>> don't say anybody else's camera's are not
>> capable of producing good pictures. Every
>> Nikon is, be it an F50 or F5 (there's only
>> one 0 difference there...)
> I think the main issue is productivity.
> Because of a given camera's handling, ease
> of use, automation accuracy, etc.
I agree, I *want* almost every camera and lens
that I see. My criterion for something is worth
having is: "Can I think of a picture I've missed
in the last 3 months that this thing would have
made possible". Yes? grab it. No? then why do
I want it?
It keeps me almost solvent.
I used to be the opposite. When I first started,
I was a manual exposure bigot -- I wanted nothing
to do with any of that "point-and-shoot amateur crap".
Then one day I tried to shoot a stock car race with
an FM, where in one direction I was shooting into the
sun and the track was shaded by the wall and the angle
of the track, and in the other the sun was to my back,
front-lighting the cars directly. You know, when
something happens on a short track, you have zero
time to fiddle with the camera, you shoot right now
or you missed it.
Ouch.
Based on my unenviable results from that day I
came to the conclusion that deciding what equipment
I wanted based on my self-image and then trying to
bend it to the task at hand was not terribly smart.
So, I got an FE2. It could get the exposure right
in about 1/1000th the time that I could with the FM.
I was the same way with autofocus. I didn't buy
an autofocus camera until last fall. I'd missed
some pictures of my nieces and nephews running
around that I thought AF would have nailed.
So, I got an F5.
Still, I remain a manual-everything bigot at heart,
and suppose I always will. When my F2S is enough to
do the job, I'll use it instead of my F5 every time.
*But* I'm no longer dumb enough to let that preference
cost me pictures when the F2 *isn't* enough.
-Don
