Shashin
Well-known member
How can we make a rational choice for a creative process?
If you want the system that gives the bast bang for the buck, it would be an APS-C system. The quality should be good enough for most applications. It will give great AF, a large system (larger than 35mm), wonderful power use, low cost, and widely available. That would be sufficient.
Somehow, i don't think we are going to get anyone here to jump, though.
I don't think I would be going out on a limb to say the folks here are not looking for something that is sufficient. For the type of work Avedon did, which was just reproduced in magazines, I would think 35mm would have been fine, but he shot 6x6 and 8x10. The format was irrelevant? Did it matter that the camera did not have a huge choice of focal lengths?
35mm is also very practical for most of my work. But it would not replace the documentary work I did with a Horseman SW612. There is no comparison. I have met lots of people who have told me that a 6x12 pano camera cannot be used for handheld documentary work. Just as a 6x17 camera cannot be used for the same kind of work--just don't tell Josef Koudelka.
Now, if you were giving general advice to someone starting in the business, then the D800 would be a great choice. It would be "good enough" for many things. But I think suggesting to photographer with a great deal of experience with different formats and systems that the D800 should be "good enough" for them is going a bit too far simply because it has the same number of pixels.
If you want the system that gives the bast bang for the buck, it would be an APS-C system. The quality should be good enough for most applications. It will give great AF, a large system (larger than 35mm), wonderful power use, low cost, and widely available. That would be sufficient.
Somehow, i don't think we are going to get anyone here to jump, though.
I don't think I would be going out on a limb to say the folks here are not looking for something that is sufficient. For the type of work Avedon did, which was just reproduced in magazines, I would think 35mm would have been fine, but he shot 6x6 and 8x10. The format was irrelevant? Did it matter that the camera did not have a huge choice of focal lengths?
35mm is also very practical for most of my work. But it would not replace the documentary work I did with a Horseman SW612. There is no comparison. I have met lots of people who have told me that a 6x12 pano camera cannot be used for handheld documentary work. Just as a 6x17 camera cannot be used for the same kind of work--just don't tell Josef Koudelka.
Now, if you were giving general advice to someone starting in the business, then the D800 would be a great choice. It would be "good enough" for many things. But I think suggesting to photographer with a great deal of experience with different formats and systems that the D800 should be "good enough" for them is going a bit too far simply because it has the same number of pixels.