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Re: [OM] The LUG is beating up Gary's testing

Subject: Re: [OM] The LUG is beating up Gary's testing
From: Wayne Shumaker <shumaker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 10:55:29 -0400
Gary reckons flirtatiously:
> ...
> I find no compelling reason to change systems, although a Nikon FM2
> and FE2 has a way of catching my glance, like the cocktail waitresses
> at the casinos, I reckon.

And thusly:

> We always wonder what would have happened if we had married someone
> else, eh?

Careful Gary, treading on thin ice... but in all honesty, I think we
all wonder how life could have been different with different choices,
eh? I always thought I should get an F100, but when I started looking
at all the choices when I upgraded from a Nikromat & FG, the OM system
felt right. I also had the complete G2 system at one point, except for
the latest 35-70 zoom. I thought the G lens quality was exceptional,
but I had a lot of trouble with the focus, the view finder, the
limitation on doing close focus and telephoto, and the process I went
through to get the picture (such as tripod work or changing of a lens).
When it came time to grab a camera bag, 950f the time I took the
olympus. And the times I took the G2, I wished I had taken the olympus.
The OM system dynamic range, whether it be EV -5 or macro to telephoto,
is what I like.

No doubt the G2 camera has a feeling all it's own and takes great
pictures. I don't yet have the visual capacity to see a picture with my
mind independent of the instrument, and probably never will. I think we
all get caught up in the technicalness of photography, but we need to
work with what helps us rather than hinders us, so we can end up taking
the pictures we want. I just couldn't take pictures with the Nikon FG.

My greatest critique and teacher is a fellow engineer, who for the past
6 months has mostly been taking pictures with his watch camera -
something like 256x256 pixels, black and white, and very noisy. He
designs high resolution A/D converters here at Linear Technology, yet
when it comes to photography he thinks people are fixated by pixel
count and lens resolution, rather than the art of one's vision or
whether a picture communicates something. Otherwise he uses a Canon
AE-1 with vivitar zoom, or single use cameras with small apertures, or
a $10 Ricoh digital camera from the MIT flea market (with batteries
taped in). He works with the cameras limitations and derives great joy
from what he can do with it.

Sometimes people seem to need to believe that their system is the best.
All systems have there high and low points, and different engineering
trade-offs. If you can't focus your camera, you may get distracted and
loose the focus of your vision or timing. So, I fondle my camera at
times, I know the inner circuitry of an OM-4t and how it thinks, in the
end I hope the camera becomes transparent to my photography. Similarly,
Gary knows his lenses in his own intimate way. And I'm sure there is
some good analogy here to one's spouse ... :-)

Wayne





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