Re: Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
nightnight wrote:
The experience of taking the photo is important to me. I shoot 75% of my photos on the X100V more or less because I like how the camera looks and because I like that other people comment on it. I have an R5 II with an L series RF 35, I'd certainly get *nicer* photographs if I used that exclusively. But it'd also be much harder to dip in and out of a dance floor, or reach across a restaurant table, or sneak a camera into a concert hall, if I used that setup exclusively. Plus, it just doesn't look as cool. Cameras are fun toys and handsome accessories as much as they are imaging tools for me.
That said, I'm in a different phase of life than a lot of people in this thread. I'm in my 30s and on the go all the time. Photography is an additive to my life but it is not the most important thing (no disrespect to those who are more committed - one day I plan to retire and shoot pictures 24/7!) Also, purely pragmatically, I'm 6'6" and about 215 pounds; using small "retro" cameras makes me a little bit less intimidating to those I'm photographing. The experience is no fun at all when people see you as a big ogre with a "pro" camera.
I’m not so sure that age (poser writes: “I’m in m 30s and on the go all the time) is all that relevant.
I’m, uh, a bit older — probably like many on these boards, as you write. But in many ways I’m more “on the go” now than I was when I was in my 30s. But beyond that, I took your post to ask myself, “does this describe what I was like in my 30s?”
No, it doesn’t. While I enjoyed owning a good camera and lenses, too, it was then (and is now) fundamentally about making/getting photographs. Can there be a kind of pleasure or joy in the process? Sure, but I’d frame it more as “satisfaction” with a process that produces the work.
If I could go out on the street and operate a camera but never see the photographs, would I even bother? Absolutely not. I’d head out with no camera and just enjoy being out there. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it feels to me that the only reason to go to such places and do such things with a camera in hand is to… make photographs.
YMMV, i guess.
Mar 21, 2026 at 03:35 PM
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