but, starting at about noon, I'll be adding new comments and Featured Comments throughout the day, so I encourage you to check back through the afternoon to read some of 'em.

To get to the comments on any post, simply click on "Comments (xx)" in the footer of any post:

Also, being behind in moderating by 253 comments is an all-time record in the 13 years, one month, and 18 days TOP has been in existence. I don't keep records, but I don't think I've ever been that far behind before.

Onward to my (temporary) fate, with a sigh.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

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Featured Comments from:

David Lee: "I could see it coming. The word 'bag' makes us all very opinionated Mike."

longviewer: "We do indeed know how it is. Just refinanced the home to pay off debt, so now is the Universally correct time for a check-engine light to come on and for the sudden death of our 11-year-old cat. Man Duncan was a cool kitty, my first cradle-grave cat. Greeted us at the door when we came home, gave great head-bonks for greeting. Always wore his good coat too, so photogenic."

Mike replies: I have a longstanding reputation for not liking cat pictures, but there's one huge exception to that: when they're of your own pal, a cat you know. Then, of course, cat pictures are good and many are great. Sorry to hear about Duncan.

Lowepro and the 'T' Bags

[UPDATE: See the newer, revised Guide to Camera Bag Brands. It supplants the Guide in this post. —Ed.]

I'm currently looking around for a camera bag again, which is, to a photographer, the equivalent of a nasty fungus in an embarrassing place that flares up from time to time: just part of the burden of our existence. Because everyone knows two things: 1.) most bags will serve, if you'll just relax and adapt and get over it. And 2.) no bag is ever just exactly right. I don't care—shop all you want—devote your life to it—you'll never find it. It's not out there.

That's the whole gestalt with camera bags.

What I'm looking for at the moment is a small shoulder bag that can hold my medium-sized Panasonic G9 with its 12–35mm ƒ/2.8 lens, with enough room left over for the 35–100mm ƒ/2.8 lens I hope to buy next year.

I hate shopping for camera bags because there's too much choice. It's overwhelming. There are oceans of the things—single brands offer, sometimes, dozens and dozens of models, and even forums of photo fans working together can't name all the brands. We could try for a week to compile a list of all the camera bag makers and three weeks from now we'd still be getting comments from passers-by saying "you forgot [blank]."

As a way of bringing this all under some semblance of control, I tend to look only at what I call the "T bags"—Tenba and Tamrac. They're two big-name, good-selling, sensible mainstream brands that I've had good luck with in the past. My bigger bag is a Tenba, and I really like it.

Of course they don't make it any more. Bag fashion moves fast.

 

Mike's Seat-'o-the-Pants Basic Guide to
Current Camera Bag and Case Brands

Sensible Mainstream Well-Engineered brands: Tamrac, Lowepro, Tenba

Cool Hipster brands: Crumpler, Think Tank, Peak Design

Stylish Women's-Fashion brands: Jill-E, Jo Totes, Kelly Moore (lest you be in any doubt of the target market, Kelly Moore has a camera bag called the "Sues Vegan Organizer")

High-Status Luxury Veblen-Good brands: Billingham, Ona, Oberwerth (and on the topic of target margeting, Oberwerth, which Google Translate says means "upper worth" in German, has an $800 bag not-so-subtly called the "Wetzlar"—which Leica will be happy to sell to you with its own branding for $200 more! Oberwerth also has a strap—just a camera strap—that costs $226, which is more than Tamrac's highest-priced shoulder bag. But then, that's the definition of a Veblen good.)

Utilitarian No-Nonsense Working Man's brands: Domke, Pelican (waterproof, roto-molded [as opposed to injection molded] polypropylene copolymer hard cases)

Cheapest decent bag: AmazonBasics Large DSLR Gadget Bag, $22.65

 

Of course, I have some preferences and a few features I'm looking for in my G9 bag. I want it to be the right size. It's easy to buy a bag that's too big, but I already have a big bag (that I use when traveling to see my girlfriend in the Finger Lakes—in other words, it's in the basement and dusty now), and I don't want to use a big bag with just the little camera knocking about inside it. I want a detachable strap, so I can substitute one of my favorite UpStraps if I want to (they don't slip off my shoulder; everything else slips off my shoulder). I want a bag that does not have too many dang compartments all over everywhere; I've seriously had camera bags in which I can lose things because there are 39 compartments and pouches and pockets hidden everywhere. I'll stick a card in a little top-secret zippered slit hidden in the bag somewhere and never see the damn thing again. I prefer a flap I can leave closed but unfastened, such that I can access the camera quickly while still giving the innards of the bag protection from, say, drizzle. I want to be able to situate the camera with its handgrip facing up, so I can grab it easily (and I absolutely don't want to have to separate the body and lens to stow the camera away).

A camera positioned in a bag with its handgrip facing up, the
way I like it. This is a Tamrac Derechoe 5. (Derechoe?)

And one more thing—I know this is a bit of a conception problem, but I really don't like the idea of a bag that needs a bag. Yes, I know logically that, in a downpour out in the woods, even a rain-resistant bag might need to be wrapped up in something else to prevent water from finding its way in, but, sorry, I really have an aversion to bags that need "rain covers." It's like when I buy a bag of Yukon Golds at the supermarket—nothing else, just a bag of potatoes—and the checkout clerk says, "Would you like a bag for that?" I always want to reply, "they're already in a bag." I never do, because I know they're just doing their job, but why would I need to take fourteen potatoes that are in a plastic bag and put them in another plastic bag? And if that makes sense, why not put the bagged bag in another bag? Because they're heavy, so they might need to be double-bagged. In which case they'd really be triple-bagged. I'll stop now.

I know that LowePro is another big mainstream brand that makes sensibly priced products, and deserves to be grouped with the T-bags. But I tend to have one problem with Lowepro, which is that they slather their name too prominently on their bags:

This is the Lowepro m-Trekker SH150 shoulder bag, and I suspect it meets all my requirements as listed above...but there's that problem. I don't care to sashay down the boulevard proudly declaring my affiliations to every curious glance. I don't like wearing brand names on my body. It makes me feel like a peasant, a vassal to my corporatist overlords who live in the big castle up on top of the hill. I sort of make a personal policy of not doing it.

And except for my Bears cap, which I bought when the owner of the Chicago Bears invited me to be his guest at a Bears game, I don't even wear stuff that proclaims my sports allegiances. Although that's probably partly because there are no Ronnie O'Sullivan caps or Ronnie O'Sullivan T-shirts or jerseys. At least I don't think there are.

And, with all due apologies to the good folks at Lowepro, "Lowepro" is just not a name that has resonance, provenance, and romance to the average Joe Sixpack and Jill Boxed-White-Wine on the street. It's not like "Ferrari" on a car or "Gucci" on a woman's handbag. I don't think it does my status any good to have my plain cordura bag brashly proclaim, "I'm the type of fellow who uses Lowepro! Smell me!" Nor do I think others out in the world will be quietly thinking as I pass, ooh, Lowepro. That guy's cool.

No offense. They think they're all that—that's why they blazon "Lowepro" on the face of the flap so prominently like they do, like it's Armani or Ralph Lauren—but no one else does. I doubt anyone but photographers who have made themselves cranky shopping for camera bags would even know what Lowepro is or what they do or who they are.

And while I'm griping, a minor peeve: Panasonic really ought to give up on "Lumix," too. It was supposed to be the brand name, like Pentax was originally the brand name for Asahi's SLRs and is now the brand name for Ricoh's DSLRs. Nice idea...I guess. Would have been nice if it worked out. But you know what, Panasonic? It didn't take. Would have been nice if it did, maybe, but it just didn't. Everybody calls your cameras "Panasonics." Time for you to deep-six "Lumix" and move on. We like you; you should like yourself. Use your own name like everybody else does. While everyone else calls Panasonics Panasonics, Panasonic grimly hangs on to "Lumix" like a procession of leper monks in the time of the plague. Poor perished horse done been beat long enough now.

But while I can put a little piece of electrical tape over the shouty "Lumix" on my G9, apparently I am going to have to go out and about shouting "LOWEPRO!!" to passers-by, as if it were precious to my self-identity, which I assure you it is not.

Because the m-Trekker SH150 would be probably be about perfect for me, except for that one imperfect thing. Which means that it's like every other camera bag: good, yet just not quite right.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kirk Tuck (partial comment): " I  take huge, big issue with your categorization of Think Tank as a 'hipster' bag company. Every professional, working photographer I've ever met has at least one of Think Tank's fabulous rolling cases [link  —Ed.] because they are so well made, reliable and well designed; and the Think Tank backpack I bought recently made carrying on gear to 26 flights in six weeks, including an international flight, a much better experience. It. is. PERFECT."

Mike replies: But Kirk...you're a cool hipster! I meant it as a good thing, not a bad thing. Isn't hipster sort of part of the job definition for most pros? I worked for a studio pro in the '80s whose style was decidedly, recognizably '70s, and he didn't last much longer—retired to his 90-foot sailboat. Woe betide the pro without his or her finger on the pulse of the latest styles and fashions, or am I wrong?

dogman: "When you buy the Lowepro bag, get it in black and also buy a black Sanford Sharpie pen. Immediately sit down with the Sharpie and carefully cover that offensive logo. It will still be there but now it will only whisper 'lowepro' instead of scream 'LOWEPRO.'"

K Williams: "I'll make a suggestion from the Cool Hipster brands, a Think Tank TurnStyle 10 (or maybe 5). This is my favorite camera bag by far and like many I have had quite a few. This one is the only one that really stands out from the crowd. You will forget you are carrying it after a short while. Very comfortable. Not too big. Just two moveable dividers inside. Very easy to get to your gear also and to change lenses inside the bag. Will hold a G9 with 12–35mm and 35–100mm with a little room to spare. The TurnStyle 5 may be able to hold that also but I don't have one. No flap and it comes with a bag to put over the bag in case of heavy rain, but I've never had to use it."

Hugh: "Have a look at the Billingham L2. I think it’s the perfect small bag...."

Ricardo Silva Cordeiro: "I was on the same page as you last month, shopping for a new medium-sized messenger camera bag that would replace my previous good-looking but cheaply made one (which started to fell apart after 1.5 years; come to think of it not bad actually for something with a daily use that cost me 35 bucks). I was investigating online and was still torn between a good but super expensive one and another good-looking but cheap one. But then I was just walking trough a store and saw 'the one': a Manfrotto Manhattan Speedy 10. It has everything I wanted, elegant and discreet, perfect size, lightweight, good materials and rain-proof, good access to gear and enough pouches/organization. It even is possible to carry a small tripod with some straps on the base. Also the price is right in the middle compared to the other ones I was deciding, one more factor that made me look at it as the 'goldilocks option' for me. Here's two good videos on it, it's not like checking it in person, but close enough: [one, two] both from Manfrotto."  

Mike replies: Manfrotto recently acquired the Kata bag brand, which as far as I know were made in Israel. Although the Kata brand name was retired, Manfrotto promised that Kata's DNA would find its way into Manfrotto products. I wonder if the Manhattan Speedy 10 was previously a Kata model? I don't know the product lines well enough to guess.

Mike Plews: "I have a Tenba bag that I bought in 1983 that is still soldiering on but is way too big for a walk-around. Being incredibly cheap I popped for the Amazon Basics bag you featured. It easily swallowed a Nikon D7100 with a grip, an 18–70mm Nikkor, a 70–210mm ƒ/4 AF Nikkor (the old design) and an SB600 flash. May be swapping out the flash for an 11–16mm Tokina shortly and I expect it to fit just fine.

"Will this bag last 30 years? I'm 69 and I doubt I'll find out. For the money it is terrific, maybe perfect for my needs. Your mileage may vary."

Pierre Charbonneau: "The bag I have been using for all my errands and travel since 10 years+ is an Artisan & Artist ACAM-7100. A Leica M and two lenses do fit very well. The bag is discreet, very light and well padded and cost dearly. It wears very slowly, considering the daily use. I may have never to replace it, which sweetens the initial price."

Mike replies: That's a great bag, but I fear it would be just a touch small for my equipment. I think it was made especially for a Leica if the name at the link is any indication!

Yanchik: "Greg Lowe and his brother were cutting-edge US alpinists in their time. And that time was one when climbing gear was rare and poor. So one or the other or both (I forget) set up Lowe Alpine, with LowePro as a brand extension. To me, a mild alpinist, having seen Greg speak while struggling horribly with Alzheimer’s towards what is surely the end of his life, these guys are the real deal—I suspect I am not alone amongst a demographic of climbers. My reply intended as an informative broadening of your horizons, rather than a rebuke. Stick it to da man by all means, but dis is not, I think, da man."

Mike replies: Thank you for the background. I did not mean to disparage the founders; however I think "Lowe Alpine" is a much cooler name. The word "pro" just reeks of cheap and by-rote to me. Not their fault, I know.

William Cook: "Good afternoon. My name is Bill and I’m a bag addict. Closet full of them. I’ve had all the major brands at one time or another; always searching for the elusive perfect bag in the messenger bag format. As you concluded, there’s no perfect bag. I finally figured that out—mostly. Now I only buy one brand of bag, Tenba. For me, that brand has one perfect feature that, as far as I know, no other brand has. That is the zippered access on the top of the bag flap for quick entry into the bag. My current choice is the Tenba Cooper series. Not sure which size would meet your needs."

Mike replies: That's why I like my Tenba bag too. I'm not sure if the smaller Cooper bags have the top access feature, and the Cooper website is remarkably unhelpful on the question. (For others reading along, Cooper is Tenba's premium line.) I rejected the larger Cooper bag as my travel bag because it has no padding at the bottom of the laptop slot, which seemed like an insurmountable defect of design—I don't want to worry about damaging my computer every time I set the bag down. I'd love to see the Cooper lineup in person.

Moose (partial comment): "The perfect camera bag exists—then it doesn't, then, perhaps after a long hiatus, another one does. It's not that the bags go bad. It's not my fickle taste. It's the equipment that changes."

Dave Van de Mark: "You had me laughing the whole way through your bag priorities and laments. I have about four and none is perfect but I'm going to die with what I have. No more looking, period!

"But even more painful is trying to get rid of them. I had a dear friend pass away several years ago and his family entrusted me (begged might be better word) to move most of his gear. I soon discovered hardly anyone much valued "previously owned" bags. Didn't matter if they were worth hundreds. After explaining this to the family, I gave most away or managed to sell for 20 bucks. Part of the problem was they had really been used and looked it for sure, yet all were good for many more years of reliable service. Everyone wants to pay outrageous prices for the 'rights' to get it dirty themselves."

Kevin Crosado: "I've been using a couple of Crumpler bags for 10–12 years now (they were what my favourite local photographic store was selling at the time). They work pretty well and are still in good condition despite a fairly hard life (forests!) (rivers!) (coal mines!) (sawmills!) (rail yards!) (trucks!) (workshops!). But will they survive the greatest assault—their owner being outed as a geriatric hipster by some internet commentator?"

GKFroehlich: "I have upwards of 25 camera bags—one for each of the 25+ categories of photography I avidly pursue."

Mike replies: Very funny George!  :-)

Ernest Zarate (partial comment): "My favorite bag of all time (but too small for what I work with now) was a gray, WWII vintage Navy gas mask bag, model ND Mark IV. I got my first iteration at a Navy Army surplus store on Market Street in San Francisco in the mid 1970s. At the time, I had an Olympus OM-1, with a couple of lenses. It held a few rolls of film as well. I had to put a sheet of cardboard, cut to size, in the bottom to give it form. But the length of the shoulder strap was perfect. And it was completely unobtrusive—did not proclaim 'photographer' at all. That gas mask bag (and the second one I got, after I wore out the first) served me well. It held my Leica M6, and even my Mamiya 6 (a compact medium format camera with 50mm lens). I ended up gifting that bag to my eldest son who continues to use it as his camera bag."

Ilkka: "Just a small correction or addition since you brought it up. Panasonic was originally a brand name, not the name of the company. Matsushita Electric Industrial Company started making rice cookers and other home appliances before the war and at first used National as its brand name. When they started to make other things like radios they started to use Panasonic as another brand name. They have other brand names as well, like Technics. Eventually Panasonic became so well known that they changed the name of the company to their biggest brand name. A bit like the cameras made by Leitz were named Leica and eventually the company changed its name to Leica Camera. [Or not quite; the Leitz family sold Leica and forbade the new owners to use their name. But I take your point. —Ed.] Panasonic is too long to put in the front of camera. Konica Minolta was a silly name, and too long. Luckily Sony took it over and changed the name. Lumix tries to be something similar, short and easy to pronounce."

Portrait Photographer?

Just a question—if you do portraits in a serious or at least semi-serious way, do you have a favorite portrait lens?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Stephen Voss: "I shoot most of my portraits with the Nikon 50mm ƒ/1.4, but my favorite portrait lens is the Nikon 85mm, especially for environmental portraits. Problem is, I'm often crammed into small offices and am not able to get far enough away from the subject to use it as I'd like. When I am able to get far enough away (like for this portrait), it's just beautiful."

Mike replies: OMG is that Anne Tyler? The Anne Tyler? As in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler? You did a beautiful job Stephen. That's a wonderfully atmospheric portrait, tinged with mystery and just a pinch of strangeness.

Stephen replies to Mike: "Indeed, the very same! One of my very favorite portrait subjects of last year. Writers in general tend to make excellent subjects, I've found. One more from that afternoon."

Andreas Schödl: "The Canon EF-S 60mm ƒ/2.8 renders faces beautifully in my opinion."

RubyT: "Definitely the Pentax FA 77mm Limited (although the 43mm for groups). That's mostly APS-C for me, although occasionally 35mm film. However, my interest is piqued by the upcoming Sigma 56mm ƒ/1.4 for Micro 4/3."

Mike replies: Wow, mine too. I love the bokeh I'm seeing from that Sigma. No sooner did I start talking about a OC/OL/OY than that lens popped up in front of me...which is what always happens. Let me talk about not doing something, and right away I want nothing more than to do it, and vice-versa. I doubt I'm going to be able to resist that lens for a whole year.

Mike P (partial comment): "For Micro 4/3 cameras the new Sigma 56mm ƒ/1.4 has won me over in a big way. I always liked a 105mm ƒ/2.5 Nikkor, and this is as close as it gets. The 42.5mm Lumix ƒ/1.7 is also quite nice, but I prefer something a bit longer so it rarely got used. Until I got the Sigma 56mm, the Olympus 75mm was my go-to lens, but also it was usually a bit too long and put me too far away from my subject."

Michael Meyer: "Corporate portraits are the core of my commercial practice. The Fuji 56mm ƒ/1.2 is my current workhorse. I don't know that it's my 'favorite' but it's certainly the only lens that is in the bag for every single job. Previously the inexpensive Sony 85mm ƒ/2.8 SAM mounted on an a850 was my workhorse. I really liked that lens."

Mike replies: I've wanted that Fuji since I first got my X-T1, but it's a very expensive lens, and I've never quite been able to bring myself to pull the trigger. I just don't do enough portraits any more. That Sony you mention is one I did have, on the A900—it is the great-grandson of an early favorite portrait lens of mine, the Zeiss Contax 85mm ƒ/2.8 Sonnar T*. Both the portraits in this post were taken with the Zeiss Contax 85mm. Seems a long time ago now.

Maggie Osterberg: "I love my '59 50mm Summilux. It's the one I used to make that photo of my dad."

Maris Rusis:

"Made for portraiture and works well on my 8x10 camera."

Mike replies: Wow, that's awesome.

V.I. Voltz: "Leica 80mm ƒ/1.4."

Mike replies: That's a special one. Always too expensive for me. There was something very special about so many of the Leica R film lenses. Seems like they were a high point, in retrospect.

Barry Braunstein: "For headshots, Nikon 70–200 ƒ/2.8 FL. For portraits (three-quarters or full length), Nikon 24–70 ƒ/2.8. Zooms give me the ability to quickly change perspectives and catch fleeting expressions / energy."

Kurt Shoens: "My favorite portrait lens is the Fuji 56mm ƒ/1.2. Unfortunately I don't own it, haven't ever used it, and don't even have a Fuji camera to use it on. That makes it my fantasy favorite. Back here in the real world, I like the original Canon 24–70 on a crop-frame camera. It gives an equivalent angle of view as a 38 to 112mm on 135 format 'FF' lens and covers most of what I need.

"I'm thrilled that Stephen Voss wrote in. I love his work."

mikal w grass: "What is the difference between a regular portrait and an environmental portrait? Is the latter taken outside, in the environment, or in the subject's place of work? Isn't a portrait just a portrait? I never understood the distinction."

Mike replies: I would say, just based on my own understanding, that an environmental portrait shows the subject in surroundings that tell the viewer something about the subject. One that I let get away that's still in my mind's eye after 35 years is Texas author Larry McMurtry sitting at the desk in his bookshop on 31st Street in D.C. with his cowboy boots up on the desk, surrounded by the rare books he dealt in. It was one of those startling "perfect pictures" that rarely present themselves to your eye, but I was too shy to ask if I could take it.

I don't think Larry walking to work or standing at the counter in the deli around the corner on M Street would be an environmental portrait even if the picture showed lots of background. To me it's not good enough just to show random surroundings; the surroundings need to be characteristic of the subject or tell us more about the subject somehow. Exactly how is up to each artist/photographer.

Pierre Charbonneau: "I use the Canon 135mm ƒ/2 for assignment portraits and I love it. The rendering is lovely and the weight and size are reasonable. The results are distinctive and this matters to my business."

Synthesizing

Synthesize, verb: combine ( number of things) into a coherent whole.

I was going to write more about this, but I see several people have already mentioned it: when deciding on my top five categories, I noticed that in a few cases I could synthesize several into one. For instance, I had "portraits," "kids," and "women" on my list of 25; so what's wrong with "portraits of women and children" as a category? Actually, there might be something wrong with it. I think I need to look at more of my portraits and pictures of women and children all together, to see if they actually do look coherent. Or to see if I could make them coherent if I wanted to and tried to. Maybe it would work as one thing. Or, if it doesn't, then which of the three is really most important to me? Could I combine two of the three? Somewhere in there, there's an answer to what I really find satisfying about those categories.

Also, I shoot a lot of landscapes even though I know I'm not primarily a landscape photographer. But I really love shooting skies and clouds, and find myself doing it a lot just for joy, even when I'm well aware I'm not making great pictures. So then I realized that most of my landscapes and seascapes/lakescapes—and virtually all of another category, sunsets—fit into "clouds and skies." Like the two pictures of mine in this post. So all those could be synthesized into one.

You get the idea.

I'll tell you what, though. As much as I like the concept of concentrating on a few categories or types of pictures in hopes of working with more direction and concentration—I really do feel like I've taken all the desultory meaningless dull dumb nothing snaps I need to for one lifetime—I think that if I'm going to studiously ignore the things that aren't my top priorities, then I really need to think very carefully about my Top Five. And get them right. For example, "women" could be a very different category than "beautiful women." (I suspect that, for me, "women" would be a lot richer and more interesting...for example, I encountered a 106-year-old woman in the doctor's waiting room the other day. I would really like to photograph her and learn a little of her story!)

I liked Jeremy's W.H. Murray quote, too. I've definitely experienced firsthand what it's like to struggle to find clarity, eventually find it, and then feel the power and energy the revelation brings. Still not quite sure how I'll get it, but I want that in my work again.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark: "My list ended by being about style, technique and sentiment, not about genres let alone gear. So I’m now in a bit of a quandary: which genres? And are the things I have identified as big ones for me genuinely worth it or in fact rut-like habits of approach and sentiment I’d be better off dumping in favour of 'seeing fresh'? Certainly a very beneficial exercise but no easy answers here...so far...."

Mike replies: I ended up feeling pretty much the same way. I feel like I've made progress but I'm not there yet.

Tim Auger: "As you said, you can consolidate several categories into one. In fact I found the exercise more useful after I had read your third post, so that I could devise more meaningful categories knowing what I was trying to achieve.

"But this does go against the advice you often get, that the best way to improve is to shoot, shoot and shoot some more, no matter what is in front of you. Following the Buffett principle may encourage me to be more discriminating, and go out actively to seek out suitable subjects."

Mike replies: I'd say "shoot, shoot and shoot some more, no matter what is in front of you" is singularly bad advice and definitely not the best way to improve—it's more like a recipe for how to spin your wheels and waste your time. I like this advice much better: "shoot, think, shoot." That's from Mark L. Power.

David Comdico: "This exercise is both incredibly simple and impossibly hard. Really hits you in the solar plexus. It's worn out every defense mechanism I could muster. A good start to the year."