More than a few photographers who make a living at this use, for instance M series Leicas (Salgado, for one, although he also uses R series slr's, and they ain't small).
Last summer, I was shooting some frames at Toronto's Gay Pride Parade (always a good spectacle), and I noticed a fellow with a truly beat up looking M3. It had been painted olive drab (didn't look like a factory job), and had so much brassing that there seemed to be more brass than paint.
He told me it had actually been through many war zones, but that it was a great street camera, due in part to it's shabby looks. He assured me it still worked like a charm. Hmmmm. A forty year old camera that's been to war, and still works. I'd say that is the very definition of reliability, despite it's small size <g>.
For some styles of photography, big is a downright disadvantage. I know on the street, more people look at my camera when it's the LX, a Spotmatic or even the MX when I have the Winder MX on it. I get very few noticing me when I have the Leica CL slung over my shoulder.
Anyway, my main point is that not all pros are PJ's (not that you said they were - I'm just expanding the convo a bit), and that some of those other pros have vastly different needs from their cameras.
regards, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: big is beautiful Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 00:12:18 -0600 (CST)
>From: graywolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Small black cameras do not have the psychological impact with >photographers's >customers that big black cameras do. To a very large percent of the >population's >minds "big black camera" and "pro" are synonymous.
I agree that carrying a big black camera and a big black bag tends to get respect. I normally take the camera out of the bag and drape it around my neck when I'm going to sporting events just to make it clear to the guys at the gate why I'm not handing them a ticket. I find that I get a lot less hassle that way.
>You better believe that Nikon and Canon know this, and it is why their >top end >cameras are 1/2 again as large as they need to be.
No. Nikon has been trying damn hard to make their pro cameras smaller, probably a result of getting an earful over the size of the F4 which many small-handed photogs disliked and even I will admit was HEAVY. A lot of the extra size is for the extra batteries which are needed to drive the things at warp speed, plus the actual warp motors which are not small. Back in the old days, most of the warp drives were external (just like on the Enterprise) and the Nikon F2 and F3 were not much bigger than the Spotmatics or K-series except the full-frame, high eyepoint viewfinders. The top end Nikon and Canon cameras are bigger because they are tougher and more capable than anything else out there, and you just can't shrink that but so much.
>So as a pro camera, yes the small size is a fault. As a user's camera, no >it is >not, in fact it is a major benefit.
It's not so much that the public doesn't trust pros with small cameras, but that pros don't themselves trust small cameras. Something that small can't be tough enough and capable enough, they think. I remember one member of the white house press corps describing the Nikon 8008, which was the second best camera in the Nikon line at the time, as "a lightweight". My own experience tends to confirm the relatively lower durability of small cameras.
DJE
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