The Online Photographer

Vinyl Sales Now Higher Than at Any Time Since 1988 (OT)

[Comments have been added to the last
two posts, Tuesday 12:50 p.m.]

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Curiouser and curiouser: Vinyl records are continuing their improbable comeback.

Twelve-inch LPs (LP stands for for long-playing)—introduced in 1948, stereophonic from 1957—were eclipsed by cassette tapes in 1982, and then by CDs in 1987. CDs went on to outsell cassette tapes in 1991, and by 2002 held a dominant 95.7% share of the market. Vinyl records, which had at least two-thirds of the market until 1980, fell to a nadir of just .02% in 2005, and to all appearances were well on the way out. 

But then vinyl started a modest resurgence. And the popularity of CDs began to plummet, first in the face of digital downloads, then because of streaming music.

Now, at the end of 2021, vinyl sales have beaten CDs for two years running, currently representing 6.6% of all music sales—the highest level since 1988. Vinyl records now account for two-thirds of revenue from physical formats. Vinyl also beats out single and album digital downloads from providers such as iTunes, which have fallen dramatically to a mere 4.2% of sales. (Did you know that iTunes is largely a thing of the past? I had not caught up to that fact until I wrote this yesterday.)

Streaming music, the latest king of all formats, set a new record at 83.8% of the market through the first half of this year.

Music sales peaked in 1999 at $24 billion, vs. $14 billion now. While consumers are getting more for less—assuming they prefer old music—most of the difference in those numbers, unfortunately, has come out of the pockets of musicians and other creators. This might be all right for the time being, but eventually it will have the effect of discouraging talented people from musical careers. But I guess that's a separate post.

The LP was nearly dead; long live the LP!

—Luddite Mike
Inset: the 30th Anniversary LP of Nirvana's Nevermind.
These are going very fast.

(Source of most info in this post: Mark J. Perry, AEI)

Products of the Week

Which one is best? Panasonic S1R (47.3 MP), Sony A7R IV (61 MP), Canon R5 (45 MP), or Nikon Z7 II (45.7 MP)? You know the answer.

The above are links to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link if you click on it:

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Lisa S. Gorrell: "I still buy vinyl whenever I can. The music sounds much better than digital CDs or downloads. I'm especially happy when the vinyl comes with a code for digital download, so I've got both worlds. (I still have all the vinyl I bought since I was a teen)."

David Dyer-Bennet: "1988, however, was five years after I gave up LPs and switched to CDs."

Mike replies: I decided to buy the first CD player that broke the $300 barrier. The first $299.99 player was the Sony D-5, which came out in late 1984. I bought the first one I could find for sale. But by that time, I had already purchased more than 20 Compact Discs—not an insignificant outlay as they cost $20–30 at the time! I loved that D-5, by the way, and never again owned a CD player I liked more.

Stéphane Bosman: "Re 'Eventually it will have the effect of discouraging talented people from musical careers': I think it has for quite some time. I do not see in the current production anything that comes close to what the giants of the '50s to '90s did in term of innovation, diversity, and creativity. Today's production is frankly of a lower level. It is even being studied as a phenomenon. It might be due to reduced glue, weed and acid usage, but I think it more likely that there is no more money for taking risks, to waste studio time, to give oddballs a chance. Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells started the Virgin label. I don't expect anything like that happening again. Another consequences is that concerts have become unaffordable. When recorded music was profitable, concerts served as promotion for the records. Now it is the contrary."

Mike replies: I admire Rick and I watch a lot of his videos, but you have to admit it's kind of funny that a baby-boomer rock 'n' roller is lecturing the kids about the music being too simple! I suppose the older generation has always scolded the younger generation for not being deep enough. I seem to recall reading about a contemporary of Mozart's who scolded him for breaking rules with dissonances.

The book Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner, one of my favorites on this topic, contains a section about the market forces that encourage cheap, fast production, even in classical music.

Robert Pillow: "I'd say vinyl is back. After I replaced an ailing turntable this month with a recent model to keep old vinyl in play, I was surprised to find 100 or so 180-gram LPs by various artists, including Led Zeppelin and Muddy Waters, at the local Wal-mart.

"By the way, this resurgence proves vinyl is long playing."

Chuck Albertson: "The last time I checked, musicians' royalties from vinyl releases were greater than from streaming services."

Paul De Zan: "I don't get the LP revival at all. I know a few twentysomethings who are buying LPs to play on equipment that can't possible do justice to them. Then they talk about how much better they sound. I would say they are about $10k in equipment away from that. The sales numbers are too big for the trend to be a hipster scam, though. Maybe it's about album artwork, the single greatest loss in the move to other formats. Personally I stopped buying LPs as soon as I knew CDs were going to happen. Click, pop, hiss...no thanks."

K4kafka: "A dearly missed element of the 'vinyl age' is the loss of album cover art. Some very creative photography on display in a 12" square format."

Mike replies: It's one of the ways Lee Friedlander got his start. Jay Maisel shot the cover of Kind of Blue. Brian Duffy did the cover of Aladdin Sane. We could go on and on here I'm sure....

Ben: "My vinyl heyday was right around (maybe just before) its nadir. Ahead of my time? Contrarian? Or just the right time in my life, and used records were cheap.

"It’s funny that record stores are a thing again now, though I think they all tend to make a bunch of their profit on discogs, or at least a bunch of the new ones raised the capital to start their brick-and-mortar stores through online sales. When my friend who did this to open a basement shop told me a few years back that he was going to quadruple or quintuple his rent to move to a street level in the more expensive part of town, I was floored. How could he make that rent selling vinyl? But he’s doing fine, even through the pandemic. It’s too bad so many of the great little shops didn’t survive the 'aughts and early teens…I think there’s also something to be said for how record stores themselves supported so many independent musicians simply by employing them! How many of your favorite local musicians worked at one of the local record stores?"

Bryan Geyer: "Do take note that the preponderance of the 2021 vinyl volume is unlike the classic LP market that we used to know. Current sales are heavily skewed by Generation Z buyers who pay $20–40 per disc for pop market records that come in vibrant colors and are often bundled with poster art. The scope is very limited. Only the most popular recording artists can consider the cost and complexity implicit in cutting vinyl today, so it's mostly Taylor Swift, et al, that drive the volume. It's a very trendy and restricted market; not nearly so impressive as the raw stats would seem to indicate."

Mike replies: There's no accounting for taste, of course, but I'll just observe that the 180-gram record section at Acoustic Sounds lists 5,367 products.

Dan Boney: "I have often found that the 'third generation' of many products is the 'sweet spot'; by then, real refinements have been made and afterwards it shifts to 'making it cheaper'...that’s a lot of what happened with CD players. Works out well with cameras as well—think of the Nikon F3, Leica M3, Olympus OM-3/4....

"One thing that I wonder about with new vinyl—are the releases actually from analog originals, or digital recordings just translated to analog for vinyl release?"

Fireman (Blog Notes)

There were some, er, misunderstandings and perhaps even a few hurt feelings here this past week, so, a few clarifications.

One reader said (rather rashly perhaps, as he is an excellent commenter): "I don't expect you to post this comment, as I have the impression you do not like dissent from your views." The sentence quoted was what I call a "kicker"—a parting shot at the end of a comment that doubles down more forcefully on the point the writer is trying to make. ("Kickers" are common in contentious comments—in fact, I've learned that when I find myself adding a kicker to one of my own comments, it's a good idea to wait a while and reconsider the comment.)

Do I really not brook dissent? Perhaps a little—I'm opinionated, and, like everyone else, I'll make a case for what I believe in. But in the main, I don't think so. In a great many posts, you'll find comments pro and con, sometimes right next to each other. For example (only an example, and yes, examples are not proof): in the Alt/Indie music post:

Commenter 1: "Huh. I've heard of Jeff Beck and Ray Davies (if it's the same Ray Davies I used to know), but none of the rest of them. I think they stopped writing good music around that time."

Next Comment: "Mike, thanks for that. I opened the Spotify playlist and it made my day. It's right up my alley."

So one reader who did not like the music and one who did. I think if you dig around a bit, you'll find that I very often feature opposing viewpoints in the Featured Comments. And that often includes comments that disagree with the post.

What I don't allow—and this may be the genesis of the reader's objection—is back-and-forth. Altercation.

"Altercation is the spoken part of a quarrel, the parties speaking alternately. An altercation is thus a quarrelsome dispute between two persons or two sides." [Century Dictionary]

So if someone makes a comment, and I reply, the original poster gathers his forces and girds for battle and weighs in with a second post defending his first post more strenuously—and then I disallow that. But it has little to do with the fact that the second post is a dissent; it has to do with the fact that it's the beginning of an altercation. This is enshrined in the Comment Guidelines thusly:

The goal is simply to keep the conversation pleasant, collegial, and helpful. I  don't like "flame wars" and I don't permit them to get going in TOP's comment section.

Why not? Simply because I've been online since before the word online came into common use—first on Xtalk at Dartmouth in the mid-1970s, later as Darkroom Photography magazine's official representative on CompuServe in the early '90s, and so on—and I know how it goes.

It goes like this. The missiles fly alternately, each side digs in, tempers grow hotter, ad hominem begins, and then the world spins on its axis as we continue our voyage 'round the sun, until presently Godwin's Law plays out and one accuses the other of being a Nazi, at which point (see the link) that person (the accuser) loses the war.

Don't tell me you've never seen it happen.

Ever seen real firemen put out a fire? I got to witness it once. I was awakened in the middle of the night by sirens. Looking out the window of my third-floor (the top floor) walkup in Georgetown D.C., I could see flames in a window of an apartment on the third and top floor of the building across the street. Several fire trucks screeched to a halt in front of the building and firemen scrambled all over. They moved fast. It was impressive. Within seconds there were firemen on the roof. In no time at all they had a ladder to the window where the flame was. One fireman bashed in the window and another followed close behind with a hose. They had the fire out in no time (a resident had fallen asleep while smoking in bed, and fortunately survived). They were impressively efficient. I had a panoramic front-row seat to the whole drama. It was very entertaining.

They didn't leave for a long time, and evidently felt no compunction to be at all quiet in the dead of night, so after a while I got dressed and went down to poke around. A fireman I talked to said it was only a little mattress fire that had scorched the room but hadn't spread beyond it, and I replied that they sure moved quickly even so. He told me that they always move fast, because fires can get out of control quickly.

Bingo.

I had one reader years ago who repeatedly made contentious comments and seemed always to be picking fights with other readers. It was a headache for me, as I had to spend time and effort repeatedly explaining to him why I was editing and disallowing his comments. Finally he said, "But I like to fight. That's the whole reason I get online and it's the reason I come here." And he issued a threat: "If you're not going to let me fight, I'm leaving!"

To which I had the satisfaction of replying: "Bye." (Made meself laugh, and that's half the battle  —Craig Ferguson.)

Seasons in the wrong
Another problem I have is when commenters make statements I know to be wrong or misleading. Sometimes I let these stand, sometimes I don't feel like it. I've been doing this job for so long that I can even recognize which particular misconceptions are popular at any given moment, and sometimes I know the source from which they emanated, even. Back in the film days, when someone stridently made a bunch of claims as if he knew it all, I could usually tell you what book he just read. Currently it's that a Micro 4/3 sensor "cuts off part of the image," sigh, not. The photographer chooses the lens for the subject and that's what determines whether the subject fits the angle of view. Occasionally I chase one all the way down, just so I really know what's what. But you can't do that with everything. Each misconception has its season, and then it subsides. Care to argue whether fixer sinks to the bottom of a print washer because it's heavier than water? (Because some washers drained from the top and some from the bottom, and people had to decide which is better.) Of course you don't. Just like we no longer care to argue hotly about whether up-rezzing a three-megapixel file is just as good for a medium-sized print as having an expensive 6-MP camera to start with. I've no doubt that some people who are happily arguing whether "equivalent apertures" exist (no, they do not) were at one time arguing, equally happily, the effects of added sodium sulfite on film grain. It's a fool's errand to try to correct every instance of every misconception as it arises; you'll spend your precious hours playing whack-a-mole. Each of us only has 4,000 weeks here on Earth, give or take, and you already stand to lose eight of them stuck in traffic.

It's always something. In discovering the basics of photo tech, everyone has to go through their not-quite-there-yet phase.

Cordial and mature
So a commenter can reply to a reply, but only if the tone is right. That's the way I do it. Because I really don't like flame wars, and fires are best put out early. If shutting down an argument before it starts means giving the appearance of not tolerating dissent, well, too bad, but so be it. At this point I have moderated some 298,000 comments, give or take 10,000, and have devoted many, many weeks of my life to the task. I might not know what I'm doing, but I know how I do it, you've got to give me that.

And by the way, fixer does not sink to the bottom of a print washer. So now we've got that settled, once and for all.

Mike

Products of the Week

Which one is best? Panasonic S1R (47.3 MP), Sony A7R IV (61 MP), Canon R5 (45 MP), or Nikon Z7 II (45.7 MP)? You know the answer.

The above are links to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link if you click on it:

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Rob de Loe: "I feel like arguing. You can pick the topic!  ;-) 

"P.S. For a period of a couple of months, the newspaper I read most often could not let readers make any comments on stories at its online site because the company was looking for a new comment service. It was a wonderful time, in hindsight. Unfortunately, they found another comment service, and now the comment section is just wretched. Despite the rules about 'civility,' it's just angry people sniping at each other. Blech."

Mike replies: I've always conceived of the Comments Section as a "Letters to the Editor." A curated and edited collection of thoughtful responses, objections, corrections, and added information. The "Featured Comments" started out as a minimized version of the comments as a whole, for the convenience of readers who did not have the time to read all the comments. But that was back in the days when I got 24,000 views a day (now more like 8–12k) and a post could get up to 200 comments (I think 274 was the all-time record? Something like that). That doesn't happen any more.

Robert Roaldi: "Holy crap, you just gave me a scare. I just went into my photo 'data base' and checked all my 4/3s images, but thankfully there's nothing missing from any of them."

D Glos: "Contentious thought for the day. It's nice to come to this spot on the internet where everyone appears to play nice and there is always something interesting to ponder. Whether the convivial appearance has been carefully cultivated by your erudite moderation, or more naturally, by the good nature of your audience, matters little to me."

Mike replies: Definitely both. I take half the credit, but no more than that.

Sharon: "I like your approach here and hate forums where people argue ad nauseam. Thank you!"

KeithB: "I thought for sure you were going to link to Monty Python's 'The Argument Clinic.'"

Bruce Bordner: "But I've paid for the full five minutes....

Mike replies: No you haven't.

RubyT: "This is one of the few sites where I will read the comments. I am never afraid of what I will encounter here, and I appreciate your work in this regard. I often learn things new things by reading the comments here, which I wouldn't if I were avoiding potential flame wars."

c.d.embrey: "Re 'Do I really not brook dissent? Perhaps a little—I'm opinionated, and, like everyone else, I'll make a case for what I believe in.' Mike, during the height of your veggie diet obsession you got very upset when people disagreed. The Mayo Clinic was wrong, so were all the U.S. Government nutrition guidelines. You said my doctors at Hoag Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach were incompetent."

Mike replies: But did I disallow your comments? I don't believe I did. So that's not suppressing your views. You got to express them. You don't get to demand, however, that I agree with everything you say.

And I doubt I said your doctors were incompetent. I might have claimed that doctors make poor authorities on nutrition generally, despite public perception, because a.) the majority of American medical schools don't teach nutrition; b.) the typical PCP (personal care physician) has never taken a single course in nutrition; and c.), by and large, medical students leave medical school with less interest in and curiosity about the science of nutrition than they had when they entered.

Rob L: "Your comments section is what makes your site so valuable. Your cultivation of that rich plot is deeply, deeply, appreciated—this is the web I fell in love with in 1993. This is the online community that we were promised in Wired magazine and long lost Omni, and a true jewel. I say that, having been edited here once, as I was being a twit and trying to raise an argument—and I deeply appreciated the effort you made to keep this community open, diverse, and tremendously informative, all while keeping a collegial tone in saying—'no, not that, here, thanks.' Thank you, Mike. I've been a web developer since there was a Web and have done so professionally nigh on mumble mumble years, and this site is a testament to what we built this world wide community to be."

Pak Wan: "This post makes me so happy as one of your readers. Your effort and leadership to curate your blog commentary and readership is missing so much in the online world. Thank you!"

Thanksgiving and All That

I hope those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday had a nice time. I had a mid-afternoon dinner at the lakeside home of some friends and neighbors, the Wexlers. Despite the fact that such things are seldom called for in country living, I broke out the good jeans and an actual sport jacket for the occasion. With a pocket handkerchief, even! Well, sort of...

Like my natty pocket handkerchief? The maker is a hip and
happening high-style fashion brand called KN95.

I had a lovely time. The people (only two of whom I had met before this week) were accomplished and engaging and great to talk to, and I joked that the dinner was the best meal I've had in the decade of the 2020s—except I wasn't joking, it really was. A very nice occasion, and big thanks to Ilene and Philip for including me. It's not a good day to be away from family! (I did have a nice call with Xander, though.)

Along with many other people, I'm not very happy with the way a lot of things are going in my country and the world these days. But I was heartened to read online that a number of States have banned retail sales on Thanksgiving so their employees can celebrate the holiday just like they were actual citizens of our nation. Because of course, as you know, there's been a War on Thanksgiving in recent years, as the remorseless juggernaut of Christmas seeks to invade and annex ever greater swaths of temporal territory, not to mention mindshare and money. Another thing regarding Thanksgiving I ran across—well, actually it was shoved under my nose, by Apple News—was a feature on Buzzfeed (rule of life: never click on Buzzfeed! You only have one life and you can never get wasted time back!) featuring peoples' worst Thanksgiving horror stories. The one that made me laugh was this one from someone identified as LOTR4eva1 on Reddit:

"I was probably six or seven at the time. My mom's candles caught the kitchen curtains and some decorative greenery on fire. My sister and my cousins and I were at the 'kid’s table' in the kitchen while the adults were in the dining room, so no one of significance noticed anything except me. My mom threatened us with pain of death if we annoyed the adults during dinner, so I quietly walked to the dining room and stood silently for a minute or two, until someone noticed me, and only then did I politely say, 'Sorry, but the kitchen’s on fire.' My mom still gives me grief about my prioritizing politeness over sense...."

Fortunately we had no such excitement yesterday. All was very civilized, convivial, and pleasant, just as Thanksgiving is supposed to be. I hope yours was all that too.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Our National Monuments: America's Hidden Gems by Q.T. Luong. Just out! Brand new. Publishing isn't easy. Our friend QT (Tuan) Luong tells me that his new book will have to sell 6,200 copies out of a print run of 7,500 just to break even! And that's not including the labor and time it took to make the photographs. Fortunately, the predecessor book, Treasured Lands, has done exceedingly well. It has won 12 international awards and is now in its 6th printing.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

KeithB: "Recently seen meme: 'I will stop my war on Christmas once it stops its illegal occupation of November!'"

An Ideal Format

[TOP publishes on Mon./Wed./Fri. Comments are posted the following day.]

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It's difficult to say when the "birth moment" of the 4/3 format happened. An Olympus engineer named Katsuhiro Takada chose the size and shape of the format in 1999; Kodak and Olympus announced their intention to cooperate in 2001; and the 4/3 website (it was more often written "Four Thirds" then) launched in 2003. That was the year of the first SLR designed from the ground up for digital, the Olympus E-1. As of PMA 2006, the Four Thirds Consortium consisted of Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, Kodak, Sigma, Sanyo, and Fujifilm(!)—although, notably, membership in the consortium did not constitute a commitment on the part of each of those companies to produce commercial products in the format. Fujifilm never did. Micro 4/3, the world's first system of interchangeable-lens cameras in what eventually became known as "mirrorless," launched in 2008.

The 4/3 format was almost identical in size to the 110 film format introduced by Kodak in 1972: an imaging area of 13 x 17.3mm compared to 13 x 17mm for 110.

Of course, in the early days there was a pitched battle between the 4/3 format and what became known as APS-C, a slightly larger format size chosen by both Nikon and Canon. (Canon's exact standard was slightly smaller than Nikon's.) APS-C, which stands for "Advanced Photo System—Classic," was one of the three sizes of the ill-fated APS film format. The Advanced Photo System had been launched as a consortium spearheaded by Kodak in 1996. Kind of interesting that the first major format battle in digital was between two contenders that were so close in size to two film format sizes, both developed by Eastman Kodak.

Same as it ever was
I was an early booster and supporter of the 4/3 format. It seemed about right to me. It offered the best balance of all factors—greater d.o.f. than 35mm film and the larger formats; more efficient usage of the image circle of lenses; greater effective telephoto "reach," which had been greatly prized by 35mm photographers*; and the possibility of convenient compactness in both cameras and lenses. All with enough area and "room for pixels" to ensure good image quality.

Of course, the vagaries of the format's journey through the world was up and down, and 4/3 encountered a number of obstacles along the way, some real, some perceived. I won't go into all of those issues here, as it would constitute a long history lesson, much of which is known to this site's core readership anyway. Mostly, of course, 4/3's big problem was that it was always opposing more powerful interests and market forces.

Surisingly, given all the water that has flowed under the bridge since then, I still consider 4/3—now Micro 4/3—as probably the ideal digital format when considered objectively and logically. Considered, that is, from a sort of "ivory tower" perspective, divorced from status-and-prestige and marketing issues and market perception—but not exactly as it is, only as it might have been. Imagine if a.) sensor development had been logical and b.) Micro 4/3 was the main focus of sensor development for still photography. (Right now there's a new Micro 4/3 sensor in development, but it's almost completely aimed at hybrid cameras and really won't have much effect on still photography at all, at least as far as I can tell.) If things had proceeded logically, no phone camera would have more than six or eight megapixels at the most and we'd mostly be using cameras with 4/3 Foveon sensors right now! Well, that's a future that never was. Being sensible and logical isn't the most important factor in sensor and camera design and development—it might rank fifth or sixth on the list.

But enough of my opinion. What's the ideal format to you?

Mike

P.S. Related reading: "The Remarkable Persistence of 24x36"

*I was fooled there, however—many 35mm film photographers prized long teles not so much because they needed them (which was what I always assumed) but because they were big and cool and expensive and hence, displayed status.

Book o' the Week

Our National Monuments: America's Hidden Gems by Q.T. Luong. Just out! Brand new. Publishing isn't easy. Our friend QT (Tuan) Luong tells me that his new book will have to sell 6,200 copies out of a print run of 7,500 just to break even! And that's not including the labor and time it took to make the photographs. Fortunately, the predecessor book, Treasured Lands, has done exceedingly well. It has won 12 international awards and is now in its 6th printing.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Five (Unrelated) Camera Questions

[Comments are posted! Tuesday 10:30 a.m.]

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1: Controversy!
In the previous post, I thought the controversial Principle would be the Second one, "Buy the best camera you can afford." But no. Going by the comments, it appears it was the First Principle, "Use the biggest camera you can carry," that caused all the ruckus. So, a question for you: Should the First Principle actually be:

"Use the biggest camera you can [comfortably(?)] carry,"

or

"Use the smallest camera that gives you what you want"?

I've phrased it "what you want" because that would have to encompass both results and performance. There's overlap, but they aren't quite the same thing. If the camera misses a feature you need, or has slow focusing, then it's not what you want because it can't give you the results you need in certain situations...even if it does in other situations.

I think actually the second option above is what I've almost always done. What do you think?

(Aside: My guess is that many people who shoot with big cameras such as the Leica S3 or Fuji GFX 100S or Nikon Z9 actually are using the smallest cameras that give them what they desire...whether it's results or capabilities. And pros don't carry big rigs to show off. They need what those cameras can do and they wouldn't be happy with anything smaller / less capable. I think this was true of people who used Pentax 6x7's and Linhof Technikas and Nikon F5's in the film days, too. John Sexton uses a Linhof 4x5; I'm pretty sure it's the smallest camera that gives him the results he desires. I guess we could ask.)  

2: AF film camera?
Say you wanted to shoot 35mm film. Say your eyes aren't what they used to be and you realize you could benefit from autofocus. So the question is: in 2021, which vintage autofocus 35mm film camera(s) would head up your eBay shopping list?

(Aside: I don't believe a single interchangeable-lens AF 35mm film camera is currently made or offered for sale, am I wrong? Since I last looked, a plethora of ultra-cheap film point-and-shoots have cropped up like mushrooms in a wet lawn, but those are more like toys than usable cameras. Or let's be kind and call them novelty products.)

3: What's the best Nikon for bird photography?
I've offered my nephew David a Nikon telephoto for his bird photography, an 80–400mm. It was a donation from a reader and I thought I'd pass it on. He wants to know which Nikon body would be best for the lens, for birds. Beyond recommending APS-C to extend the effective reach of the lens to 120–600mm-equivalent, I really don't know—I've never been into either critter photography or longer telephotos, so the lay of the land isn't familiar to me.

Any suggestions, from Nikonian critter shooters?

(Aside:  I took one brief stab at bird photography while I was testing the Fuji 100–400mm, and gained a new appreciation for it—it's harder than I imagined. You need a fast camera. Fast, fast, fast. David and his wife have two little boys and he's a teacher, though, so I'm thinking the choice needs to be budget-conscious too. It seems to me like the D7500 would be the ideal recommendation. Recommending the D500 might make even better sense, but it might be like saying "You should buy a Ferrari 599.")

4: What are you really missing?
If you use a mainstream, middle-o'-the-road, mid-priced-but-good camera, what are you really missing by not having one of the flagship, line-leading, best-of-the-best models? More and more, manufacturers tout improvements and capabilities that just don't apply to me, and hence, don't interest me, and hence, don't tempt me.

(Aside: Speaking of that old piece on the Ferrari 599, which still amuses me, I'm 100% certain I would not want a "supercar" or a high-end luxury car even if I could afford it. The insane level of electronificomplication and all the fripperies, gewgaws, excess features, maddening complexity, and needless capabilities don't even speak to my tastes, values, or preferences. My daydreams extend first to a new Miata and then—in fantasy only—to a Porsche Boxster, and no further. But the same is not quite true with cameras. Medium format digital does nag at me a little. I've said I'm going to test a medium-format camera sometimes in the near future but I admit I'm scared to request it—scared I'll like it!)

5: Fuji vs. Micro 4/3, who wins?
I've long thought the two most recommendable options for hobbyists are either Micro 4/3 or Fuji X—and that, of those two, Micro 4/3 won, largely because of all the lenses available for it. Has that situation changed now? I don't know, it just seems to me like Micro 4/3 is in full-on retreat now and that Fuji X has pretty much taken over the top spot as the No. 1 most recommendable system recommendation for hobbyists...with no real competition.

Your thoughts?

(Aside: I know we're not supposed to say that Olympus is gone, because OM System is a company that exists and they're going to try to make a go of it. But OM System is like an overgrown kid who got kicked out of his rich parents' large and opulent mansion—his lifestyle is in for a painful adjustment. He's going to have to make his own rent. All of it. No more sponging off the parents and afternoons by the pool. And Panasonic seems to have dropped Micro 4/3 like a hot potato, while it gleefully concentrates all its energy, resources, and enthusiasm on FFM. Yeah, I know, there's lots of juicy Micro 4/3 stuff still around, but—well, ever heard the phrase "lame duck"? Set me straight if you disagree.)

Mike

P.S. For this post, I'll limit Featured Comments to people who concentrate on only one question. Maybe two. I know some amongst the Commentariat will be tempted to expound on all five, and that's fine, but you'll find those in the full Comments Section.

Book o' the Week

Our National Monuments: America's Hidden Gems by Q.T. Luong. Just out! Brand new. Publishing isn't easy. Our friend QT (Tuan) Luong tells me that his new book will have to sell 6,200 copies out of a print run of 7,500 just to break even! And that's not including the labor and time it took to make the photographs. Fortunately, the predecessor book, Treasured Lands, has done exceedingly well. It has won 12 international awards and is now in its 6th printing.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Rick in CO [1]: "Smallest camera with the biggest sensor!"

Sharon [1]: "Re '(Aside: My guess is that many people who shoot with big cameras such as the Leica S3 or Fuji GFX 100S or Nikon Z9 actually are using the smallest cameras that give them what they desire...whether it's results or capabilities. And pros don't carry big rigs to show off. They need what those cameras can do and they wouldn't be happy with anything smaller / less capable.' This is it exactly for me. I don't even think about the weight of the 100S. It does what I need it to do."

Andre Y [1]: "Dan Winters's latest Instagram post is an interesting demonstration of 'use the biggest camera you can carry' where he climbed up a very tall redwood tree with a 4x5 film camera and lighting equipment to make a portrait. Winters operates at a rarified level, literally and figuratively, and most people don't need to do what he does, but it was still interesting to see what one working photographer does."

Mike replies: Mind. Completely. Blown. I have tears in my eyes after the senseless tragedy in my former hometown—I moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin (pronounced WOK-uh-shaw) because it seemed like a great place to raise a kid, and Xander grew up there and still has many friends there. It was always a safe town—much lower than average crime rate, nice people who were friendly but didn't mind your business. To imagine the cheery "Dancing Grannies" of Waukesha (and oh, I know their type) mindlessly run down and killed during a parade meant to celebrate the joy of Christmas is just a savage body blow to my faith in the basic decency of humanity. Evil, evil, evil. And all those blameless broken little ones in the hospital...it is literally excruciating to think about. Anguishing.

But then there's that astonishing Instagram post you've brought us—the woman who spent that incredible number of days in the tree to save it (I cannot imagine living in a tree for one night), the photographer carrying a 4x5(!) to the treetop to make that beautiful picture—well, it blows my mind. A salve and a restorative. What an astonishing, amazing thing all around. One which also seems quintessentially, quixotically human. "Thanks, I needed that."

Richard Man [1]: "One thing that I have been chasing since the earliest days of my photography pursuit is the tonal values. I love shades of grey! It's for that reason that I am now shooting with an 8x10 camera. I will probably stop at 8x10 unless I get into something really huge like 20x24 or larger (wetplate). It's easy to scan 8x10 on a flatbed and switch to a digital workflow from there, whereas it's hard to do for any larger format."

Andy Munro [1]: "Perhaps the statement should be 'Use the smallest camera that gives you most of what you want.' I'm not sure there is a camera that gives you everything. In my case, I like being able to change lenses on my Panasonic S5 rather than the fixed lens on my Fuji X100V. But, I find myself using the Fuji all the time as it's so compact."

Andrew Sowerby [2]: "In 2021, which vintage autofocus 35mm film camera(s) would head up your eBay shopping list? Nikon F100. Not too big. Well made. Excellent metering and responsiveness. Lots of lenses available. Pair it with Nikon's 35mm ƒ/2 AF-D lens and have fun!"

Jonathan [2]: "Recently picked up low-shutter-count Canon EOS 1v for just over 400 bucks. Chasing a toddler around the house with a manual-focus rangefinder was just not working out. With a nifty fifty and a whole lot of Tri-X, the EOS 1v was just what the doctor ordered."

schralp [3]: "I recommend the D7500 for your nephew. It is more than capable yet remarkably affordable."

Tom Noto [3]: "I'm not a birder myself, but the conventional wisdom is that the D500 is the best body for that use. That's a very nice lens you've given your nephew. If I were he, I would budget for a decent used D500 body and expect to pay in the $800–1,000 range. A D7500 might be a bit cheaper, but won't work as well in terms of the AF. I would simply save up for a bit longer and get the D500."

Brian [3] (partial comment): "I picked up 2nd hand D7200 for $US350. It was perfect."

Ed. note: The full text of partial comments can be read in the full Comments Section, accessible at the bottom of the post.

DavidB [3]: "What's the best Nikon for bird photography? The choice should be the camera that does bird photography best and that is the D500. If he goes with the lesser camera he may soon be disappointed (especially because of the difference in focusing technology between the cameras) and end up buying the D500 anyway. Now he has two cameras."

Richard Skoonberg [3]: "Bird photography. One of the best bird photographers on Flickr, Tennerka (Irene), uses a Sony A6000 and A6300 [discontinued; replaced with the A6400 —Ed.]. Here is a link to her Bird album. Another camera type that is often used for bird photography are those superzooms with 1" sensors made by Sony and Panasonic."

Geoff Wittig [4] (partial comment): "Re 'What are you really missing?'—Often not very much, depending very specifically on what photography floats your boat. If I shot sports, I imagine the R3's eye-controlled focus and insane speed would be very tempting indeed. But shooting landscapes, Canon's spiffy new R5 just leaves me with an overwhelming sense of 'meh.' The video features have zero interest for me. The higher speed is irrelevant. There is just nothing there to tempt me to abandon my large investment in excellent EF lenses for the new RF mount. My elderly EOS-5DS R bodies still have competitive resolution, and used within their acknowledged ISO limitations they still provide what I'm after. Swing and a miss, Canon."

Joseph Candrilli [4]: "Answering #4: I have been involved with photography since 2005 when I purchased my first SLR. I have always bought the best in what I can afford. It started with the Rebel XTi, Followed by a Canon 6D With good glass, then to Sony A7rII and now an A7r IV [current version is the A7r IVA. The difference is much-improved rear LCD resolution. —Ed.]. I have never been interested in video yet I constantly feel as if that is really the only thing being upgraded from body to body.

"I finally accepted what I knew all along. Find a good body that you are happy with and are comfortable changing settings easily and invest in the best glass available. I was shooting with a 70–300mm and was not happy with any of my results. I thought it was me, something I was doing wrong or didn't understand about the Sony system. Photo quality was good but not fantastic. I rented a 100–400mm GMaster for a week and was stunned by the results. Sold my 70–300mm the next day for a new 100–400mm GMaster. Invest in glass."

Severian [5]: "Your comments about the future of Micro 4/3 with OM Systems are very funny—and quite accurate. As prices on 'new hotness' rise (for new models of other brands) and prices on left over Micro 4/3 gear falls, there will be intense temptation. In the securities markets, when a stock price of what was once viewed as a solid company is crashing, there is always the danger of the value trap. 'What a value, look how cheap the price is' requires the follow-on warning, 'and it could easily get a lot cheaper!' Think 'Kodak' as a classic value trap. I think the same applies here. Eventually, some old-stock, but new-in-box Micro 4/3 will show up at shockingly low prices. Purchasers should buy with the expectation that at some point further along, neither the camera nor the lenses and accessories have any value. If they are still OK with a purchase from a 'this camera and lenses are disposable' point of view, more power to 'em."

s.wolters [5]: "So surprised that you joined the army of critics who are yapping about Olympus/OMS? Please lay down on the TOP readers' couch. Is it the new 20mm ƒ/1.4 lens that you actually would like to have? Or the 12–100mm ƒ/4 zoom, that is excellent at any focal length? The ƒ/1.2 PRO trio perhaps? Or its image stabilization that is by far the best on the market?"

james wilson [5]: "I for one would like to disabuse you of the notion that Micro 4/3 is a lame duck. The G9 and the E-M1X are among the highest performers in cameras today. They are rugged and ergonomic. Available lenses surpass other mounts in quantity and are equal in quality. The GH5 holds a large chunk of the video market all by itself. That said the format has been held back by having an older sensor for its fine instruments. They have been at the mercy of Sony in this matter since they do not produce their own imagers but that is about to change. Sony has announced the stacked Micro 4/3 sensor and OM and Panny have been heavily teasing their new offerings arriving 'soon.' I am not holding my breath but I think the game will soon change. In the meantime my little GX9 is the ideal travel camera and my G9 is really great at everything else."

How to Buy a Camera (in Five Principles)

[TOP publishes on Mon/Wed/Fri. Comments have been added.]

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1. Use the biggest camera you can carry.
2. Buy the best camera you can afford.
3. Only buy dedicated lenses for it.
4. Buy as few lenses as possible.
5. Keep the camera as long you can.

Discussion
Use the biggest camera you can carry. Ansel Adams used to say "the biggest one I can carry!" in response to the question "what camera do you use?" Interestingly, though, as he got older he migrated from view cameras to the Hasselblad, a modular medium-format SLR that used 6x6 cm film. For him and his landscapes in the heroic style, this qualified as a "miniature" camera, one that required virtuoso technique to get outstanding results from. The results you can accept obviously have a lot of bearing on the idea "the biggest you can carry," because if you're not able to get the results you demand from your best opportunities, then any camera is semi-worthless. It's well worth it to carry the camera you're going to need and want for your very best shots. Convenience is not adequate compensation if you lack that.

(Illustration courtesy of CameraSize.com)

"The biggest I can carry!"

The biggest camera you can carry obviously can be a very small camera. I've personally always been allergic to large cameras—just don't like them. So, for me, cameras the size of the Contax 139Q, Olympus OM-4Ti, Panasonic GF1, and Sony A6600 (~500 g) are right around the biggest I want to carry. For some people, the biggest you can carry might mean the "Max" size of the iPhone they can afford! For one of my friends, on the other hand, it means the Leica S. In the '80s, a good friend used to carry around a Bronica GS-1 with a prism finder on it, and it was a big beast.

Buy the best camera you can afford. It only hurts once. If you don't do this, you'll probably pine for something better, and the idea that your camera isn't as good as you should be using could put a damper on your enthusiasm and your motivation. Human nature predicts that we will always be most interested in the tier of product just above what we can afford, no matter what it is, but if you stretched to get what you have it will be that much easier to resist the siren call of that "next level." 

Only buy dedicated lenses for it. The temptation to use third-party and (shudder) adapted lenses is always strong, but, unless that's the core of your particular hobby, you're likely to be frustrated by lenses that weren't specifically designed to work seamlessly with your camera body. And only the manufacturers truly know how to ensure that its lenses do that. My current Sigma lens, while optically rewarding, doesn't seem to support all the focusing features of my Sony.

The proper way to buy a camera is to first check out the lens line, making sure everything you need is currently in the catalog and available, and only then checking out the camera bodies. If you can't find a body you like you can always cross that marque off your shopping list and start over, but lenses—well, lenses and software, now—determine what your pictures are going to look like. You'd better make sure you're going to have what you need—without operability limitations.

Buy as few lenses as possible. Ted Orland's now ancient poster "Photographic Truths" (the original one)—a collection of jokes—includes the line "Owning more than one lens assures that you will always have the wrong lens on the camera for any given picture." Apart from that, there's another reason, which is that it takes a long time to really master how a lens will look in a large number of different circumstances; and it's better to know one lens well than ten lenses superficially.

Keep the camera as long as you can. We live in a world and a time of neomania—a craze for the new. Digital cameras even matched that mania for a while, because the pace of development really did mean that a three-year-old camera was outdated. But there was an old idea that used to be better understood, which held that when you switch to a new camera you lose a year—because that's how long it takes to really "get the feel of the wheel," for the camera to become second nature in your hands.

Of course it's not 2012 any more, it's 2021. The pace of development in basic still-picture functionality has slowed, and one could argue that we reached a point of sufficiency several years back. How much do you really get as a stills photographer, now, by buying the newest camera? Virtually all cameras are hybrid cameras now, and chances are that some or even most of the improvements will be in the video realm. So as a stills photographer it's once again possible to stick with a camera you know well for quite a few years before being forced to make a change.

Commentary
You might very well disagree with, or even object to, any of these five principles. The nice part of that is that I'm not the boss of you* and you'll do whatever you want—which is as it should be. Maybe you want three dozen cameras for the same reason you have a big clothes closet—so you can wear something different every day. Maybe you prefer to have a variety of cameras for a variety of different jobs or interests. Maybe you're cheap even though you're rich, and you aren't comfortable losing money on digital cameras. Maybe you simply enjoy change like some people enjoy a new car every two years. Maybe you just like cameras. I can think of a dozen reasons why you might not want to follow this advice.

Still, I think it makes some sense if what you want to do is shift your interest away from all the techie stuff and all the shopping stuff and concentrate on making pictures.

Mike

*My son's then-favorite quote from the theme song of the TV show Malcolm in the Middle (2000–2006, when he was between ages seven and 13) was "You're not the boss of me now!" It will come as no surprise that I forbade him to get a tattoo, and he came home at age 18 years and one day with his first tattoo. Not up to me; I wasn't the boss of him any more.

The five cameras in the illustration are: Sony A6600; Panasonic GX8 (discontinued); Hasselblad X1D II 50C, a hot seller; Nikon D500; and Leica S3.

Book o' the Week

Our National Monuments: America's Hidden Gems by Q.T. Luong. Just out! Brand new. Publishing isn't easy. Our friend QT (Tuan) Luong tells me that his new book will have to sell 6,200 copies out of a print run of 7,500 just to break even! And that's not including the labor and time it took to make the photographs. Fortunately, the predecessor book, Treasured Lands, has done exceedingly well. It has won 12 international awards and is now in its 6th printing.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Albert Smith: "Re 'Use the biggest camera you can carry....' This is a moving target. I use to lug around my Nikon D700 with external battery grip and fast zooms without thinking about it. After three years with various Fujifilm bodies and prime lenses, I took out my D700 to play with a certain old Nikkor lens that I wanted to re-examine on the FF sensor. It was shocking how huge that camera was, and without the battery grip. With the Fujis, I added passive grips just to have something to hold, but I felt that my fingers barely made it around the Nikon for a secure grip. Maybe I'm getting old but I can't believe that I could tolerate that DSLR."

Nick: "'Can carry' is an interesting standard. I'm a fairly large person with few physical impairments to prevent me from carrying camera-sized objects; I probably 'could' lug around some enormous pro-grade-with-built-in-vertical-grip SLR (with ƒ/2.8 zooms, natch) or a huge moose of a medium-format digital rig. For me, the standard is, 'happy to carry,' or 'likely to pick up and carry rather thank skipping it.' I use an Oly E-M10 with a couple of ƒ/1.8 primes, and it stays home more often than it should because even it annoys me sometimes."

Ernest Zarate: "Excellent advice, IMHO, and I like your rationale for each of your five principles. I’d amend the first one thus: Use the biggest camera you can carry comfortably. I rather like biggish cameras; they seem to fit my hands best. And I grew up (photographically speaking) when cameras were biggish by necessity. (I did have an OM-1, which was a bit too dainty, though I greatly admired its elegance.) My favorite handheld camera was the Mamiya 6—the moment I picked it up I knew it was the camera for me. My current camera, a Canon 5D SR with 24–105mm L lens, is also hefty and large. But most important to me is that those are comfortable cameras as well. They fit well in my hands, and the controls fall where I need them and are easy for my big fingers to manipulate. Tiny buttons, wheels, rings, etc. are too cramped to feel comfortable to me. An uncomfortable camera (too big, too small, too heavy, too light) is one that will spend far more time on the shelf than going out in the wild to be used."

David Dyer-Bennet: "One of the many ways lists like this are useful is to help you bring to the front of your mind the places you disagree  :-) . I'm not going to parade my disagreements, because they're not terribly relevant to anyone else, and besides, knowing this crowd, you're entirely capable of coming up with your own disagreements.

"But somebody starting a list makes it easier for me to modify the list towards being useful for me, compared to having to start from scratch myself.

"I've felt off and on that I knew most of what I needed to know about buying cameras. Maybe sometimes I was simply mistaken, but in my own eyes it seems to me that the field changed, invalidating some of my earlier conclusions. For example, I remember a long period when it seemed, in my bubble, that nobody would seriously consider buying a zoom lens from any of the camera body companies; we thought they'd gotten behind the curve in that area, and Tokina and Tamron were making better lenses (I'd place this in the '70s and early '80s). Since then the camera companies caught up, and vastly complicated the interfaces (making the third-party job harder, except perhaps in Micro 4/3), and now the third-party lens companies are working on their prime as well as zoom quality, and it's all much more complicated. I do think a number of the more interesting things are third-party this week, but I'm thinking more Voigtlander and Laowa and, cough, Zeiss than Tokina and Tamron these days.

"And I imagine a number of you remember the days when Sigma was broadly laughed at as a lens maker. They've certainly turned their image around!"

Nigel Paterson: "Ensuring the equipment can produce the images required might be the first consideration, and one which allowed me to switch from full-frame Canon to Micro 4/3. With the smaller format I can carry a body, three lenses (7–150mm), flash, converter, and accessories in a single motorcycle pannier (side case). The cost, equipment compromises and weight/bulk of the entire kit (not the camera itself) was a primary driver for me to switch. Really pleased to have done so, especially now Canon has gone to RF, which is eye-warteringly expensive."