A cellphone, a camera, a tablet

A cellphone, a camera and a tablet. That’s all most travel photographers and photojournalists need. In fact much journalism now is done by journalists that dictate their stories to MP3 on their iPhone and send it together with iPhone photos and videos straight back to the office for either automatic transcription or manual transcription by minimum wage typists.

There has been a massive and I do mean a massive change in technology over the past 30 years. As a youngster I remember being taken on a tour of the local newspaper. At that time the words were made from cast lead and placed on trays used for printing. Then, the papers had darkrooms and each roll of film had to make it back to the lab, be developed and printed before it could be used. All very time-consuming, expensive and quite polluting.

As I have said on many occasions, there’s sod all difference between most cameras for 99% of all users and usage. Those amateurs that buy hyper expensive cameras then “prove” that they can produce a better image are fooling only themselves. Those that buy brand new kit are fools to themselves too.

Let’s look at the kit above. Ignoring the cellphone which is there just to demonstrate a cellphone (it does work, it cost me $15 and I’m using it as well as my main phone - which I used to take the picture), there’s a 4 year old 7” tablet, a 10 year old camera and lens both of which I bought secondhand, 4 years ago and a cheap Bluetooth keyboard. Even including my main phone which was $40, there’s probably less than two or three days wages for most low-paid people there.

That lot gets used for 90% of my blog postings and has for the past few years. Before I had the keyboard I used to use the terrible onscreen keyboard which led to some hilarious autocorrections. Eventually I’d had enough and added the Bluetooth keyboard.

The more pretentious individual - the type that buys only the most expensive lenses, cameras and other equipment, changing it whenever something new comes out - will, of course turn their snout up at minimalist equipment like this. In fact a few months ago I was at one of the national parks. There, I chatted with a fellow who had hiked to the top of a pretty big hill with a massive camera bag. He was very snooty when he found my camera is “only” 12 megapixels when he had the latest, greatest 50 megapixel monster. There’s no reason for that snootiness, nor for the pretentiousness.

If I truly wanted the latest and greatest, I’d ask myself why. My decision process goes along the lines...

• Most any digital camera produced in the last 10 years or so has ample resolution for most people. Given that very few images are actually printed there’s very little reason for most people to have huge resolutions. Indeed, even a 6 megapixel image printed at 300 PPI would measure 8 inches by 10 inches. 300 PPI is the absolute limit of human vision and quite candidly it would be possible to use lower PPI without anybody really noticing unless their nose was pressed right up against the print. If their nose is pressed against the print, they’re not appreciating the image but trying to find something to moan about.
• All digital cameras will take a decent photo. There are no dogs out there so brand makes no difference nor does model.
• Cost makes a difference. The more you spend on a camera, the less you can spend on anything else.
• New versus used - why take the price hit by buying new? My 10 year old 12 megapixel Olympus PM1 cost me $75 when I bought it, 4 years ago. New that camera cost $400. I saved myself $325 of depreciation. Nothing in photography ever appreciates in value - it all depreciates as fast as a brick falling through space. 
• As for lenses - certainly there is a difference, some of the cheaper lenses from independent makers are not that great. They’re soft and blurry. This is why I won’t buy independent lenses. But I won’t buy new lenses either. Again, they depreciate and as long as they work just fine, who cares what they look like. 
• At the end of the day the question has to be - do you want to take pictures or do you want to pose? If the answer is to take pictures then an expensive kit is not needed. If it’s to pose then you’ll want to get the expensive stuff but remember posing can only be done for a few months until the next big thing comes out.

The cost of the kit shown is not high because it was all secondhand. The point of it is what can be done with it. I’m done with spending money out the wazoo for things that don’t get used often. I’ve been there, seen it, done it and got the tee shirt. I would really like a long lens for my Olympus. I did get a 45-150 which is about the equivalent of a 90-300 but 300 is just not quite long enough for the longer stuff that I’d want to do. Doublers seem to have gone right off the market so the only solution would be to get a T2 mount lens or an M42 mount lens and the corresponding adaptor. The question is whether even then it would be financially worthwhile. It’s not that I make any money from photography. In fact I don’t think anybody really makes money from photography. They make their money from add-ons rather than photography since everybody with a cellphone can take decent enough pictures - hence, of course, many journalists now do their photography with an iPhone.

The struggle against weight

Years ago, a camera meant a great big thing that had a wet plate and needed to be set up on a solid tripod for several minutes. The “camera bag” of old was almost a horse-drawn cart. These days cameras have become smaller and much easier to use.

Yesterday I was using my cellphone camera. See what I mean - in 100 years we have gone from cameras the size of a desk to cameras that fit in a pocket! The quality of images has increased tremendously too. That image is probably sharper and higher quality than those I was getting from my manual focus 35mm film camera of 20 years ago.

Looking around my stored things, I found my old 110 camera. The film is very long expired but that’s what I used to use as a lightweight travel camera. It worked really well too. I have very fond memories of the photos I took with that camera. They’re still around here somewhere.

The big film SLRs were so heavy that many photographers, carrying all the equipment they needed used to damage their backs on a regular basis. These days cameras have become ever smaller. Now the top picture was taken with a cellphone. The next was taken with an iPad. The iPad camera seems better than the one on my (cheap) cellphone.

Autofocus has definitely improved many photos. There are far less “failures” than there used to be. It’s definitely not perfect

The failure of the cellphone to focus on the flower with the insects on top is an example of the problems of autofocus but to be honest, autofocus gets it right far more often than a human alone would.

But back to the weight of the kit. As many of you know, I went over from using Nikon 35mm using the FM2 and MD12 together with lenses etc to using Canon digital SLRs. Since then I sold all the Canon kit and bought some secondhand Olympus kit. In terms of size, it has been a reduction the whole way.  It has also been a massive reduction in weight.

My old Nikon kit was painful to carry and weight around 30lbs. Having that off one shoulder was a recipe for back problems. My current Olympus combines that 30lb camera kit into one small camera and two small lenses. Even if I add extra memory cards (heaven knows why as a 32GB card is more than ample for a month of photos and videos) and extra batteries then I am adding hardly any extra weight or bulk. Indeed the kit is so small it fits into pockets. There is just no need for a camera bag now.

At one time I stocked up on filters. I had a huge quantity of Colin square filters for my camera. They cost a ton of money but were totally unsalable even though most were never ever used. I still have those somewhere but I have a feeling they’re just going to go into landfill. The cameras I long ago sold. Those filters were heavy and bulky. Now the only filter needed is a polarizing filter. The rest can be done with software.

The evolution of photography has been toward smaller and lighter with better image quality. My cellphone I would put on a par with my110 camera. This is why I do like to have a separate, dedicated camera. For most things a cell phone does more than adequate photos. For holidays I like to have a real camera though these days I don’t bother with extra lenses. It’s so much easier just to walk closer to take a photo. It’s also not the end of the world if I miss out on a photo through not having the right lens. It’s not as though anybody is ever actually going to pay for my photos when the internet is absolutely flooded with freely available images.

Actually, as far as I’m concerned, if somebody claims to be a professional photographer, I wonder whet kind of scam they’re running or where their money is coming from. The income from photography is so pitiful that most photographers have either a spouse making money, are retired from a real job or have a sideline in something else (usually illegal) that pays the bills.

But yes, from 20lbs of kit down to a camera that does the same and more while taking up a fraction of the space and weighs around a pound. I’ll take that! I can live with that! As far as image quality - just about any digital camera will knock the socks off any roll of film. Yes. This progress is just what the doctor ordered.

The death of Flickr

Flickr it seems is dead. They got taken over by somebody. Today I went to access some photos I'd taken some 3 years ago to be greeted with a message that I had to cough up money or lose images. Thank the Lord everything is backed up somewhere. This is just like one of those other image banks that vanished a few years ago so abruptly that people could not save their images and lots of people lost a lot of precious photos.

It goes back to what I've always said about online anything. It could all disappear in the blink of an eye. A server goes down mid backup, corrupting the data files and the backups. Then a fire breaks out in the backup room and takes out all the historical backups leaving everybody with nothing.

An image format might cease to be used. In a few years nobody will support that format. Then you go back to your old photos that you've not seen in 20 years and bang - they're there - you just can't access them.

Where do you go from here? Well, fortunately USB memory sticks are plentiful and cheap. Store all your images on memory sticks. Make multiple copies but crucially - label them. The problem though is that like VHS cassettes, nobody is going to check through VHS cassettes before discarding them. They're not like film or cine film where you can hold them up to the light  to see exactly what's on them. I've seen people throw out huge piles of VHS cassettes with no idea what was on them. There could have been anything from their baby footage to their graduation.

In the old days flash memory was ludicrously expensive. I remember spending a ton on 8MB memory cards. Then I remember spending $100 on a 1GB CF card. Now I can pick up massive memory cards for very little money. It used to make sense to store your photos on a hard drive and recycle the memory card. Now it makes more sense to keep your photos on the memory cards and duplicate them onto memory sticks then store the originals away safely.

As far as this online stuff is concerned, Flickr was free. That should be the first warning that it wasn't kosher. Never rely upon anything free. As far as the pictures I have on Flickr - I couldn't give a rat's arse. That was just a display medium for me. If Google photos went down then I would grumble but I'd still have all my photos. I don't think I bother with iPhoto.

Never store anything online that you don't have a backup of.