The Entry Level Shooter Part 2

Just who am I talking to, on this subject.

Well I suppose I am mostly talking to people sort of like ME: relatively experienced, relatively well informed, anxious-to-learn, enthusiastic photographers who occasionally earn money from their shoots who really CARE about the quality of the images that they produce. I am NOT talking to full time professionals who use their equipment for long periods every day. I am NOT talking to people making their first tentative steps into photography or who will occasionally use their cameras to shoot family barbecues, children's concerts and annual holidays.

Big, tough, fast, expensive cameras have their place. As I have said so often in the past, if you expect your gear to give reliable service during long, frequent, intensive periods of use, you had better purchase equipment designed to do that. Such gear costs a lot of money to buy or lease but if you are shooting commercially most days, you should have the available funds to justify the expense.

Small, convenient, pocketable cameras, designed to be used a dozen times a year under mostly ideal conditions, have their place as well. Why have a heavy, expensive, complicated, inconvenient camera? Most pocketable compact cameras give results well suited to their owners' expectations. Why use anything else?

Of course if compact camera users suddenly "get the bug", they start to become members of MY group and so I am talking to THEM as well. First off let me say to such people that ... well ... I am sorry about your illness (for that is what it is). Secondly let me say welcome to the wonderful world of SEEING anew and expressing what you see. Thirdly let me say that you are going to need a suitable tool - one which will give you the control and flexibility that you will need. Question is ... which one?

At the present state of the art, it seems certain that you will need either an SLR or one of those newly emerging SLR-like classes of camera, offering large sensors, responsive operation and interchangeable lenses. It ALSO seems certain that there is NO single brand of camera manufacturer that has all of the answers - no single brand that is unambiguously the best. Given a specified price point, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony and a good number of OTHER manufacturers are quite capable of supplying you with a tool which will enable you to see and capture perfectly sound image files.

To my mind, the REAL question is what that specified price point should BE - and at last we arrive at the focus of these articles. Manufacturers and retailers WANT us to spend as much as possible. Like the automobile industry, higher spec (and higher PRICE) models of camera equipment always carry the highest potential profit margins. There's much more money to be made from making and selling (say) ten $5000 cameras than (say) a hundred $500 cameras. The trick is to make us enthusiasts believe that we are missing out on fundamental capabilities by NOT purchasing the high spec gear ... and make no mistake - the industry's marketing psychologists works very hard to do just that.

Strategy one. Refer to "Entry Level" equipment. "What? I am not ENTRY LEVEL I am an experienced photographer. I can't be seen using ENTRY LEVEL equipment. People will think I am some kind of beginner. My reputation will be ruined. I shall have to buy more expensive equipment"

Strategy two. Refer to "Semi professional" or "Professional" equipment. "Yeah. I am an experienced photographer. Obviously unless I have the best equipment, my soaring talent will be constrained. I simply have to HAVE professional equipment.

And so it goes on.

I have always been a follower of certain web-based photographic forums. Each week you see the same questions being asked and the same newly consecrated gurus drawing upon their MONTHS of experience to provide the same misinformation.

Question: "I am new to serious photography. Should I buy the el cheapo model SLR or one of the more expensive models"

Answer: "You'll soon outgrow the cheaper model. If you want serious images you'll need to pay the serious money"

I have long since stopped buying into this sort of discussion. I think I must be some sort of secret masochist. I keep being drawn to read these threads. I can find no sensible reason for it. The point I am making is this. Not only does the industry work hard to UPSELL us enthusiasts. For a variety of extraneous reasons, photography enthusiast PEERS work hard at it too. I fully understand why so many people finish up paying too much for their gear, buy gear that often doesn't suit them, buy gear that causes their interest to wane, pay too much to replace it four or five years later and KEEP doing so ad infinitum. CRAAAAAAZY!

Okay. Statement time. I know some people are NOT going to like this. Some people are going to be resentful. Some people are going to call me names. But any thoughtful research, any purposeful examination of the facts and any worthwhile dollop of actual experience may enable the reader to arrive at these same conclusions.

Attention folks. Draw near. Here is the statement. Next time I shall give you my reasons for making it and try to explain why so many people will take issue with it. Ahem.

Most enthusiast photographers would be better off buying "entry level" equipment. I, and most people like me are really "entry level" equipment users, whether we like the sound of it or not.

After 45 years of photography - film and digital - I confess that I am really "an entry level shooter" ... and so (I suspect) are YOU.