General update

Since my last blog update much has happened.

Two more of the four LED light bulbs that claimed 10,000 hour life have failed. That makes three out of four. All 3 failed to last a single year of intermittent use in the bathroom. The old incandescent bulb that I never replaced still works well and that has been there for several years. The moral of that story has to be not to waste your hard earned cash on LED bulbs. The savings in electricity are more than offset by the cost of bulbs. Add to that, the bulbs are non recyclable and will quickly become landfill.

I bought a GPS data logger from Amazon. It's the DG-100 by GlobalSat. I put batteries in it and logged some of my journey home. Then I discovered the CD has only software that works on Windows. I downloaded a driver for Mac from the company website and managed to upload a copy of the log to my Mac. As there was no software other than the driver that would work on Mac, the company suggested using google earth. Needless to say, google earth won't run on my Mac. It comes up with runtime errors.

Turning to the manual, it said the Windows software wouldn't run on Windows 8 and according to reviews, won't work on Windows 10 either. Luckily my lady had an old Windows 7 laptop. I dutifully loaded the software and it wouldn't recognize the device.

So, in order to use this $20 marvel of technology, it appears I have to read the file using my Mac, transfer it to a memory stick. Then visit milady to beg use of her old Windows 7 laptop then somehow get the software to read the memory stick file. That seems like a horrible lot of hard work, running from one computer to another in order to work around incompetently written software. I don't think I'm going out on a limb in calling this device a scam. I don't think it has a snowflakes chance of working!

In other news, I had the sad news of my mother's passing. I'd promised to visit this year but in the early part of the year couldn't leave my job to do it. Then in the summer I couldn't afford to go dye to outrageous air fares. Then I got a new job so was planning to visit at Christmas. Airfares are still outrageous at $1000 for a flight at a time when fuel prices have never been lower! Airlines are definitely price gouging!

I'm not a lard arse!

Reading today, one of the digital camera groups had an entertaining slanging match going on between  different factions over the size of cameras and the relative merits of the different varieties of cameras. To be blunt, the digital camera groups debate the same issues time after time in different forms. It gets very tiresome.

20 years ago I used to buy camera magazines because they had interesting articles. I stopped doing that after newer writers came into the magazines that didn't know much other than how to write an article. In fact they didn't really know how to research an article which meant that most of their work was of dubious to abysmal quality.

Long after the UK magazines had ceased to write anything but pap, some of the US magazines still had decent articles. I remember one suggesting the use of seed trays for developing prints as opposed to the proper print developing trays. It was an idea that would have worked as long as the print could reliably be kept from settling to the bottom of the tray.

Recently the magazines have been little more than gadget worship rags. In fact, that might be too much praise. They have become the equivalent of the television infomercial where a presenter demonstrates a product and says how great it is while trying to avoid smirking. I doubt I'd pay money for a magazine, these days. They're just too expensive to take to the outhouse to drag across your arse. That's all they're worth, these days!

The debates online seem to carry over to the articles written in the magazines. I wouldn't mind betting that the writers, in between burgers, do their research by reading internet abuse groups (can't really call them discussion groups).

Going back to the merits of different cameras, the whole battle started off with somebody asking whether people found their smartphones were taking over from other kinds of cameras. The answer for me is a resounding yes. Let me explain why...

1. My smartphone takes darned good photos. 
2. I can be assured my photo has been automatically uploaded quickly after taking it.
3. Because my photo is stored in the cloud, it can be accessed and shared easily.
4. I'm rarely anywhere without my smartphone.
5. My phone is easily portable in my pocket.
6. Each image is marked with time, date and location.

How about my DSLR, my mirror less camera or my elderly zoom compact? Well, they're all bulky. A lot bulkier than my phone. In order of bulkiness, my DSLR is the biggest and my zoom compact ties with my mirror less camera. 

To use the DSLR or the mirror less, I have to make sure the battery is charged. It's not something I use daily, weekly or even monthly so when I want it, the battery is usually dead. The zoom compact takes AA batteries but only gets used for VGA video due to the image quality just not being that great any more.

I was given the zoom compact back in 2004 when they were new for $500. Now I couldn't get $5 for it at a flea market. The DSLR I bought back in 2006 together with a ton of camera bits back when somebody abusively sold me on the idea of doing photography as a business. Since then I've managed to sell all but the bits I use. Having said that, the last time I used my DSLR was April of 2015. I did get a mirror less camera in the hope I'd be able to use that more yet it sits unused on my nightstand. Fortunately I bought it secondhand so not much money is invested.

The camera I use the most? My cellphone! 40 photographs this week. Thousands over the last few years. Would I regret selling my DSLR? I don't think so. I didn't regret selling the stuff I bought for the mythical photography business. What I regret the most is being hoodwinked and the money that was lost.

I would retain the mirror less camera. At the moment I'm unable to get the same image quality from my 2012 mirror less compact that I can from my 2005 DSLR but then I have not used it much and don't have the ability to manipulate raw image files for it. I had hoped that my elderly MacBook would do it but the operating system is too elderly and cannot be upgraded further. I'd hoped that the Toshiba Cambio device would allow me to load and manipulate raw files on my iPad but it seems the device just doesn't work. Thus, I can't get much out of my mirror less at the moment other than JPEG files.

So, where does that leave me? Definitely in need of a laptop upgrade in order to do anything further with photography. 

Where does that leave the guy/guyette  that left original question? Well, my answer is look at the numbers. The top two cameras used by Flickr users are phones. Of the top 42, most are phones. That tells me that we have achieved universally acceptable image quality on phones. These days, knowing what I do about photography, I don't think I'd ever buy a DSLR and certainly never anything brand new.

In the laughably abusive comments on the discussion group, it was suggested that Americans and lard arses were too wimpy to carry big DSLRs. The truth is as above, the equipment is hard to justify. Why should anybody go to all the bother of carrying a DSLR or mirror less camera or even a zoom compact when their phone produces really acceptable images? I'm not a lard arse nor am I wimpy. I believe in practicality.

Yes, a DSLR used correctly will produce a technically improved image but why stop there? Why not use a medium format digital by Hasselblad? Why stop at Hasselblad? Why not go for a digital view camera? "Cost" I hear you cry, all you who decry others choices to somehow validate your own. Does cost mean that a digital view camera is no good? No it just means the people on forums cannot afford a digital view camera and can only decry those with cameras they view as inferior.

I, for one, don't feel the endless sparring over cameras and worship of equipment furthers photography. Is it not better just to admire a good image? It does not matter whether it was taken with a box brownie or the latest marvel of technology. Some images are not even that great but are very noteworthy such as the photograph of Paris rooftops. Why is that so important? Only because it's just about the first surviving photograph! 

The silly counter arguments used online

We've all heard it or read it somewhere. The arguments for and against different kinds of cameras are pretty nauseating. The online forums are full not of debates over the merits of different cameras but rather of mud slinging. A typical online argument starts with somebody saying something then the next person trying to tell them they are wrong while rugby tackling them to the ground and grinding their heads into the dirt while repeatedly stomping on their head. It gets nobody anywhere either fast or slow.

The arguments I've heard have been....
Image quality improves with sensor size.
Modern cameras are better.
Format X is better than format Y
Maker X is better than Maker Y
You must have a high ISO
If you can't carry all your gear, you're a wimp.

Really and truly, all those arguments are complete poppycock. They miss the main issue which is that photography is about the photograph, not the equipment. There seems to be a perception that one must be able to cater for every eventuality with lenses that allow photographs of single pinheads to fill the image right the way through to lenses that can see the writing in the dirt left behind by Eugene Cernan on the lunar surface.

The fact is, early photographers took great photos using single fixed focal length lenses. Photography is about the picture, not the tools used to take the picture. As an example, I have a wonderful photograph I took with a 110 film camera. It's probably the best portrait I've ever taken yet 110 was very sniffed at during film days.

It doesn't matter if you use a cellphone, a compact, a mirror less camera or a digital SLR. They are only as good as the photographer and the scene presented. I can go and take a blurry, grainy, unrecognizable image just as easily with a phone as I could with a digital SLR. Equally, I can take a brilliant photo with any of them.

One of the main problems people have is with their perception. What is a photograph being used for? Is it being used to judge the technical capabilities of a camera and a lens or is it going to be used as a social media image? 99% if not more, of today's photographs will be online only. Thus, any camera or cellphone will be able to achieve an excellent image.

Yes. It's a burger. That was my lunch some time ago. The image is quite decent and it was taken with a cellphone. Now, I'll show you a photograph taken with a digital SLR.

Both images are equally good, seen on the screen. Hmm... Maybe it's not really necessary to have a digital SLR? Maybe it's overkill? The fact is nobody really does anything more than glance at a photograph. It doesn't matter how good or bad the image is. Viewers just do not care. The only people that obsess about image "quality" are OCD.

There was a fuss because some newspapers are dumping their dedicated photography staff and giving journalists, iPhones to take photos for news stories. That is a pretty good idea. The days of the specialist photographer are gone. A journalist can take a couple of dozen photos with an iPhone, dictate an article and add some video then send it back to the office before he's even left the scene.

For news people, the standalone camera is a clunky, archaic anachronism from the 19th century. For the hobbyist, it's still not really necessary to have anything more than a cellphone.

I'd say that the only reason to have a standalone camera are

• Posing value
• The rare occasions when a longer lens is needed
• The rare occasions when a feature unavailable on a smartphone is needed

I've sold most of my camera gear. I use my cellphone for almost all my photography these days. It's an elderly Nexus 4 from 2012 and the screen is beginning to delaminate. The battery life is horrible but it still takes pretty good photos.

Do I recommend you selling your cameras? Heck, no. You do what you want. This is my opinion and these are my experiences! I would recommend not throwing a lot of money at photography. It has a tendency to gobble money. As far as making a profit... The only person that makes a profit from photography is the camera maker. I've seen way too many photographers going out of business and living in poverty.