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David Paul Carr
Guest
Well Helen, if you take cave etchings as a reference point, I guess those raw write and autofocus times just don't seem that long any more...
I've just come back from three weeks working in West Africa. Before leaving (as you do in the comfort of your own home) I entertained the possibility of only shooting with compact cameras. I could do a really good job of justifying this to myself but, because my GRD II was still being repaired, it didn't happen and I went with a Canon DSLR and one mid-range zoom.
If I look at what I have shot, 85% of it would have been impossible with any compact: most shots made at over 800 ISO, varying focal lengths required, far too bright to use an lcd to compose... And I don't think my GRD II would have survived the dust for more than one day...
The GRD II would have been useful for some outdoor work where I wished to be a little more discreet or at certain events where I could have put it in "snap" mode, f6.7, and shot off-camera flash with a Pocket Wizard to trigger it.
All to say that the fact that a camera can capture some great moments doesn't mean it can capture all of them consistently. No amount of artist's-statementing will conjour up a picture you couldn't take because there wasn't enough light or because you needed a faster shooting rate.
Which doesn't mean I don't like my little Ricohs or that I have given up entirely on using them exclusively for a job one of these days... Just that I would probably feel a little more confident of my results with a Canon MkIII DS most of the time. And my main reason for wanting to use the Ricohs would be that they might - because of their limitations - coax me away from stale, habitual ways of shooting and thinking about photography rather than anything to do with image quality or ease of use.
I've just come back from three weeks working in West Africa. Before leaving (as you do in the comfort of your own home) I entertained the possibility of only shooting with compact cameras. I could do a really good job of justifying this to myself but, because my GRD II was still being repaired, it didn't happen and I went with a Canon DSLR and one mid-range zoom.
If I look at what I have shot, 85% of it would have been impossible with any compact: most shots made at over 800 ISO, varying focal lengths required, far too bright to use an lcd to compose... And I don't think my GRD II would have survived the dust for more than one day...
The GRD II would have been useful for some outdoor work where I wished to be a little more discreet or at certain events where I could have put it in "snap" mode, f6.7, and shot off-camera flash with a Pocket Wizard to trigger it.
All to say that the fact that a camera can capture some great moments doesn't mean it can capture all of them consistently. No amount of artist's-statementing will conjour up a picture you couldn't take because there wasn't enough light or because you needed a faster shooting rate.
Which doesn't mean I don't like my little Ricohs or that I have given up entirely on using them exclusively for a job one of these days... Just that I would probably feel a little more confident of my results with a Canon MkIII DS most of the time. And my main reason for wanting to use the Ricohs would be that they might - because of their limitations - coax me away from stale, habitual ways of shooting and thinking about photography rather than anything to do with image quality or ease of use.
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