Sunday, October 09, 2016

... and this may be why...

For years I've felt, as many others do, that high end cameras are little more than branding exercised by the companies that sell these kinds of products.  In short: Cameras as Bling.  Toys to impress strangers.  As if I needed any incentive to beat an already dead horse, along comes something interesting.

Frankly I had't thought things had progressed this far, and I don't really know the exact setup used in the following comparison, but... if these results are as they're advertised to be, I have to ask: Why spend MegaBux on a camera when a cell phone will do?  Yes, the devil is still in the details.  But it's hard to argue that cameras really matter anymore.

Just today I received my copies of the Lenswork Magazine "Seeing in Sixes" book project.  I'm very very fortunate to have a small project of mine included.  In talking with Maureen (at Lenswork) I learned that some of the work in the book was made using a cell phone.  I looked long and hard to find the artist's work she talked about and, frankly, I can't see it.  All of the work is of such high technical quality that whichever projects were created using a phone simply doesn't show in the finished results.  What matters not equipment.  What matters is truly something else entirely.

Here is the link to the PetaPixel article comparing an Apple iPhone7 to a Leica M9-P.  You read that correctly.  Maybe it's not the cost of your tools, but how you use them, right?  Is it any wonder that traditional stand alone imaging device manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Olympus, Panasonic) are struggling to compete in a declining market?  Google and Apple are their competition.  So how do conservative companies keep up with game changers?  At this point I see that answer as "not very well."

Read 'um and weep.


Portland ~ with friends
My friend, Vince.  
He's an engineer and fellow photo nut.

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