5 ms·

The 'Pro' Paradox and the Allure of Style over Substance

15 points by smnrg 3y ago

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
"inconspicuous street photography" "discreet shooting" I'm sure it's legal, but it shouldn't be
- spacecadet 3y ago
  As a published street photog, we not talking about voyerism, were talking about not attracting bozos with "oh what lens is that"... Also as a film photog, Leica lost their use 40 years ago... A couple old heads still use them in the field, but as the article says the cost does not justify the product anymore (except the glass...) but! Hell if they make a profit! That company is a loss leader and propped up by all of Leicas other offerings...
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    Haha, oh no, I'm in this picture. Last week I saw a guy with this massive lens and while walking by I said something like "Damn, that's a cool lens!". Okay, I'll file this away into the same class as "Rubik's cubes? Oh I just take the stickers off and put them on the same face" or whatever people say.
    - spacecadet 3y ago
      Look most people are kind. I'll chitchat for a moment... but yeah- if I could avoid gawkers... I mean FWIW much of my work is about people living on the fringe, on the road, or end of society. I spent years touring just living with people like that. You become one of them and "gawkers" are just that. Im being reminded there was a name for this, Gonzo Journalism. But I see why in todays world people would confuse it with voyeurism.
- gotoeleven 3y ago
  But its almost the only way to get a picture of a woman without duckface.
  - spacecadet 3y ago
    Careful, I take it to 12...
  - dang 3y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  The article is talking about photographing candid scenes in a public place while blending in, not covert spying.
floren 3y ago
> It is easy to see this, from the fetishization of unboxing and endless gear fidgeting reviews to the details that won't matter to 99.9% of the users. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, Reddit has really turned "picking up a hobby" into "selecting and purchasing the correct gear, talking about the gear, and deciding which gear to purchase next". Don't even get me started on keyboard fetishists, who dispense with the hobby pretense and just buy gear (yeah a nice keyboard is a great thing to have but I've never lubricated a switch in my life and never intend to)
- spacecadet 3y ago
  Also this, its captialism, consumerism, and people chasing the dream of being an "influencer". All rubbish. I "stopped" taking pictures after I went down the extreme build your own cameras art tract and found it all devoid of meaning. This was 2005... I actually didnt stop... I still shoot film because we live in a dark age of cloud storage and I believe there will be little recorded daily history still left in the near future, or overran by AI/Deepfake content...
  - RIMMRAMMBUS 3y ago
    Great comments! Makes you feel like we live at the end of the rubbish world! :D
    - spacecadet 3y ago
      Fuck I hope so. Craftsman unit!
- jahnu 3y ago
  The joke about audiophiles applies to many activities: "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.” - Alan Parsons
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Reddit may have continued or even increased an existing practice, but this phenomenon predates reddit (founded 2005) by quite a bit.
zitterbewegung 3y ago
I’m not sure why the Author makes the assertion that Apple stopped making small phones. For the iPhone 12 mini and 13 which was the premium product they just didn’t sell enough to justify the model itself while social media was clamoring for this model and Apple tried two iterations . Also the new iPhone 15 pros are lighter than the previous models and have features that justify it such as a fully functional usbc port that while it’s only USB 3 it can function with a wide verity of dongles to get Ethernet and external media recording so you can not rely only the local amount of storage on the phone.
- newaccount74 3y ago
  I always wonder if they would have sold more minis if they made them more expensive than the standard model, rather than the discount option.
- smnrg 3y ago
  Hi! Author here: I use a Balmuda Phone now, an exotic Android 12 Japanese discontinued phone that still receives security updates and weighs 138g with a 4.9" display. The iPhone Mini is my previous phone. It sold millions and millions of units, close to the entire number of yearly shipments of Google's Pixel line, but that was not enough for Apple. I like phones that are less than 140mm in height, less than 5" screen, but run modern software. Apple made enough that it would have been considered a huge success for any other company in the world. But alas :)
- nottorp 3y ago
  > just didn’t sell enough to justify the model itself Bla bla they sold more of the minis than any model of Android phone. They're just asses.
datawaslost 3y ago
TLDR: A well-known luxury brand doesn't fit one user's unique needs. ("inconspicuous street photography" "discreet shooting") Why try to extrapolate this to some thinkpiece-level nonsense, with literally nothing else to support the writer's thesis? Just shoot on a Fuji and don't pretend your personal needs and preferences represent some deeper truth.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
earthwalker99 3y ago
Nobody worth listening to cares about Leica camera bodies independent of Leica glass. There is no alternative to Leica glass. I do not own any Leica equipment myself, but I'm not blind.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Even Leica glass is somewhat overrated, at the very least incredibly overpriced. Same goes for Zeiss, even if Zeiss glass is really good.
- smnrg 3y ago
  Hi! The only reason why I keep a Panasonic GM1 body around is to use two Panasonic Leica DG lenses whenever I miss them :) I see your point.
renewiltord 3y ago
Well, that's the natural outcome of most people in the Western world having no scarcity. The US is such a rich land. It makes sense why there's so many DTC brands here since marketing is king in that world. I tried a Liquid Death the other day and it's honestly nothing special. But that company is huge! You'll see that in most things. Growing up I used to shave with a double-edge razor just for price. Eventually I started using disposable razors and a few years ago I tried to switch back to the double-edge (for convenience, since I'd keep running out of disposable razors - too big to store lots). The community around this shit is bog shit insane, man. Like there's a good blade and a bad blade, yes, but the whole thing has turned into a damned art. You have to buy the best horse-hair brush with the best place to put it, and the write double-edge handle. Anyway, I did use a double-edge for a while and just used foam (unlike my teen years when I had a brush - synthetic no doubt). The same with cologne. You go on Reddit or whatever to just get some baseline stuff and it's refined to oblivion. They'll recommend something like YSL Kouros ("a classic power-fougere") but you are guaranteed to empty a restaurant walking in wearing that! Madness.
- nottorp 3y ago
  Meh. You can always ignore them. I bought like 3 "classic" razors until I got one I really liked. Didn't even look online, grabbed whatever (few) options that i found in physical stores. It's good enough, end of story.

15 points by smnrg 3y ago

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago

"inconspicuous street photography" "discreet shooting" I'm sure it's legal, but it shouldn't be

spacecadet 3y ago
As a published street photog, we not talking about voyerism, were talking about not attracting bozos with "oh what lens is that"... Also as a film photog, Leica lost their use 40 years ago... A couple old heads still use them in the field, but as the article says the cost does not justify the product anymore (except the glass...) but! Hell if they make a profit! That company is a loss leader and propped up by all of Leicas other offerings...
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Haha, oh no, I'm in this picture. Last week I saw a guy with this massive lens and while walking by I said something like "Damn, that's a cool lens!". Okay, I'll file this away into the same class as "Rubik's cubes? Oh I just take the stickers off and put them on the same face" or whatever people say.
  - spacecadet 3y ago
    Look most people are kind. I'll chitchat for a moment... but yeah- if I could avoid gawkers... I mean FWIW much of my work is about people living on the fringe, on the road, or end of society. I spent years touring just living with people like that. You become one of them and "gawkers" are just that. Im being reminded there was a name for this, Gonzo Journalism. But I see why in todays world people would confuse it with voyeurism.
gotoeleven 3y ago
But its almost the only way to get a picture of a woman without duckface.
- spacecadet 3y ago
  Careful, I take it to 12...
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
sokoloff 3y ago
The article is talking about photographing candid scenes in a public place while blending in, not covert spying.

floren 3y ago

> It is easy to see this, from the fetishization of unboxing and endless gear fidgeting reviews to the details that won't matter to 99.9% of the users. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, Reddit has really turned "picking up a hobby" into "selecting and purchasing the correct gear, talking about the gear, and deciding which gear to purchase next". Don't even get me started on keyboard fetishists, who dispense with the hobby pretense and just buy gear (yeah a nice keyboard is a great thing to have but I've never lubricated a switch in my life and never intend to)

spacecadet 3y ago
Also this, its captialism, consumerism, and people chasing the dream of being an "influencer". All rubbish. I "stopped" taking pictures after I went down the extreme build your own cameras art tract and found it all devoid of meaning. This was 2005... I actually didnt stop... I still shoot film because we live in a dark age of cloud storage and I believe there will be little recorded daily history still left in the near future, or overran by AI/Deepfake content...
- RIMMRAMMBUS 3y ago
  Great comments! Makes you feel like we live at the end of the rubbish world! :D
  - spacecadet 3y ago
    Fuck I hope so. Craftsman unit!
jahnu 3y ago
The joke about audiophiles applies to many activities: "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.” - Alan Parsons
sokoloff 3y ago
Reddit may have continued or even increased an existing practice, but this phenomenon predates reddit (founded 2005) by quite a bit.

zitterbewegung 3y ago

I’m not sure why the Author makes the assertion that Apple stopped making small phones. For the iPhone 12 mini and 13 which was the premium product they just didn’t sell enough to justify the model itself while social media was clamoring for this model and Apple tried two iterations . Also the new iPhone 15 pros are lighter than the previous models and have features that justify it such as a fully functional usbc port that while it’s only USB 3 it can function with a wide verity of dongles to get Ethernet and external media recording so you can not rely only the local amount of storage on the phone.

newaccount74 3y ago
I always wonder if they would have sold more minis if they made them more expensive than the standard model, rather than the discount option.
smnrg 3y ago
Hi! Author here: I use a Balmuda Phone now, an exotic Android 12 Japanese discontinued phone that still receives security updates and weighs 138g with a 4.9" display. The iPhone Mini is my previous phone. It sold millions and millions of units, close to the entire number of yearly shipments of Google's Pixel line, but that was not enough for Apple. I like phones that are less than 140mm in height, less than 5" screen, but run modern software. Apple made enough that it would have been considered a huge success for any other company in the world. But alas :)
nottorp 3y ago
> just didn’t sell enough to justify the model itself Bla bla they sold more of the minis than any model of Android phone. They're just asses.

datawaslost 3y ago

TLDR: A well-known luxury brand doesn't fit one user's unique needs. ("inconspicuous street photography" "discreet shooting") Why try to extrapolate this to some thinkpiece-level nonsense, with literally nothing else to support the writer's thesis? Just shoot on a Fuji and don't pretend your personal needs and preferences represent some deeper truth.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

earthwalker99 3y ago

Nobody worth listening to cares about Leica camera bodies independent of Leica glass. There is no alternative to Leica glass. I do not own any Leica equipment myself, but I'm not blind.

hef19898 3y ago
Even Leica glass is somewhat overrated, at the very least incredibly overpriced. Same goes for Zeiss, even if Zeiss glass is really good.
smnrg 3y ago
Hi! The only reason why I keep a Panasonic GM1 body around is to use two Panasonic Leica DG lenses whenever I miss them :) I see your point.

renewiltord 3y ago

Well, that's the natural outcome of most people in the Western world having no scarcity. The US is such a rich land. It makes sense why there's so many DTC brands here since marketing is king in that world. I tried a Liquid Death the other day and it's honestly nothing special. But that company is huge! You'll see that in most things. Growing up I used to shave with a double-edge razor just for price. Eventually I started using disposable razors and a few years ago I tried to switch back to the double-edge (for convenience, since I'd keep running out of disposable razors - too big to store lots). The community around this shit is bog shit insane, man. Like there's a good blade and a bad blade, yes, but the whole thing has turned into a damned art. You have to buy the best horse-hair brush with the best place to put it, and the write double-edge handle. Anyway, I did use a double-edge for a while and just used foam (unlike my teen years when I had a brush - synthetic no doubt). The same with cologne. You go on Reddit or whatever to just get some baseline stuff and it's refined to oblivion. They'll recommend something like YSL Kouros ("a classic power-fougere") but you are guaranteed to empty a restaurant walking in wearing that! Madness.

nottorp 3y ago
Meh. You can always ignore them. I bought like 3 "classic" razors until I got one I really liked. Didn't even look online, grabbed whatever (few) options that i found in physical stores. It's good enough, end of story.