The weather was terrible here and it was really dark.
I was kinda scared of wild boar.
Why the camera industry may die very soon and it may be inevitable 2:
After the COVID-19 break, I really decided to make my camera kit simpler just like I sold all my golf clubs in my garage last year.
I think I will spend more money on home Gym equipment such as serious Leg Curl machine , better squat rack,etc. I also bought a good Leg Press machine from a local gym that went under due to the COVID-19 economic crisis.
I also bought a new house with 7 bed rooms for my shoes as my second room and my third rooms were completely occupied with my shoes, there was not space for me in my room. So I needed to buy a second house.
I also renewed my phone, a couple of lenses , but sold most of my cameras.......now I only have just a couple of simple A7R2 cameras , nothing else. I have sold my A7R3, R4 , A9MK2 and A6400. I also sold a few lenses.....that I never used in the last 6 months or so. I realized that regardless of quality I never use any of my 135mm primes and 70-200mm zooms, so I sold them. For me the size and weight issue of the 70-200mm zooms make them a serious burden.
And I know many other people actually think like me.
All expensive cameras are useless, or at least not as important as health related things.
Honestly the COVID pandemic really wake many of us up, many of us realize that no hyped new cameras live up to the crazy hype......the hype works only in those super irrational camera obsessed super narrow minded online camera forums. Even many of real working pros I meet in real life never interested in those overpriced overhyped new cameras as they all know these cameras never improve their images or make their work easier.
All new cameras are practically identical in use, no big difference really. The sensor tech is similar except the Alpha One.
All the under 5000 US cameras have a similar set of features to the 5 years old A7R3. When I realized this I stopped upgrading my camera. And use all my camera money for lenses or compact cameras like Ricoh GR or One inch sensor cameras or Drones.
And I also realized that all interchangeable lens cameras are huge to most of normal people. And these cameras really make people in a city area freak out, paranoid and agitated or extremely annoyed.
Now so called street photography or candid work is becoming more and more difficult to do especially with a big or interchangeable lens camera system.
It is really risky to shoot any one you do not know personally, or even include their image or back of their image in your photo. Shooting people especially women gives them a good chance to sue you....
Still, as you see on this site or any photography related sites, there are many people interested in street or people photography, so I think the camera companies may want to reconsider their crazy FF focused marketing strategy to make something really works( a small inconspicuous camera) great for that specific kind of photography.
Most people do not want a huge bulky and extremely overpriced FF system. That is only attractive to those of us who are really obsessed with image quality even the extra weight of a good tripod we must carry all the time and the extra time we have to spend on photoshopping.
The FF makes shooting in a crowded area really difficult , even the minimum system size is huge , even a tiny lens for that system is huge for most of normal people.
A lens like 35mm f1.4 GM might still be fine , but anything bigger than that really scares people away or make people around it really uneasy or nervous. These big lenses on a 35mm camera may even invite unwanted cops.
And in a crowded area or in a dark mountain like this FF can be a bad system.
A few years ago we all mocked phones , phone cameras, but now even I think phones can be a great camera in some certain situations like this scene. In some type of street snaps the phones work great. I even say for weather documentary it works better than FF , when I can not use a tripod and require a relatively deep DoF, the phone and the One sensor cameras are the better or best cameras.
The phones can shoot decent video without any help of a solid tripod or stabilizer.....we do not even need Gimbal stabilizer.
And still the camera companies and those gear head forum denizens all hate and mock the phone cameras.
I think these kind of unrealistic thoughts and fanatic focused marketing really hurting the industry. They should never listened to guys like Kevin Raber or Thom Hogan.
There are many people who want to try an ILC system but still hesitating to dive into the ILC world.
And the main reason why they do not want buy deeply into any of the current so called great FF ILC systems is the obnoxiously huge size of these systems.
Of course the extremely high crazy price of the decent camera system is another huge issue for those young curious students. As they are young they do not have much money or free time.
Now the latest and greatest phones normally cost about 1200 USD or less, the cheapest FF camera costs around 1800 USD and you still need at least a couple of lenses to enjoy the camera. If you really want to optimize it then you'll also need a tripod, a RAW converter , a speedlite ,etc....and you may end up spending over 4k US or more.
And these expensive FF cameras can only do photography and video.....and for many of normal people cameras are not a must have item.
Phones, on the other hand , are already a must have item for most of us. And many of us need two or three.
Considering these facts very carefully , they even those most obtuse Japanese camera companies leading the camera industry should be able to understand their really boring dated low -tech cameras are hyper overpriced and therefore most of us have decided to skip a couple of iterations to upgrade our cameras. It is no longer worth the money, I really could not realize this until the first week of the Pandemic last year, but now fully aware of this and no longer upgrading my cameras, or even remotely interested in system swapping.
Those times were long gone. We most of rational camera users already know whatever gimmicks they thrown in and the forums call every one of these a game changer but it will never change the way we do any serious camera work.
We will still need PS, DxO or something like that, still need serious video editor and a tripod. And many times we also need a couple of or more flashes.
And for many of young people editing their images 5 hours a week is not realistic , they are very busy and they do not like photoshopping many hours....it is boring to them.
In last year or so, I realized that it is the biggest hinder for them to continue this ILC game...
I introduced ILC to many students who were actually really curious about photography or video work, but all of them or most of them just got totally bored and called it quits after they realized that they would have to buy many lenses , many flashes , many tripods and also have to subscribe to Adobe crap.......
They said they would not have the money and time for Adobe shit. I understand when I was young I had neither the time nor the money for Adobe PS CS myself.
Then I asked some of them if you do not need PS or many many lenses would you like to continue this or still call it quits?
They said they would try it and probably continue to learn it if they do not have to use or pay lots of money to Adobe.
I think it is reasonable. I think every camera should have PS built in and every single camera purchase includes the Adobe license. If they seriously want to sell their cameras they must pay it for us.
And these cameras should have some sort of serious DR enhancer in camera , not the primitive shadow lifter these camera maker use but more complex computational ones like Google uses.
Imagine if any of these One sensored cameras had serious DR enhancer and advanced noise reduction in camera I think they would be able to match the current level of FF or even surpass it(in terms of printed or on screen IQ) and it will sell a lot better than the monstrously huge current FF camera system. And some of people buy these One sensor with computational in-camera IQ enhancer will upgrade to FF version of that anyway.
But the current camera industry just force us to go bigger bigger bigger and more and more expensive every year.
They do not listen to any one but those FM kinda camera fanatic forums. They should realize that most of people are now living on a tight budget , and they have much less really free disposable money for cameras or lenses.
That is why the X100V and the One sensor cameras are selling well. Again, imagine if these had multi sensors and sophisticated in-camera image enhancer, what would they be able to do ?
These will be great and sell better than the huge over 3k FF system.
I think their current excessive FF focus is killing the camera market. They may lose some money initially if they sell a serious One sensor computational camera system, but in the end they will make much more money as many new people will start learning camera seriously with it and many of these will upgrade to one of the current serious FF systems.
So they must go more computational route and gradually add phone cameras like advanced computational image quality enhancing techs into the new gen FF cameras and of course in the One sensor cameras. I think that will be the long awaited real game changing camera system.
I think the real doomed sensor format is the m43.
APS-C will be fine, I think it will survive as it is really close to the Super 35 in terms of sensor surface size. And it may be the most versatile video format.
