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Nivedan shares his view on when and why, a photographer can upgrade his/her gadgets.
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“Last year I bought a camera. I ditched it this year for the sake of a new model”. This is a typical statement that one can expect from a young urban photography enthusiast. But there may be a lot of reasons behind it. A probable few are “I have money, the trend says it’s old. So I am buying a new, trendy, sleek, flashy, fully loaded, state of the art, top of the range-megapixel camera”; “I am fed up with that one as it is too familiar”. But these ideas are simply utilitarian and reflect the devaluation of photography as a whole. What is the necessity to change the camera, when the previous camera is just fine? Is it totally useless?
Any camera in this world is useful, even if it is jammed! Yes, as I always stress, photography is in the brain and not in the camera. My friend had a jammed Minolta XD5 of the 70’s. He had kept it as it had problems with the focal plane shutter, film winding lever and of course the most common problem, the fungus inside on the lens elements. He had brought with the hope that he may be able to use it. But he didn’t even know how to open the film compartment. He threw it on the attic and looked out for a new digital camera.
I had constantly been saying to him to repair it. It is a classic and will certainly be one of the best tools to learn photography. He was not ready to do that as he wanted to be with the trend. But the camera was really useful to me in practicing composition, manual focusing and of course, handling an SLR. SLRs’ focusing screens are totally different from that of the digital camera that shows bright images on the big LCDs. SLRs and DSLRs don’t have the liveview (though the newly introduced ones do have. But they come with price). One has to look through the viewfinder, which is not as bright or large as the LCDs. Secondly, it is difficult to focus manually. So practice helped to prepare myself for the next upgrade.
I had to practice composition, exposure and other technical aspects of photography with my compact camera rigorously to gain perfection. In the first 5 months I took 3000 pictures (I bought the camera in February 2007). But now I have taken around 8500 photos overall. The numbers reduced gradually. It does not mean that I have lost interest in photography. It is an indicator of acquiring perfection. During the first 5 months I used to take pictures whenever I felt like, with different parameters like white balance, ISO, exposure and composition. There was a constant experimentation. But later I learnt to compose the frame in mind, guess the right parameters and more importantly to choose the right moment to capture. These days I do not take more than two pictures of the same thing. I find it the right time to upgrade my camera.
So what are the reasons to upgrade my camera? Is it that I being an ‘expert’ can change cameras as I wish? The answer is no one in this world is an expert as there are more than a thousand ways to capture a moment. So there is not one way called ‘expert’s way’, everyone is experimenting and no one can claim that he/she is ‘the best’ or ‘expert’; everyone is a student in photography in reality, if not in claims or the labels. I am also a learner, and I don’t upgrade for the sake of the trend or being fed up with my camera. When I reach the saturation point in using my camera, i.e. when I reach the point when I become capable of creating something more than what my camera can capture, I will upgrade my camera.
For example, the dynamic range of my camera is lesser than that of a SLR and details are washed off when I click against a bright light source. Reducing the aperture does not help as the minimum aperture is f/7.6 in which the image is unusable due to the chromatic aberration. I am not able to capture fast moving objects because of the focusing speed of my camera and also the focusing ability. So there is a clear gap between what I want to do and what the camera is capable of. So at this point of time I will go for a DSLR.
But I would do a detailed research of the gadgets available. Only as per my needs I will choose my next camera. More importantly, I won’t ditch my compact camera, as it also serves my purpose even now. For example, if I am doing candid photography in place where child labour is practiced, the owner of the place is certainly not gonna like it. Usually in such situations either the camera is seized or destroyed. It happened in a construction site, where the HR manager tried to erase whatever footages we had shot for the documentary on the construction workers in Pune. It happens in protests and agitations also. So in such situations, using a compact camera won’t draw much of attention. Even if it is seized or broken it does not take a heavy toll on my wallet. So, compact cameras also play an equally important role in development photography.
So when it comes to upgrading the gadget one has to think of what he/she has achieved with the current equipment, what he/she can still do with the current equipment, what the limitations of the current equipment are, what the budget for the next camera is, whether the next gadget would satisfy his/her needs, etc. Finally, before getting a new camera, I would advice to do some research on what one can get.
Useful Link:
Check out http://www.dpreview.com/ for detailed reviews and latest releases. It is a bit too technical and the reviewers go into too much of details that may not be necessary for beginners. But it is quite informative.
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About the Author: Nivedan is an intern at National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS), Pune. With self-nurtured knowledge of photography, he experiments with photography and other forms like posters so as to use them as tools for sensitization, advocacy and social transformation.
Contact Nivedan at nivedanmangalesh@yahoo.com
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