Some interesting quotes:

Buying new gear will NOT improve your photography. For decades I thought "if I only had that new lens" that all my photo wants would be satisfied. Nope. I still want that "one more lens," and I've been shooting for over 30 years. There is always one more lens. Get over it. See "The Station" by Robert J. Hastings, as published in "Dear Abby" in 1999, for a better explanation.

The camera's only job is to get out of the way of making photographs.

Ernst Haas commented on this in a workshop in 1985:

Two laddies from Nova Scotia had made a huge effort to be there and were great Leica fans, worked in a camera store, saved to have them and held Ernst on high for being a Leica user (although he used Nikons on his Marlboro shoots, when the chips were down).

About four days into the workshop, he finally maxxed out on the Leica adoration these kids displayed, and in the midst of a discussion, when one of them asked one more question aimed at establishing the superiority of Wetzlar, Ernst said, "Leica, schmeica. The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE."

Nobody talked about Leica, Nikon, Canon or any other brand of camera equipment for the rest of the workshop.

He also said, "Best wide-angle lens? 'Two steps backward' and 'look for the ah-ha'."

deebo7 wrote:
well the problem is half the people here are either sad pixel peepers who will never always blame their 35L for being soft when in reality its them who are at fault, user error.

Most people will not be happy, regardless of what Canon comes out with. Even if it is all their hopes and dreams, they will still find a way to complain.

Its the difference between photographers and gearheads.

+1 (times 10)

Omar

Well said!

Yep!

Ben Horne wrote:
... The UncleBob D-Infinity with a stunning Infinity megapixels, Infinity focus points, and a special cat face finder mode. It also has hover mode so it will fly into the air and shoot photos for you! That's right, the UncleBob D-Infinity will take those precious cat photos while you're chugging down a Mr. Pibb and a bag of cheetos.

OMG that's GOLD!

ocean7 wrote:
Ben Horne wrote:
... The UncleBob D-Infinity with a stunning Infinity megapixels, Infinity focus points, and a special cat face finder mode. It also has hover mode so it will fly into the air and shoot photos for you! That's right, the UncleBob D-Infinity will take those precious cat photos while you're chugging down a Mr. Pibb and a bag of cheetos.

OMG that's GOLD!


+1 had a good laugh over that one too

Ben Horne wrote:I don't think half these people even know how to take a good picture.

Same could be said for the Canon loyalists who think Canon can do no wrong...

timnosenzo wrote:
Ben Horne wrote:I don't think half these people even know how to take a good picture.

Same could be said for the Canon loyalists who think Canon can do no wrong...


..... and in both cases it is quite instructive to take a look at their websites , if they have one .....

There are quite a few less Canon apologists around here than anyone would think.

The FM forums risk being filled with whiners, just like DPreview.

Why not just enjoy the fine cameras we have?
discuss photography technique
how to get the best of our camera

not be whiners & biotch about hardware

abqnmusa wrote:
The FM forums risk being filled with whiners, just like DPreview.

Why not just enjoy the fine cameras we have?
discuss photography technique
how to get the best of our camera

not be whiners & biotch about hardware

Whadd'ya mean? This is the Whiners and Biotch Hardware Forum! Go to the presentation forums if you want to talk photography...

Not sure why any of the above is relevant to anything photographically.

Cameras will be made, improved incrementallly, and sold to the public with advertising touting their great and wonderful capabilities.

All that is important is getting out there and taking pictures, with whatever you happen to have in hand.

jscoby05 wrote: Man is this a Nikon forum, every seems to absolutely be hating the new 50D.

Yup. The whiners have a genetic anomaly that is triggered by the announcement of a new camera. It causes them exude a chemical substance that makes their cameras stop working.

They are business geniuses that know how to run the multi-billion dollar business better than Canon, or so they think.

Unfortunately for us, they get more jollies from haranging us about how backward and fail Canon is than they would get from selling their Canon equipment and buying SoNykon and taking supposedly better pictures.

I do make negative comments about Canon occasionally but completely agree that the current criticism of 50D and expectations to bridge the gap between xxD class camera and 1D are just silly. If 50D is not worse, as far as noise is concerned, than 40D - it is a great camera and Canon did a great job. I crop most of my pictures and would benefit from 15 Mpixels very much. I would rather crop than endure very heavy lenses.

abqnmusa:
The FM forums risk being filled with whiners, just like DPreview.

I noticed that recently too.

Ben Horne wrote:
I agree with your post. There are so many prissy little people on this forum that just bitch and moan about these cameras that it's getting REALLY old, REALLY fast. I don't think half these people even know how to take a good picture. They have an assumption that the camera is not good enough for them, yet the Canon 1DsIII is somehow way overpriced --- and it isn't good enough either. Maybe they just need to sell their car, house, and all posessions, then buy a hasselblad digital. I have a feeling that would not be good enough for these special people either. "Like, OMG, the Hassy doesn't shoot at 6FPS? I'm, like totally going to call my BFF about this."

Better yet, maybe they should start their own camera company. Soon, Canons and Nikons will meet their real competitors --- The UncleBob D-Infinity with a stunning Infinity megapixels, Infinity focus points, and a special cat face finder mode. It also has hover mode so it will fly into the air and shoot photos for you! That's right, the UncleBob D-Infinity will take those precious cat photos while you're chugging down a Mr. Pibb and a bag of cheetos.

The UncleBob D-Infinity... LMAO

I'm happy and thrilled Canon came out with a new 50d so soon. It will no doubt be a great camera for many. I think the only shortcoming that I and many others are trying to express is the lack of a pro-level AF. Why do we "whine" about such a shortcoming? Because it exists in the competition. For me, someone who uses AF 99% of the time, my priorities are tied between AF and IQ. A noise-free out of focus picture...does nothing for me. That said, I have learned to work with the AF of the Canon's and I definitely feel I am the limiting factor. It would just be nice to get a higher rate of keepers for pictures of young children running around without resorting to prefocusing... or a large 1-series body. So for those "whining" about the "whiners" realize that this is the "gear" section, and is thus perfect for those of us who are members of "Gearheads Anonymous."

As 'rwalls3' suggests above, the fact that Canon $hit-canned a perfectly good, years-old AF technology that they could have 'trickled-down' to the prosumer cameras is mind-numbingly questionable.

timnosenzo wrote:
Ben Horne wrote:I don't think half these people even know how to take a good picture.

Same could be said for the Canon loyalists who think Canon can do no wrong...


I sure hope you're not accusing me of being a Canon Loyalist. I'd be shooting a D3X right now if it was released this past spring. Instead, I ended up buying the 1DsIII just because it was the only high res 35mm format body on the market.

Edited by Ben Horne on Aug 26, 2008 at 08:47 AM GMT

Edited by Ben Horne on Aug 26, 2008 at 09:23 AM GMT

rwalls3 wrote:
So for those "whining" about the "whiners" realize that this is the "gear" section

Used to be that we shared our knowledge about existing gear in the gear section. Now all everybody seems to do is share their disgust about non-existing gear. Personally, I preferred the "old" Canon section, but I might be getting old myself.

Jeff wrote:
As 'rwalls3' suggests above, the fact that Canon $hit-canned a perfectly good, years-old AF technology that they could have 'trickled-down' to the prosumer cameras is mind-numbingly questionable.

Are you referring to the mk3 AF, or the improved mk2 version?

i find some of their literature on the 50D rather interesting. one excerpt:

"Canon is taking steps to give advanced amateurs more flexibility with a new "CA" Creative Full Auto setting on the EOS 50D Digital SLR camera's mode dial. This new setting goes a step beyond Full Auto, by allowing users to make adjustments before shooting while still in an Automatic mode, without needing to know the meaning of technical terms such as aperture, shutter speed, etc."

let me cut to the quick of this statement:

"Canon is taking steps to give advanced amateurs... an Automatic mode... without needing to know the meaning of technical terms such as aperture, shutter speed, etc."

this is wrong somehow.

abam wrote:
i find some of their literature on the 50D rather interesting. one excerpt:

"Canon is taking steps to give advanced amateurs more flexibility with a new "CA" Creative Full Auto setting on the EOS 50D Digital SLR camera's mode dial. This new setting goes a step beyond Full Auto, by allowing users to make adjustments before shooting while still in an Automatic mode, without needing to know the meaning of technical terms such as aperture, shutter speed, etc."

let me cut to the quick of this statement:

"Canon is taking steps to give advanced amateurs... an Automatic mode... without needing to know the meaning of technical terms such as aperture, shutter speed, etc."

this is wrong somehow.






I think Nikon has implemented a similar feature in their D40 series. This is what they say about it:


New advanced help menu system with assist images: The D40's newly introduced "assist images" help you select the appropriate settings for many camera features by showing an example image typical of that setting as well as an advanced help menu for the current item selected. The D40's question mark icon (?) indicates that help is available for the currently selected item. Just press the help button beside the LCD monitor to see a context sensitive help page.

The implementation is different but the idea seems similar.

jscoby05, i am in total agreement with you. all the canon forums around the net, fredmiranda, dpreview, etc, etc. so many complainers. its unbelievable. a quick search on flickr by camera will show amazing photos from the 1Ds3 to 300D.

Forums are becoming completely unusable and just full of loud-mouth whiners.

I wish there existed an highly moderated forum without "rumor" threads and constant complaining about how someone's new camera didn't make into ansel adams.

Don't see any posts about the 50D not being good enough for what it is or that it isn't a 1 series. See a lot of complaints that Canon have released a camera at the same price point as the D300 but with lesser features. Seems fair to me. On the other hand the fanboyism on this forum is what sets it apart from real photographers, the ones who buy the best tool and to hell with what name is on the front. It's what seperates the pro's from the amatuers, especially those amatuers who keep screaming 'go out and take photos' while pros are shooting more in a day than they shoot in a month.