tinwhistle

Why not? I like "stuff" and photography stuff in particular. As long as my spending habits harm no one I'll keep acquiring stuff.....

PeterBergh

Only if you learn from your experiences. Unfortunately, I have encountered a number of people who, after 20 years, have one year of experience repeated 20 times.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Well, that's better than one year of feigned experience and nineteen years of denial.

PeterBergh

Far better! But 20 years of experience is best of all.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

I’ve had bosses like that in my working life. If it works, s/he’s a genius. If it doesn’t, it’s all your fault.

Success has a thousand parents, but failure is an orphan.

Andy

blackest Loc: Ireland

I have gone through several cameras over the years.
With the K1000 i wanted a digital back, which led to the K200D which was practically limited to iso 800 and didn't do video which led to the k5 which is a great aps-c camera but with most of my lenses being full frame the K1 was the optimal full frame camera for me.

I don't see any reason to change now. I haven't reached the standard that these cameras are capable off. E.g https://www.juzaphoto.com/galleria.php?t=2827567&l=en

The only thing left to improve is me.

Bipod

The truth is that more photophers were making first-rate prints in 1930 than are
making them today. And some of those old prints are more valuable than any print
made in this century---by a factor of about 10,000. (An Edward Weston b&w nude
silver print sold in July at auction at Southeby's for $1.6 mn.)

There are different kinds of "improvements":
Artistic capabilieis: image quality of the final print, permanence of the final print,
control over the entire process (indendently of manufacturers, firmware, etc)
The Other kind: convenience, compactness, affordability, other features.

In the last 40 years, most of the improvements have been in the latter, not the former.

For example: zoom lenses are *much* better today than 40 years ago.
But they are still no better than the best FFLs of 40 years ago. And while the
average FFL has improved, the best FFLs from top makers have been equaled but not
surpassed. (Go price some old Leica lenses, or check out the sharpness of an old
Konica Hexanon lens.)

In sensor image quality, it's even worse. The resolution of the most expensive digital
camera you can buy can't touch the resolution of a 100-year old 8 x 10 view camera.
And the dynamic range of the most expensive (non-cryogenically cooled) digital sensor
you can buy is less than that of an $8 roll of Ilford FP4 Plus.

Bu, man, how much more those Edward Weston prints would be worth if they had
date stamps on them! And think what he could have done if his view camera had
a self-timer and an orientation sensor! :-)

These are not "improvements" that matter to fine art photographers. There have
been very few that do.

Consumers keep rebuying cameras and software because the industry wants them to.

As consumers, they have been conditioned to buy. The camera isn't just a camera, it's
a status symbol, proof of modernity, it puts you at "the heart of the image" (Nikon),
"delighting you always" (Canon), so you can "Make: beleive" (Sony). "You press the
button, we do the rest." (Kodak). And the result will of course be "A Kodak moment."

Got a problem, then buy a product! Consume, consume! The boy with the most dead
digital cameras wins!

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

"The truth is that more photographers were making first-rate prints in 1930 than are making them today".
That is a pretty incredible fact. Wow--who'd of thought?

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Well, it probably qualifies as an "alternative" fact. The evidence to support the claim would be interesting to see, but it does raise the question of how many of today's photographs are actually printed?

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Back then, making a print was the only way to show your photos. What percentage of prints were cheap snapshots and how many were fine art darkroom prints? Today the snapshot shooters can view and share photos on the internet, so prints aren't necessary. But fine art photographers still make prints.

BebuLamar

I do not have any data so I don't know but since back in the old days you can not see your images unless it's printed (some can judge their images by looking at the negatives but I think they would print them too as least in the form of proof) but today you can see your images without printing. And so the images that got printed today I would say are among the best that today's photographers get. So I would get the percentage of good printed images must be higher than the old days.

Bipod

You said it.

Am I the only one who has noticed the number of photography galleries that have closed on the West Coast over the last 30 years?
Or that old photos now outnumber new ones in the high-end market?

What photographer alive today commands the prices for new photographers that say, Adams or the Weston(s) new photos commaned
towards the end of their lives? Or Strand, Steiglitz, White, etc.

Anybody here sell one of their prints for $1.6 mn? C'mon, don't be bashful!

It's natural to see the prices of a photographer's or artist's work increase after his death. But when the prices are this astronomical,
it means that equivalent work is now scarce as well. Just like it's difficult to find an artist today who works in true fresco or can
cast bronzes like the Shang Dynasty China did (it's a lost art).

So what changed?
* There is no proof that inkjet and laser prints are permanent. (But those sulfide-toned Civil War photos look as good as the day they were made!)
* There is no such thing as an "original print" anymore. It's more like a signed lithograph.
* Cameras have gone to subminature format and sub-subminuature format.
* We went from B&W (a medium that favors form and tone) to color (a medium that favors flowers and butterflies)
* None of us will ever understand our digital camera as well as Ansel Adams understood his cameras.
* Where as before we could develop our own prints, now we are dependent on computer printers
* Planned obsolescence forces us to throw away our cameras, lenses and printers every few years. (None of us is likely to use a
single camera as long as Edward Weston or Ansel Adams used their view cameras.
* Photography is now dominated by low-res images posted on-line and viewed on uncalibrated monitors.
* A "fix it in Photo Slop" mentality prevails, and is encouraged by the industry. (Remember when we
used to talk about visualization?)

If any of this is untrue, I'd like to know. But if people just don't like the inevitable conclusion---that
photography is getting worse not better--sorry, but life is like that. Things don't always get better and better,
despite what technology-boosters claim. But technology is almost a religion, so you'll never convince a
technologist that newer isn't always better.

But when your brand new high-tech automobile containing dozens of microprocessors and 100 million lines of firmware
gets to be about 10 years old, you may feel very differently about it. :-) Where you gonna get replacement
parts when all those proprietary computers go out of production? If you don't beleive me, maybe you'll believe the IEEE:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/systems/this-car-runs-on-code

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" -- John Lydon

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Check out Lisa Kristine or Annie Leibovitz. Their work is doing quite well, and they are still breathing.

Oh, and I work in the tech industry, and that's not the point here, it's about photography and original artwork, limited editions, and so on.

BebuLamar

Compare prices of work from Weston and Adams to contemporary artists is not fair. You have to wait until those contemporary artists passed away.

Bipod

I agree: they are good photographers. But Lisa Kristine is a social documenatarian and Annie Leibovitz
is a celebrity portraitist. They work primarily for publication. Originals are a sideline. But there
are still a few photographers who aim primarily at collectible prints, even landscapes---Beth Moon and
Bruce Barnbaum come to mind.

If you collected prints, you might have a different perspective. Say someone is offering you a Leibovitz
original for sale. How do you know it's authentic? How do you know it will last and not fade or fall apart?

In digital photography, "limited edition" no longer means much. It used to be that a photographer could destroy
the negative, and then it was *impossible* for anyone to make a new print. Negatives were *impossible* to copy
without loss of quality. Many photographers chose to destroy all their negatives before their deaths, to insure
no one would debase the value of their original prints.

But today, image files are easy to copy--even without someone's knowledge--or to (gulp!) post on-line.
And anyone with a copy of the image file can push a button and the printer will spew identical "originals"
until it runs out of paper or ink. Unfortuantely, it is not too difficult to fake signatures on photos--at least,
well enough to fool an ordinary buyer. All "float" on top of the surface (usually in pencil). (In a painting the
signature should be integral to the surface.)

If Annie Liebovitz were to die suddenly (heaven forbid!) her PC would likely go to a thrift store -- complete
with all her image files. Anyone who buys it for $10 and owns a printer could go into the business of forging
Annie Leibovitz "original" prints. Probably someone is already scanning them and forging them.

That won't work with an Adams print. Very high (e.g., large format film) resolution is great protection against
being scanned and forged. The resolution of the print exceeds that of any digital printing technology. A fake
will be as easy to spot as a lithograph.

Even if I somehow obtained an Ansel Adams negative from his foundation I would still need his printing
instructions, the right paper and devopers, a good enlarger, and a lot of skill to make a print from it that
could be mistaken for the real thing. And they'd get caught--beaues he numer of people who still have
darkrooms is pretty small. Someone would figure out who was doing it, and man, would their name be mud!

And some traditional photographic media were impossible to copy: e.g., the Daguerreotype. The original
Daguerreotype process is also the highest resolution photographic process known. The silver is molecular,
not crystals. That's where technology was, 179 years ago: expensive, impractical, inconvenient, fragile,
dangerous--and superb.

For digital photographers, it's extremely difficult to produce a collectable print: one that not fuzzy or pixellated,
permanent, and resistant to forgery. Look at the lengths San Francisco photographer Beth Moon has to go to:
she prints to transparency than conact prints on hand-made platinum paper that she makes herself. The look
of platinum paper has become a big part of her art:
https://worldofwoodblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/doorofperception-com-beth_moon-ancient_trees-2.jpg

It should not be that difficult, and it didn't used to be. But consumer products serve the consumer market,
not the fine art market. And technologists are more likely to read *Wired* magazine than *Art News*.
And they are more likely to know about digital electronics than about optics.

Photography is profoundly optical -- but digital only if one wants it to be. This should be a conscious choice
by the individual--based on his or her artistic direction -- not something dicated by the industry or the consumer
camera market.