Recent RNF Rethink Addendum: In Defense Of Cameras As Appliances.

On a re-read in a recent post I was in a bit of a mood when it comes to newer cameras.

My opening salvo was pretty severe:

No matter how good they are, I consider them as appliances. All of them.

I may have had too much coffee that day.

Now do not get me wrong. I still see all modern cameras as appliances. And I still prefer film cameras and very old, by camera market standards, digital cameras.

I have since thought about this a bit more. That applies to daily use situations. But appliances do have their place.

What prompted me to write this addendum was thinking back to the first wedding I agreed to do. Where a no was not accepted by my polite, but relentless friend Ed.

I was very optimistic gear-wise. The wedding was in West Virginia. A bit of a hike from my home base. In addition to my digital gear I brought along my Hasselblad and even brought my 4×5. Did not use either. It was a day for appliances.

This was a young and energetic couple, constantly on the move. Had I tried to use my Hasselblad I would have slowed things down quite a bit. Had I tried to use my 4×5 I would have brought things to a screeching halt.

Now some photos I could have definitely pulled off. For example:

Film, manual focus, or old digital these would have been no problem.

But the more I thought about it there were many photos during the day, most even, that I would not have been able to pull off with film or old school digital. Some? Sure. All? A definite no. Some examples.

Cave lighting.

This is one of my favorite photos from the day. I believe I could have gotten close to accurate focus, but nothing like the photo above. And at ISO 3200 this is a relatively clear image.

Cropping as an option.

Original photo.

Crop image.

Even with a humble resolution spec of 24MP cropping was no issue at all.

AF speed and zoom.

I happened to notice Ed having a Father of the bride moment behind the scenes. I simply swung the lens away from the bride and groom for a moment, zoomed in on Ed, and there it is. And then right back to the bride and groom.

I could share more examples, but you get the point. As I said before in the earlier post, perfectly acceptable results… Went on to say, boring.

Sometimes boring is good.

Ed did not care about my artistic intentions. He wanted pics.