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Besides telephoto and real macro, the results of the iPhone 12 made the idea of gear renewal almost absurd for me, it’s just incredible and I’m not talking abou

Besides telephoto and real macro, the results of the iPhone 12 made the idea of gear renewal almost absurd for me, it’s just incredible and I’m not talking about the 12 pro. There is trade offs, none of them justifies carrying heavy gear around most of the time. edit: it’s a hobby and I just spent a lot of time trying to take pretty pictures, and searching the proper cost tradeoff to do them

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Right. Gear churn just seems peculiar. I think this is also why we see lots of people who own high end full-frame etc., are now adapting old lenses, building extraordinary DIY rigs like the "digital camera obscura" trend of the moment, making entirely custom lenses with surplus optics and 3D printers, etc. It's the same reason as for why there's so much interest in film. These things have different strengths. I think mobile phones have liberated photography in a way unparalleled since the time when 35mm film liberated photography.
- ghaff 5y ago
  >Gear churn just seems peculiar. There was a period when DSLRs were improving pretty rapidly and it made sense to move up on a pretty regular cadence because the new stuff was so much better. (And we've seen this with phones more recently.) There's definitely a retro aspect to film and vinyl. Personally that's not for me having lived with the limitations of both. But I spent years working with custom film developing chemistry and the like.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    I still think of myself as someone who shoots a little bit of film, though like other things I still think of myself as doing, not since the pandemic. But I think I view film photography, darkroom work, and mobile phones in basically the same way. They are just some photography tools among many, and my photography education would be incomplete without them.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I was photo editor of my undergrad newspaper, editor of high school yearbook, and made beer money with photography in various ways. (I was also de facto photo editor of a newspaper in grad school among other things.) I spent a lot of time on it and got a lot of enjoyment out of it. I also probably got a bit burned out and wasn't really interested any longer once I didn't have easy access to a good darkroom any longer. But yeah, happy I did it, zero interest in doing any longer. Digital pretty much rekindled that interest. (Also could really not get into video in those days because overhead was just too much. Don't have obvious entry point into creative video these days but at least casual is easier.)

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

Right. Gear churn just seems peculiar. I think this is also why we see lots of people who own high end full-frame etc., are now adapting old lenses, building extraordinary DIY rigs like the "digital camera obscura" trend of the moment, making entirely custom lenses with surplus optics and 3D printers, etc. It's the same reason as for why there's so much interest in film. These things have different strengths. I think mobile phones have liberated photography in a way unparalleled since the time when 35mm film liberated photography.

ghaff 5y ago
>Gear churn just seems peculiar. There was a period when DSLRs were improving pretty rapidly and it made sense to move up on a pretty regular cadence because the new stuff was so much better. (And we've seen this with phones more recently.) There's definitely a retro aspect to film and vinyl. Personally that's not for me having lived with the limitations of both. But I spent years working with custom film developing chemistry and the like.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  I still think of myself as someone who shoots a little bit of film, though like other things I still think of myself as doing, not since the pandemic. But I think I view film photography, darkroom work, and mobile phones in basically the same way. They are just some photography tools among many, and my photography education would be incomplete without them.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I was photo editor of my undergrad newspaper, editor of high school yearbook, and made beer money with photography in various ways. (I was also de facto photo editor of a newspaper in grad school among other things.) I spent a lot of time on it and got a lot of enjoyment out of it. I also probably got a bit burned out and wasn't really interested any longer once I didn't have easy access to a good darkroom any longer. But yeah, happy I did it, zero interest in doing any longer. Digital pretty much rekindled that interest. (Also could really not get into video in those days because overhead was just too much. Don't have obvious entry point into creative video these days but at least casual is easier.)