This week I helped an old friend (damn, if we're old friends I'm getting old) pick out a new camera. I was proud of the fact that he wasn't caught up in the hype of bigger is better. He just wanted a good camera that matched his needs and felt good in his hands.

Given a conversation about size we had, I knew that a micro 4/3rds camera may be a better fit for him than a full size DSLR. So, we looked at a variety of cameras at Hunt's. In the end the Panasonix Lumix G2(K?) beat out the Nikon 3100 (his friend has an older nikon so he was familiar with it) - it was just a bit smaller and more comfortable.

The stuff that doesn't really matter:

BUT, the Nikon was 14MP! The Panasonic only 12MP. So what does that mean? Well, it has to do with the number of dots that are used to make up the image you capture. 12 million dots or 14 million dots. There is a lot of science that goes into this stuff; but for sake of simplicity just remember that more doesn't mean better. Cramming millions of photosites onto a chip means that each site captures less light as you cram in more. So, the amount of light (signal) to noise goes down. Basically it means more pixels is often a trade off with the noisiness of the photo.

But, don't compare a 6MP camera from 2004 to a 12MP camera from 2011 and feel like less is more either. Every year a number of evolutionary steps happen. At the end of the day 12MP is plenty for most people. If you don't print larger than 8x10 it generally doesn't matter which consumer DSLR you're using.

The stuff that does really matter:

How does the camera feel? Do you understand the menus? Is it easy to review the photos? Can you focus accurately? How does it feel again?

It doesn't really matter how amazing your camera is if you don't feel like taking it with you. That is the downfall of most DSLRs. They aren't point and shoots. And point and shoots aren't DSLRs. A group of manufactorers stepped in with a middle of the road solution called micro-4/3rds.

But, get what feels right for you. I have bought the "lesser" camera (read: less megapixels) because it fit in my hand better (I ended up choosing my first Canon). It only matters how much you like your camera ~ and will you use it.

From the Wednesday night get together:

At this week's chili fest / photo salon / photographers hanging out using a giant projector and talking smack; we discussed many topics ranging from the nature of abercrombie and fitch men's ads (homoerotic, selling to woman, or something else? Herb Ritts with a touch of Jock Sturges?) to the artistic merit of being a dirty old man with a camera photographing local bondage models. But, that was the just the subtext in a bigger discussion of photography as an unfiltered truth and the push-pull between artistic merit and commercial drive.

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The discussion revolved around a few questions: how much you can change a photo and use it for news. This was a discussion of the world press photo wins and disqualifications (hipstamatic win - russian street fighting lose). What does it mean that hipstamatic wins? Is it any different from in camera processing or shooting with a holga? What is wrong with post processing?

When you can take a photo of a screen and it wins a photo prize (the photo of google street view) it raises the bigger question of adopting other peoples work and filtering it through a personal mechanism and calling it art. Is personal gesture enough to claim the ownership of the work? If it isn't being sold does it matter? Why does the entrance of commerce change the conversation?

This lead to a discussion of fashion photography and the use of the male image in abercrombie and fitch ads. This was contrasted to J Crew and American Apparel as well as the Snap-shot photo aesthetic. It also led to a discussion of the work of Erwin Olaf.

The snap shot photo aesthetic is so dominant (Terry Richardson, Miko Lim, etc). Why hire Miko Lim vs. a guy off the street with a point and shoot? What is the decision making process in choosing one photographer over another? How much value is in the personality and on-set presence of the photog.

This shifted over to a discussion of local amateur photographers and their own marketing presentation (thus the local bondage photographer reference).

I describe without going into the opinions. It's not about right or wrong. You kinda had to be there. Thus is the nature of the salon.

We'll see what next week brings.

THE LINKS:

http://gizmodo.com/#!5758350/why-a-war-photographer-shot-an-award+winning-photo-with-a-2-iphone-app

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2025845/world-press-photo-google-street-view-photojournalism

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8470962.stm

http://www.petapixel.com/2010/03/03/world-press-photo-disqualifies-winner/

http://www.radaronline.com/photos/image/112710/2011/02/photos-david-lachapelle-vs-rihanna

http://e3.g4tv.com/videos/43257/Behind-the-Scenes-of-Olivias-Maxim-Shoot-/

OFF TOPIC
http://tjohnstonphoto.com/People/index.html

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2011/02/care-time-vision-beat-budget-every-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChaseJarvis+%28Chase+Jarvis+Blog%29

IMAGES:
Screenshots from Gizmodo (Damon Winter/NYT], GOOGLE, G4 TV; used in context of fair use. True to the ethics discussed I have screen shot my computer to provide these images.

It's so long since I've written a blog, I'm unsure where to start. I had this theory that I wasn't writing because I'm a slow typer or something to that effect. So I'm trying out this new dictation software; we'll see how it goes.

Do you remember Star Trek four? I feel like Scotty right now.

January passed by so quickly, Amie and I didn't have a chance to really discuss our plans for this year in depth. Every year seems to bring new challenges as well as new opportunities. Although my focus has long been on commercial and editorial style photography, this is going to be a big year in terms of our wedding photography as well.

Work aside, we are always looking to expand our horizons. And I must admit to being an absentee blogger owner. So, I'm going to start posting more tidbits that I come across which I think are interesting in one form or another. Also, I may start introducing some of the artistic discussion that we've started having as part of an internal salon series that we have going informally.

So, I guess someone to leave you with this little video from vimeo. It's not a massive production it's a rather crafty use of fairly inexpensive technology and I think it's interesting for that reason. Shot with a Canon 7D:

Lovely Bloodflow from BATHS on Vimeo.