baffled by "progress."
If you read photo blogs, listen to photographer podcasts, watch photographer's YouTube videos, look at camera advertising, etc. you can be forgiven for thinking that somewhere, somehow the clients who use photographs to advertise and market their businesses are demanding that the photographers who service their accounts use the latest and most advanced cameras on the planet in their work. It's laughable.
Advertising agency personnel look at portfolios, not gear bags. They have a perception/human-based algorithm that combines their appreciation of the work they see on an artist's website or online gallery with their feeling that the person they hire to do photography will be not only be competent to execute the work but also fun to work with. Approachable. Agreeable. Nowhere in those equations is there anything about the actual inventory of machines that might be used to make the work. It never comes up. It just doesn't. The ad people assume you know how to do the work.
People hire Dan Winters because they like his vision as represented by his vast, published works. They might also believe that he'll bring a different creative vision to the work than can be had from another photographer. Differentiation. What they will not do is select Dan because he uses a specific brand or model of camera. Or even a specific camera format. Dan might be in the mood to use an 8x10 camera or he might be in the mood for a smaller format. That is left up to Dan. Always. Camera choice is not a decision he would cede to the client.
While I am not Dan Winters I have been doing photography for a living for a long time. Since the dawn of digital photography I have only had a client once question my use of a particular camera. And that is because the combination of camera and lens I was trying to use was defective. I was trying to work with a brand new Olympus E-5 that was backfocusing. We both saw the lack of sharpness in a finished file. While my client could see the fault he didn't specify which type of camera or format I needed to use. In his mind I just needed to fix the issue. We arranged to meet back in the studio after lunch and I used that time to go out and buy a full frame camera, test its focusing, and get back to the studio in time to meet his deadline and satisfy his need for a sharp image. That's one time in the nearly 25 years I've been photographing with digital cameras that a client ever wanted a camera change. A client I still work with regularly.
I recently photographed at a conference and while I took bigger, more impressively spec'd cameras to the shoot I also brought along a new compact camera and it turned out to be the easiest to use for casual reception photographs with flash. It worked well. It was my choice. All the client cared about was the final quality of the images made for their specific use.
I observe an almost monthly dance amongst the influencers in all the types of media I mentioned above. A camera maker grabs the influencers that are most connected with their brand or have the audience they'd like to appeal to, gathers them together, wines, dines and transports them to trendy locations and then puts cameras in their hands and models in front of them. Lately, I would guess clients, suspecting that influencers aren't always very good (technical) photographers, have started providing the lighting support and grip crews to "help" the influencers realize their visions. We used to call this "handholding" but I would guess that camera marketers would call this "optimizing the experience" or "preparing the battlefield." At any rate they aren't leaving the competence of the influencer photographers to chance. In spite of the staggering amounts of swag being given to them.
Early last year everyone was absolutely "thrilled" by the new assortment of 35mm format digital, mirrorless cameras that had between 40 and 60+ megapixels of resolution; and they were especially "thrilled" by models that could shoot at high frame rates and also had very "sticky" and quick autofocus. These were sometimes couched as "last cameras." The implication being that the latest cameras had attained some sort of perfect balance, or perfect stasis, that would make these model relevant for a long, long time. Maybe for even the rest of a photographer's career!
But that euphoria was shot to hell late last year and early this year as Hasselblad started handing out/giving away brand new X2D cameras and lenses to just about every influencer who could still breathe and cobble together a video about the camera. People who had never even looked at medium format solutions were now gobsmacked by the "incredible image quality" of the cameras. Abandoned overnight were concerns about auto focus tracking (not a strong suit of MF) and all of a sudden the need for fast frame rates was abandoned; forgotten. And, importantly, the influencers got to keep the $14,000 package as compensation for their Hasselblad-centric content.
One would have thought we were on the cusp of a revolution and that soon all good photographers would be ordered/commanded by their clients to switch to medium format cameras or give up any thought of being at all relevant anymore. Based on the ubiquity of gushing reviews it seemed inevitable that we'd all abandon our "old", smaller sensor stuff and join in the rollicking good times promised by MF. Pixie medium format would become the de facto professional choice for all --- going forward. Clients would demand it!!! ( I call the current Hasselblad and Fuji MF cameras "Pixie Format" because the sensor is no where near the size of the old film formats and really not much bigger than the 35mm formats).
But they didn't. And they don't. None of my clients has even let on that they are aware of mirrorless medium format cameras and they certainly aren't demanding them as part of our engagement contracts.
Interestingly the influencers have already moved on. Stacked sensors? Global shutters? Systems with super-fast zoom lenses? A thousand points of auto focus? 8K video? The influencers seem to have quickly gotten over their MF fever and moved on. Again. Back to the safety of affordable formats. All the better to rev up those affiliate link purchases. And some have made a nice profit by selling off the MF cameras (and lenses) that seemed so miraculous just a few months ago...
Well, I guess it was fun while it lasted. It will be interesting to see if the Fuji compact MF (just recently announced) will actually make it over here through all the tariff nonsense, etc. Will the influencer buzz already have worn off by the time Fuji navigates the tariff roadblocks? Will they have to re-invigorate their influencer armies and fire up the good, ole camera lust all over again? Or will they just move on to the next big thing?
Me? I like watching all this. It's fun to watch the hordes of tattoo'd content creators turn on a dime. Dump what they treasured and drooled over last week for an "even better" choice. Dumping cameras with a couple hundred exposures "on the shutter" determining that they'd already plumbed the depths of that camera's potential and written their in depth reviews.
I wonder though, if the influencer-driven, social media sales model has matured and is about to become obsolete. Like cable TV. Landlines. Dial up modems. Baggy jeans. Oat Milk. Gluten Free anything. Cold plunge pools. Black Vapid camera straps. Ozempic. Etc.
Does any of it really matter? Do particular cameras really matter? Probably only really to a tiny group of working guys who specialize in shooting professional football, basketball and the Olympics. But even in those venues I think the opportunities for paying work are shrinking year by year and season by season.
In the end most people who like cameras will use them to walk around and photograph interesting stuff and interesting people, and the whole idea that we need to shoot at 30 fps while tracking speeding UFOs lurching erratically through the skies will wither like last year's crop circles. Or so it would seem.
Currently helping the CFO set up her new Apple computer. They are making it easier and easier to have successful and quick transitions from old to new machines...
Reminder to local photographers and cultural anthropologists, Eeyore's Birthday Party is tomorrow here in Austin, Texas. Starts at 11 a.m. Pease Park. Rev up your cameras!
Safe street crossing skills
Endless selfies to prove that, A: I exist. B: I actually use cameras
the influencers at play for Nikon. Altogether now!
"The Z5mkii is a game-changer!!!!!!!"
