On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Don Guthrie <[email protected]> wrote: > This is an excellent portrait, obviously well thought out and posed, > I saw your name linked to the Ricoh on another photo blog but can't > remember where. Is it the portability you like or is it the modular > system? You take a lot of good pictures so I can't believe the quality > has anything to do with cameras.
Thanks for the compliment, Don! A quality camera is important to making good pictures, but it does present the smallest part of it, I agree. I wrote a little meditation on the Ricoh earlier today ... :: This was the state I'd reached in my film camera days at end: a Nikon kit of two bodies, five or so lenses for maximum versatility. A Leica kit of two bodies and three lenses for when silent operation and an optical viewfinder had advantage. A Rollei 35S for when compactness and handiness were paramount. All three the same format, all three capable of producing the same level of quality results. Medium format cameras for a higher standard - subminiature for a more limited yet unique imaging standard. The imaging qualities were defined by the format and the recording medium primarily. Then digital happened. My perception after years of work: the imaging qualities are defined mostly by the rendering process and to a lesser extent by format. Pixel resolution, once past a useful plateau (for me, around 6 Mpixel because of the size print I prefer), diminishes in importance to dynamic range and sensitivity, these qualities constrained by the technology of the photosite receptor and its size to first order. The frustration has been to find cameras that suit as well as what I once had in film cameras with this new playing field in recording technology and rendering capability. Compacts with their very small sensors and limited DR, very deep DOF, and inescapable lack of sensitivity have not been able to replace the Rollei 35 or subminiatures. Versatile, high quality RFs have become pigeonholed at stratospheric pricing into a very niche prouct: much as I'd like one, a Leica M9 is too limited for the $20,000 I'd need to spend to obtain the body and three lens kit I once had. MF digitals have been out of the question for similar cost reasons. DSLRs have followed on from the 35mm Film base the most successfully and finally approach the quality/cost domain I once had but with the same issues of SLR size, weight, operating noise, etc, which is why I used to have the RFs and compacts alongside. Now with mature DSLR systems and compact/intermediate cameras like the GXR (and with the GXR's variable sensor size design tailoring the sensor/lens combination to achieve a usefully compact and still handy form factor), it seems I can finally get the tools I've been looking for back again with only two systems to manage, not four. This means that I can finally get past the equipment hunt and back into the Photography hunt again. The tools are now versatile enough, their output quality good enough, that further development represents just optional plus rather than desperately needed capability. I can put their development into the background of my thoughts and put the subject back where it belongs into the spotlight. :: The GXR was interesting as it fit the small form factor/quality sensor idea I was looking for while offering more lens versatility than the fixed lens offerings in the class (Fuji X100, Leica X1, Sigma DP1/DP2) while not so much as the Micro-FourThirds offerings. Ricoh's always been a quirky company producing excellent cameras with their own twist ... the GXR is no exception. Having been through the Panasonic G1 and deciding I wasn't really thrilled with the direction Panasonic was going with their follow on cameras (the GF1 and GF2 don't fit my hands well), I was thinking of the Olympus Pen E-PL2 when someone mentioned this camera. The more I read about it, the more intrigued I became. I bought one if for no other reason to try it out and evaluate it ... I find it is a truly excellent performer and does a good job of getting out of the way. And on we go from there. -- Godfrey ..."Equipment often gets in the way of Photography."... -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
