gessman Loc: Colorado

I'm happy to see you. I've been feeling like a one-man army that's done been bucked off his steed over here. I don't understand anyone who disses anything they have no interest in. Hell, this is Amerika, "land of the free and home of the brave" where you're s'pose to spend your money and consume like crazy so other people can feed their kids too. Your gear list looks like you understand real well what it's all about and would be an excellent candidate to give it a shot and report some authentic information back to balance out all the "head in the sand" stuff that's going on in this thread. I'll look forward...

R.G. Loc: Scotland

I can appreciate that the remote control features would be very useful to yourself and others. The possible down side that I am wary of is that people who still have most of the learning curve in front of them might get into the habit of letting the AI do their thinking for them. It would be a sure-fire way to bring their learning process to a halt, and not just where the technicalities are concerned. They wouldn't be learning how to visualise the desired outcome because they would be accepting whatever the AI offered them. Photography would become a mere exercise in going through the motions mechanically.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Aye, R.G., there are a lot of concerns to consider, but the disappearance of everything that ultimately disappears from our world appears to be inevitable and it is up to each individual to determine his/her own role in our eventual destiny. Much of what disappears is deemed to be a shame by somebody, somewhere, but change being seemingly inevitable, it is apparently difficult, at best, to stem the tide of change and each person gets to decide their role in the evolutionary process. Some stick their finger in the dyke. Some take to the streets in protest, some form preservation groups, some build museums, while some engage in retro-preservation resurrection groups, and yet still, we evolve.

I am not a selfish person and I do have an interest in preservation of important historical issues but I have little ambition to sacrifice myself to hold back the tide or to turn the herd, but I do have faith that we have some amongst us who will persevere through all obstacles to preserve what deserves to be preserved at all cost especially if it's important to them. I think it's considerably more important to have faith in my fellow man that he will perceive the appropriate amount of ambition to do what's good for himself and those around him than to make efforts to manipulate him into doing what I think is good for him or some institution in which I happen to have an interest.

P.S. We "yanks" get off our butt and go after what we want, mostly in a nice way, and that's historically notable.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Your faith would be commendable if we weren't so susceptible to the seductive idea of letting something like AI make things easier for us. Consider how many of us are happy to sit back and let the TV do our thinking for us. Now we're in danger of letting AI do our thinking for us. In the case of photography we risk having AI deprive beginners of essential learning processes. The resulting loss won't be traumatic or dramatic, rather it'll be subtle and gradual, just like the losses that excessive TV viewing leads to.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Well, R.G., while I appreciate your concern, I really don't know what to say. Back in 1967 when it appeared my job would be threatened by computers and all around me were wringing their hands and sweating over their jobs but doing little else, at age 32 with a family of 3 boys, working 50-60 hours a week, and a working wife, I went back to school and got a degree in computer science during which time I also learned to use an all manual camera so I see another way that this might work out without stifling progress and controlling the masses so am not as concerned about it as you are.

Beyond that, I have some long standing exposure to artificial intelligence, even programming, which I won't go into, and it's my humble opinion that, if any, only a very small sliver of it has any potential to be incorporated into photography. I share your vision that it might someday be used to average out or dumb down the images of anyone who relied on it totally in the creation of their images.

Someone earlier mentioned that some Nikon cameras have a database onboard, reads a scene, compares it against the images in that database to derive settings for the current scene. The first time that appeared was in the early 1980s in the model FA and it boasted having 100k images in the database. I was early in line and still have mine. It wasn't half bad. You know, R.G., I would think that if we were under any threat of young learners failing to develop that the onslaught and deluge of automatic cameras would have already brought that about, don't you think? Instead, more cameras have been sold than ever before. It's hard to predict what people will do. Cheers!

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I'm all for equipment and improvements that make photography easier. When I found out about an iPhone application called expodev, I looked it over and purchased it immediately. It saves a lot of time calculating exposure and processing. I still eventually write the information in my notebook for future reference. What I'm not in favor of is some device that "thinks" for me and tells me what will make a good photograph and what won't. Additionally, I think it cheats someone doing photograph out of learning what they're doing. How would you feel about this situation? You hand your camera to your Assistant and walk along with him/her and let him/her take all your photos for you. Then you get home, download them, maybe process them, and post them showing what a great job you did. How would you feel about doing that? That is essentially what Arsenal is billed as being able to do.
--Bob

foxfirerodandgun Loc: Stony Creek, VA

For a serious armature, entry level professional, professional, photographer, or someone who is really serious about learning the compete aspects, I don't think there is really a viable market for the Arsenal. For a "toy" to play with for most it probably would be interesting to play with for kicks & giggles. Just my 2¢.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Well, I'm glad that you revealed that you're all for things that make photography easier that is not a Sci-Fi nightmare that assumes control of your camera 'cause while Arsenal can do that for people who don't know squat but it also has manual override for those who only want selective use of the many good features and says so right on page one of their website. https://witharsenal.com/

Rumor squelched, conversation over.

Oh wait... I don't think I can buy into your example involving another person because this thing isn't another person, it's totally under control of the photographer, doesn't have a will of its own, cannot function independently, there's no copyright entanglement as would occur in your example, and there's no misrepresentation or confusion about who shot what. Frankly, I suspect we'll see a lot of the features of Arsenal in cameras in the not too distant future. I'm going to enjoy mine and would hope that you would look into in depth. Like me, you're not getting any younger and it won't be long before you'll need all the help you can get. It doesn't say so on the website but I'll assure you that it doesn't affect your manhood to own one, like shooting in automatic.

EDIT: I should think that if auto cameras and the proliferation thereof hasn't discouraged intellectual growth among their owners, Arsenal isn't going to do so. Still, that's up to each individual and it isn't my role to protect the future of photography. Whatever's going to happen with the future of photography is going to happen without me worrying about it. I don't have any stats but I'd wager that many a pro began as an auto shooter.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Oh, I dunno. "Kicks and giggles," huh. You might be surprised.