Necrothread warning -- this is a 2 year old thread that has been revived with a "Suck on that Leica!" comment.
I like that KR consolidates objective technical information using a uniform presentation that is easy to search. I could take or leave his subjective assessments.
KR's target audience is obviously not the professional photographer. Needless to say, one shouldn't expect professional photographers to be his biggest fans. Others here have mentioned his target audience as being "soccer moms and football dads" and I think that assessment bears an element of truth. Given that we all understand that, I don't understand why these KR threads keep popping up, unless some people have an oingoing need to use him as a punching bag.
KR's photos are often excessively saturated, and his use of CTO filters on his flash makes everyone look like they've got a presidential spray-on tan. I'm not a fan of those visualizations, but then I'm not a fan of any photos that are over processed in post, especially those gratuitously manipulated to have excessive saturation, contrast and sharpening. I see a lot of of images on professional fora that feature "reality" subjects rendered with surreal post processing that highlights the disparity between artistic processing and realism.
I have to give credit where credit is due -- his high-key macro photography is decent. I haven't seen anyone give him credit for that in this thread.
Do you have any beef with Terry Richardson's photography? He's one of those who command the highest day rate in 4 digits. If he reviewed gear, would you listen to him? He uses P&S most of time.
Kenny Boy is a much better Youtuber than web content writer IMO. His video reviews are actually very insightful, and he actually replies to EACH comment.
OK, I got you. So you judge the person who did the work first before you judge his work. But that's kind of untraditional. Traditionally, you judge only his work. That's what had been how things done since the Renaissance. At least, that's what I was told how it had been done for the past five centuries in the West.
On your other point, I concur. Gear has no importance on one's art process and creativity. Though you may hear some accomplished artists talk about their medium, seldomly you hear them talk about their gear. And that's true.
atnpro wrote:
OK, I got you. So you judge the person who did the work first before you judge his work.
No, not before, as well as. Sometimes one can separate the art from the artist, other times it is more challenging and/or not reasonable. If one sees art but knows of the artist in such a manner that viewing the art raises strong emotions outside of the art (e.g., disgust), then the art and artist are inevitably entangled.
atnpro wrote:
On your other point, I concur. Gear has no importance on one's art process and creativity.
Gear is often required to achieve a certain vision (e.g., focus stacking for a certain DOF, tilt-shift lenses to adjust the plane of focus, and so one), but in and of itself is unimportant to the vision. However, if someone is doing BIF fast and accurate AF matters. If one is doing field sports perhaps a fast lens for low-light is important, and so on.
"Amateurs worry about equipment, professionals worry about money, masters worry about light" - whoever said that was on to something.
KR's strength is in concise and accurate technical information about stuff he "reviews", and he has good historical information about what lenses fit on what bodies and so on. His true genius is search engine optimization. He still comes up near the top in google searches for many things photographic.
