Cup half full? Not by a long shot...

 Photographers can be a complain-y bunch. I was reading the comments following a camera review on a camera review site. The camera under observation was Sony's new APS-C body, the A6700. One of the tests that DPReview does to find out how well the continuous AF of a camera works is to have someone on a bicycle ride toward the camera in a ziggy-zaggy pattern. The tester shoots continuously and then all the frames are evaluated in order to give the camera a score. According to the reviewers the camera did an excellent job. According the the "web experts" the camera was a complete failure because the plane of perfect focus was not consistently on the bike rider's pupils. These were not close up shots. They were full to half body compositions... Some people are just....crazy. 

A writer on another photo blog was unhappy to see that Nikon is charging $4,000 for a very, very capable 45+ megapixel, semi-pro, Z camera. He also states that recent cameras from Sony and Canon are  being priced out of reach for the mass markets for camera enthusiasts. 

Interesting to me on two points. First is the reality of both inflation and also the constant improvement for each generation of new cameras. My Kodak DCS 760, a six megapixel APS-H (not a typo) camera that weighed five pounds, shot to PCMCIA cards and got 80 shots from a fully charged battery cost $7900 in 2004. A Nikon D2X 12 megapixels APS-C professional camera I bought in 2005 cost about $6000 and was mostly useless for ISOs over 400. Or when using on camera flash. To my mind, paying less for a much better and much more sophisticated camera a decade later is little short of phenomenal. That's the definition of a product sector defying inflation. 

The writer sadly predicted that very few people in the USA would be able afford the ever escalating prices of new camera models going forward. That sentiment didn't match up with my experience or that of my peers so I decided to leave the realm of the anecdotal "data" and look at facts. I was stunned to find that in the USA the number of people with a net worth of over $1,000,000 USD (frequently referred to as "millionaires") is not numbered in the hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands. Nope. There are, according to the folks at Charles Schwab, over 21 million Americans in that category. Millionaires. Sure, not all of them are potential camera buyers but even if only 10% are interested in cameras that's a market of 2.1 million very affluent people. People who seemingly can well afford a $4,000 camera. Maybe even one or two every year.

I understand that there are many more people in the USA that have nowhere near that kind of wealth. In fact the millionaires represent only 8.8% of Americans (new data says 9.1%). But you hardly have to be rich to afford a nice camera. Even a pricy Nikon, Sony or Canon. If you aren't rich you might have to make choices. You might skip upgrading to an $80,000 SUV. You might stay in a house you can easily afford instead of aspiring to a new house you can barely afford. You might go out to eat at restaurants less frequently. Or less lavishly. Stop paying for five or six streaming services each month. Have fewer and less extravagant vacations.  Whatever. But with an average income of $71,000 per household per year one might just be able swing a good camera purchase from time to time. And if one is patient it's pretty routine that those $4000 cameras become $2500 used cameras rather quickly... Eventually becoming $500  used cameras... 

There was a forum post I read recently. A photographer was asking the forum regulars what they thought of a certain Fuji lens for one of the Fuji medium format cameras. A lens I recently purchased. It's the Fuji 35-70mm zoom. To a person the regulars on the forum (one of the more civilized forums I've recently visited) stated that it was a really, really good lens and quite a bargain at the current sale price of $500. Basically, half price. The original poster ordered one and then found out that that particular lens doesn't have an external aperture ring. He stated emphatically that this was a DEAL KILLER, DEAL KILLER, DEAL KILLER. He told the group he would be sending the lens back IMMEDIATELY. 

There was not an issue with being able to set the lens aperture via one of the two control dials on any of the MF Fuji cameras. He just couldn't be bothered to try a lens with no aperture ring. Kinda weird. But no weirder than people who complain bitterly if a new camera model, which they probably had no intention of buying anyway, has state of the art video features included. Also = deal killer. 

On another forum, or in the comments of yet another blog (can't remember which), a photographer wrote that he'd been researching a lens for "months" and finally decided he needed it. Coincidentally, it's also a lens I bought this year; the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO Lanthar. He wrote about all the wonderful things he learned about the lens. But he was back in the very next comment to tell us he was appalled that Voigtlander did NOT include a lens hood. It was..... a DEAL KILLER. By the way, a Hoage brand lens hood is a perfect fit at $49. 

The glass always seems half empty when it comes to everyone else's images. A poster might put up a landscape in which color or contrasting colors and shapes are the real subject only to be savaged for not having all the fence posts in the background rendered as precision vertical structures. Another person might decide that their eyes are perfect densitometers and their phone screen is in perfect calibration and so they feel justified; no, invited to critique the gray tones in another person's black and white image. Too light. Too dark.... Too flat. Too contrasty.

There are so, so many photography critics who can't or won't accept an unsharp image even if the intention was unsharpness and the image looks even more interesting unsharp than it would sharply rendered. 

There is one mad scientist style camera and lens reviewer who has probably never met a lens that didn't have tragic flaws in the far corners of each rendered frame. His analysis of most cameras and lenses is so bleak one wonders if there are any cameras that even come close to being satisfactory....in his universe. It's the same reviewer who constantly disparages the lens on the front of Leica's Q, Q2 and Q3 cameras. Three of Leica's most popular ever cameras in their line up. Perennially back-ordered and almost universally loved by Leica owners. And he'll tell you why all the computers you might want to buy are crap as well. 

Occasionally I find a reviewer I like. Mattias Burling, finds lots of cameras fun and usable. James Popsys is also a mostly optimistic and upbeat photographer and user of cameras. Both of them supply a generous collections of lovely sample photographs (no brick walls or cat whiskers) to shore up their reviews of cameras. Both are fun to listen to. 

Although I am told that James Popsys's landscape prints are beautiful, actual prints on nice paper. And his books are well printed too. Unfortunate for me that I'm not a fervent fan of landscapes. If I were I think I'd have some of his. Unless he wants me to pay for them and then I'm certain they cost too much!!! Not.

Matt Osborne (Mr. Leica) has a soft spot for older cameras and likes the rendering of some older lenses on his various cameras better than the newer and sharper ones. That can be a breath of fresh air. And you don't even need to "hold that thought" to enjoy his YouTube videos or blogs. 

A lot of photographers tend to treat the intersection of cameras and  the "craft" as something that can be measured and optimized. I'd rather judge a camera or lens by how much fun it is to use. And when it comes to price (and whining about prices) I have to say that while I'd love to drive around in a convertible Bentley automobile I don't have the money to splash out for one. But I can afford my Subaru Forester and I find that I like it very much. It gets me to photo shoots as well as I think a Bentley would but I can afford it and stay within my budget. I'd also like a private plane. But that's a whole other story. 

Nikon, Canon and Sony all make good and expensive cameras. They also (all three of them) make and sell much less expensive models, not just high end cameras. When one factors in the reality that nearly every one of the reviewers and bloggers aim much of their work to the web it seems like all the hand wringing and misguided desires are Much Ado About Nothing. 

Maybe we can start a new trend. Of photographers feeling that their cups are more than half full. If I were not able to buy expensive cameras I'm pretty sure I could be happy with cheaper cameras. I've done it before and the down market experience didn't seem to hamper my enthusiasm. I liked knowing about the pricey cameras because, if I was patient, I know that one day they'll be sitting on the used shelf of a camera store at a price I could well afford. Lenses too. 

Price of a camera is like a biographical fallacy in reviewing art or music. We should meet the camera on its own terms. It's good or not good. Only after that should we look at the price.