Re: Canon Rebel XT & Lexar CF cards, how bad is it really?

Today dwight commented courteously on the subject at hand

> I'm a dinosaur. My "baby" has a 5-speed stick, does have an
> AM/FM Cassette (although I only listen to sports talk and
> the news). "Stereo" means putting the windows down and
> listening to the dual exhaust. Oh, and 12mpg, when sitting
> in rush hour traffic. Have you read about the Nissan Urge?

Guess you don't know me, dwight. <grin> I don't take kindly to
rice burners.

> I was bitten by the shutterbug decades ago, when my wife
> took a filler course in black and white photography. She
> picked up an old Pentax K1000 - THE barebones, fully manual
> film camera usually assigned to students of the day. I
> still have and love that camera. A few years back, I picked
> up the Pentax ZX-M as a replacement, wanting the same sort
> of manual control - although I was happy to see that it
> could also be set to an "automatic" mode.
>
> I'd be overly optimistic if I said that I was happy with
> 20% of the photos I took with that camera. Spent a lot of
> money over the years having a lot of film processed, and
> there are today 10 photos enlarged and framed on my walls.

Inmy Nikon FTN days, I was satisfied with Ivory Soap Pure
percentages, from a technical standpoint. However, I never did
learn how to be a artistically creative photographer, so all
the 35mm slides I took in Europe 197x while in the Army are
basically crap from a composure standpoint.

> With the rise of digital, I looked for a fully-manual
> camera that would somehow help me with my film photography.
> The S1 fits the bill, and the equivalent 380mm zoom was an
> obvious plus. But it's the IS that really hooked me. The
> other bells and whistles aside, IS is one of those
> technological advances that really counts for something
> with me. Not just the ability to shoot in less light, but
> more the greater chance that a shot (especially at the far
> end of the zoom) will turn out well.
>
> The next, obvious step in the evolution was a DSLR. And
> given the choice between a 300mm lens without IS and one
> WITH, it's a no-brainer. Some technology is all plus, and
> not a "bell" or "whistle".
>
> Now, that's not to say that we can never go back! After
> all, I'll still be taking shots (or trying to) with my old
> K1000... but I'll be using a tripod as my IS.
>
Good observations. My primary focus today is car photography,
where I am a "documentary" photographer where I am interested
in making the subject look as much like the eye sees it as
possible in the digital image. So, for example, I avoid wide-
angle, low point-of-view shots because the perspective
"distortion" ruins the look I'm trying to achieve. So, while I
understand the need for IS, and it might actually help me with
available light shots in museums when I can't get decent flash
pics, I won't be buying anything longer than a 200mm
equivalent for my Canon Rebel XT, and I hope to be able to
control the inevitible shake with watching the shutter speed
carefully.

The real "point" to the post you're replying to is two-fold:
first, we have progressed a long, long way in the last 40
years making technology work for us in everything we buy and
use. That is obviously good. But, people today, including me,
tend to have overconfidence in what technology can do for them
that takes the place of old-fashioned skill.

One more car analogy. My 2006 Dodge Charger HEMI R/T has
Electronic Stability Control, but as the owner's manual
correctly says, and I quote "always drive carefully, as ESP
cannot repeal the laws of physics". Well said. IS is a very
valuable tool but cannot overcome poor technique.

Now, a computer analogy from the old days: computers just make
mistakes faster. And, what's in our cameras today,
particularly the expensive "pro" jobs, but also even in the P
& S kind - very sophisticated computers.

--
ATM, aka Jerry

"My enemy's enemy is my friend, and my enemy's friend is my
enemy" - Middle East Maxim
.

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