Canon EOS RP and RF 35mm ƒ/1.8 IS lens.
Photo courtesy Canon Ireland.
In the previous post I asked my old friend Josh Hawkins (former camera store manager, longtime photojournalist) how he likes his new Canon EOS RP (at $1,299, the lowest-priced full-frame camera ever at initial pricing) and this morning he answered:
"I’m really enjoying it. I’m used to using Canon in live view a lot. Focus at ƒ/1.4 is much better in live view, so it’s a really small step for me to use it all the time. I’m a much more flippant photographer with the RP. I think that’s good for me right now. I’m just having a lot of fun with it. I used it for several weekends with the RF 35mm ƒ/1.8 IS ($449), and I was really delighted with that lens. Far more than I should be. It’s got an excellent flavor/mojo/vibe, call it what you will. A lens that cheap shouldn’t feel that good. It is completely oversized for a 35mm ~ƒ/2 though. I’m now trying my 50mm Leica Summicron DR, and other things in my closest, and having a good time with that. I miss focus with the DR constantly but it’s a lens with great mojo that I’ve never gotten comfortable with before. Again, just having fun taking fun pictures for me. It’s a good space to be in."
I spent a few hours last night poking around the Web reading the conclusions of reviews of the RP, and here's my meta-analysis summary report:
It might not technically be the greatest camera with the latest features, but it's a lot of fun to shoot with and the reviewer enjoyed it
That's all the reviews I read in a nutshell.
So my question is, how did strange concepts like being a lot of fun to shoot with and enjoyment somehow get separated from our notions of what a great camera is?
Think about that for a minute.
Shouldn't those things come first? Or at least be equal?
Consider what Tim Bradshaw wrote the other day when I wrote about modern cameras being too complex:
"Thank you for reminding me why I never want to buy another digital camera. Today I took out my Pentax 67 II for the first time in, I think, two years. I think I had to check to see which way the exposure compensation dial worked, but that was it: the rest of it was muscle memory, down to the use-the-self-timer trick to avoid having to carry a shutter release cable. And its not a camera I ever used that much. I have two digital cameras, and every time I swap to the other one I have about a day's worth of nausea trying to work out which of the several hundred parameters I left in some odd state (even though I never do that). At least the menu system on the Ricoh makes sense. I am done with this absurd, useless complexity."
I keep my ear to the ground in this hobby, listening for hoofbeats. And although few people come right out and say it, I think there's a lot of frustration out there with the diminishing fun-factor amongst the evolutionary dead-ends of ultra-competitive geeky specsmanship. Mastering stills/video hybrids has gotten to be like a university course in a subject you don't like, and over every outing looms the possibility of a pop quiz.
I'm sure Canon's engineers aren't paying much attention to the RP any more. It was built to the brief and they've moved on. They're no doubt beavering away building the S1R killer, the upcoming Canon FF mirrorless flagship über monstercam, which will be an insanely complicated camera-like product that, like a Mercedes, will have 87 onboard computers and, like Photoshop or Microsoft Word, will be impossible to fully understand or master. And all the review sites will say it's a "great" camera but it's got 987 features and it needs three more, and this feature is measurably but not noticeably poorer than the Z7 and that feature is measurably but not noticeably poorer than the A9 so it's not perfect, for some angels-dancing-on-a-pinhead forum-disputation value of "perfect."
If Josh is right and the RP is a lot of fun, I wonder how such a thing happened. Canon certainly isn't in the business of providing its customers with fun. Is it possible that they've built a great camera accidentally? As in, they tried to build a small-and-simple "Digital Rebel" version of the new R mount for the much pooh-pooh'd entry level, beginner, price leader, backup-body tier of the perceived market, and they came up with something that's actually fun and satisfying to shoot with? How else did such a thing happen, except inadvertently?
Meanwhile, they've actually built a good camera for once—one about which a longtime camera buff and everyday shooter like Josh can say "I’m just having a lot of fun with it." Could be they're on to something. I just wonder if anyone realizes it.
I want to live in a world where fun to shoot with and I enjoy this is valued more highly than diminishing-returns OCD levels of time-stamped techy perfection that will fade in a few years, if not months, like the bloom on a cut rose.
Do yer research
I want to know what I'm on about, so I'm gettin' my peeps to send along an RP and one of those 35's Josh likes. I'm not a big Canon guy, and FF doesn't hold any allure, but I have a feeling I ought to check this out for myself.
Mike
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B&H Photo • Adorama
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Bob Keefer: "Fun is essential in any pursuit. I took my most recent job when, as I told the boss, it looked like a fun place to work. The fact she agreed that fun was important sealed the deal. Back to photography: Fun is what has kept me shooting with Pentax DSLRs lo these many years. Their cameras feel good in the hand and are fun to shoot with. I mean, who really needs perfect autofocus?"
robert e: "Yes! Now that you say it, fun really was the thing for me with cameras like the Olympus XA, and the quality missing from so many cameras that passed through my hands. Sadly a headline we never see on those camera-measuring sites: 'The most fun camera you can buy today,' or 'The most fun cameras ever'...."
Josh Hawkins: "It's good to know I can still sell you cameras...kind of. There was actually a point on one of my camping trips where I was shooting with the RF 35mm where I started wondering what your opinion of it would be. I've got experience with lenses but not like yours. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on both items."
Ned Bunnell: "Josh has the right attitude. We’ve definitely lost sight that first and foremost photography should be fun.
"I was very fortunate to attend three workshops with Charles Harbutt in the early '70s. In my opinion he’s underappreciated as one of our great photographers and teachers in the past 50 years. He made a point in each workshop that if you don’t feel a little rush every time you see one of your prints come to life then you probably should find another hobby. He also soundly admonished anyone who asked if the camera made a difference.
"I’m sure if Charles were alive today he’d have a lot to say about how technology has not made us better photographers.
"I could never match Charles’s insights or way with words. However I think the problem with technology today is it has made us far too serious about what’s in our bag. For the vast majority of us, photography should be personal, fun and simple...which can be easy to forget if you’re obsessing over the latest and greatest.
"Sorry for the diatribe, but here’s another example of why the fun or simple joy in photographing is apparently not an accepted attitude if you are 'serious.' I went to a Peter Turnley workshop in Cuba in 2014. I only brought my little Ricoh GR, while the other attendees came loaded for bear with multiple bodies and lenses. Peter instructed everyone they only needed one camera and that if they were going to use a zoom lens, tape it down so you were only shooting at 28mm or 35mm. When he got to me he smiled a little and said I was OK.
"I know most attendees looked at me wondering why this old guy had only brought what looked like a nondescript point-and-shoot camera. I had a blast walking the streets of Havana, the GR hanging unnoticed at my side. I think by the end of the week a few of the attendees realized my little camera wasn’t really a toy. The problem was and still is that many folks don’t take the GR seriously. (Note: this is not a plug for the GR. It could be any camera that allows you to effortlessly get the technology out your way so you can just take pictures.)
"Fortunately, I carry as little gear as possible with me these days and focus instead on maximizing the joy that I still get when I see a photograph and depress the shutter. And if that means you don’t consider me a serious photographer, I couldn’t care less. Thank you, Charles."
[Ned is the former President of Pentax USA and has always been a dyed-in-the-wool photography enthusiast. —Ed.]
Mark Sirota: "I can very much relate to this. We spent spring break this year in your neck of the woods—Watkins Glen, Corning, Ithaca—and all I brought with me was a Nikon FM2N with a 50mm ƒ/1.4. And it was fun in a way I was really not expecting...I loved having only two controls, focusing manually through a bright, effective ground glass, and being selective with my shots. Got nothing exciting out of those two rolls, but I've got dozens more in the freezer that I had been contemplating throwing out, and now I think I'll shoot them. Haven't had that much fun in a long time.
"This isn't the only film camera I shoot with—I do shoot 120 in a pinhole camera more frequently than 35mm. But that doesn't have the same fun factor. My big question is, had the camera been mechanically identical but digital, would it have been that much fun? Hard to say."
Curt Gerston: "Fun has become my top criteria for a number of years now. I figured out ultimate speed or image quality wasn't what I wanted (I chased that for a while, though). So, yeah, pump up the fun factor on our cameras please!"
John Krumm: "For me, fun photography has come down to a wide to normal small prime, and a body set to manual. I use manual so much now it's second nature, and the small primes keep my cameras light enough (though I would welcome a lighter K1). When this Canon system came out I found it appealing immediately, and it was because of that affordable prime lens."
Gerard Kingma: "Re 'Canon certainly isn't in the business of providing its customers with fun'—and yet, I had the exact same experience that Ned Bunnell describes, but with a Canon M2. The whole photographic world p*sses on the Canon M system, and perhaps deservedly so, but I had the honor of attending a week-long workshop with Jay Maisel, together with 15 other enthusiasts loaded with tons of in-your-face DSLRs. When Jay saw me with the Canon M2 and its tiny but excellent 22mm ƒ/2 prime, I saw a glint in his eye but he said nothing. We went to a farmer's fair in rural Maine, I talked to people and matter-of-factly shot the most wonderful portraits one after the other of people who otherwise froze up or skittered away at the sight of the big guns. I've had tons of fun with the M2. Probably because no one takes me seriously with it."
Mike replies: A camera no one takes seriously is a big asset. It's one reason why it's so relaxing to take pictures with a phone.
I first learned this when I was doing portraits in the mezzanine of the art room when I taught high school. My usual lens was a little Carl Zeiss 85mm ƒ/2.8 Sonnar with a small and unimposing front element—a lens I was "slumming" with until I could save up my money for the magnificent Carl Zeiss 85mm ƒ/1.4 Planar I really wanted (below). But a friend loaned me one of the faster Zeisses with its much larger front element, and I noticed that my portrait subjects were noticeably less comfortable in front of it. There was something about that huge front element staring at them like the eye of a giant squid, seeing into the secrets of their hearts, that just made them tense.
It was intimidating to be "looked at" by this giant front element. But they
sure have held their value—this one's for sale on eBay right now.
I went back to the little ƒ/2.8 Sonnar (discussed near the end of this long post) and never bought a Planar.
Tom Burke: "Absolutely. My Canon 5D Mark IV is a much better camera than my Canon 750D [Rebel T6i in the States —Ed.], both in terms of the specifications and the files it produces, but I seem to enjoy using the 750D more—have more fun with it—than the 5D. Possibly just because it's lighter? Easier to handle? Less complex? More in tune with the sort of Canon (D)SLR I've been buying and using for 30 years? I don't know, but I do know I'm a happier bunny with the smaller, simpler, less-good camera."
