mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney) (02/23/84)
I would like to generate a little discussion starting from a comment
made by Brian Diehm. The following quote was an aside in a discussion
of B&W paper:
I don't like to see the Japanese beginning to dominate yet another
market. Once they dominate a market, they take it in the
direction they want it to go, and so we get autofocus and gee whiz
gadgets instead of quality photography. Just an opinion, but it
is something to consider (perhaps this is "the ethics of
consumerism").
1) Whom can you hold up as being better about this than the Japanese?
Certainly not US companies, which are either defunct, selling to the
popular market, like Nimslo, making large format equipment, or Kodak.
Kodak has long dominated the market and is not Mr Nice Guy. George
Eastman once bought Blair Camera Company just because he was tired of
paying royalties on one of their patents. (Trivia question, what patent?)
2) More importantly, why to you think the Japanese are leading the
industry into the land of GeeWhiz at the expense of quality photography?
It is this question that puzzles me. Every month, regular as Ex-Lax,
there is a letter to Modern Photography flaming about some aspect of
the horrible situation in photography; typical subjects are creeping
automation, the use of those nasty plastics, and this month we get
the conspiracy (no doubt Jewish-inspired) that squelches inventions
that would let us change film in mid-roll. I offer the following
observations:
One reason the Japanese take over is their innovation; those
gadgets frequently make the product more attractive than the
staid American products.
Plastic and automated exposure are, I find, improvements
for the amateur. Yet one can still buy metal bodies if one
has the money, and moderately priced cameras have manual
exposure as well as automatic.
Given that mediocre snapshooters such as me still want a
camera as good as a Ricoh XR-2, I find it doubtful that
the Japanese would abandon the market. Still, if auto-
focus on an SLR ever becomes practical and cheap, why
complain? As long as you don't have to use it when you
don't want to, how are you worse off.
Great advances are being made that IMPROVE photography,
especially in lens design and film emulsions. Why the glum looks?
Why are people so offended by the presence of easy to use
cameras in the product line? No one is forcing you to buy
these things, but there is a market there. The presence of
a toy plastic Nikon camera does not mean they will quit making
the pro model
In short, I think the photo industry is going pretty well. My biggest
complaint is that I can't buy wide roll-film for my antiques anymore.
Why do you think things are so bad?
--
_Doctor_ Jon Mauney, mcnc!ncsu!mauney
\__Mu__/ North Carolina State Universityjjd@bbncca.ARPA (James Dempsey) (02/24/84)
()
Whats funny about this whole discussion is that it started
with a comment about Seagull paper. I believe that Seagull
products are made in China, not Japan.
--Jim Dempsey--
{decvax, linus, wjh12, ima}!bbncca!jjd
jjd@BBN-UNIX (arpa)briand@tekig1.UUCP (02/24/84)
Jon Mauney questions why all the bitching about the "current situation in
photography", and Jon I'm not flaming, but maybe all those people aren't wrong.
First, my biases. My primary interest is B&W "landscape" in the most tra-
ditional form. I use large format (4x5) and am very much concerned with "art"
whatever that may be. I am not too interested in equipment. I prefer tradi-
tional methods because I find that they get me closer to the process of what I
am doing, and thereby closer to my ability to control the expressive process.
THIS IS AN APPROACH OF ATTITUDE, I freely admit. I do not claim it is the only
approach or even the desirable approach for anyone but me. On the other hand,
when I travel, for purposes of convenience I haul an old match-needle Minolta,
a cheap zoom and an abysmal wide angle, and use 200 ASA Ektachrome. For this
kind of photography this is all I need and I am satisfied with the results.
I don't have a more gee-whiz camera is because 1) I'm not taken with gadgetry -
that may be a personal failing and 2) I can't afford enough trips abroad to
justify a new set of equipment. Also if it gets stolen, I'm not out much.
In the (shudder) "good old days", there were pros and amateurs, and there
was a set of equipment for each. Amateur cameras were cheap, flimsy, limited
in quality, and they satisfied Mom & Pop pretty well. Pro equipement was state
of the art and produced, in the hands of pros, a wealth of images that Mom &
Pop couldn't match. However, Life magazine and better cinemetography and the
early work of some "amateur" masters made the snapshooters aware of another
realm, and they wanted better. I'm the LAST one to fault that.
Enter the Japanese. They began by imitation, and gradually utilized inno-
vation to advance the state of the art while decreasing prices. I'm also the
LAST one to fault that. Meanwhile, the home companies didn't keep up - they
thought their market had "matured". I'm the FIRST one to fault that and they
got what they deserved. Japanese innovation brought about the professional
quality small-format camera, the 35mm SLR. Until this time all photojournalism
was done on medium format or 4x5 press. Suddenly, small cameras were respected
by profesionals who understood their applications and limitations.
A small format, cheap camera that was respected as a professional tool!
Translation: something to sell to Mom & Pop to satisfy their desire for better
pictures! Never mind that the small format was appropriate to only one select
segment of the professional world - photojournalists. Never mind that it is
ideal only in certain ways and that in many situations it is a compromise that
are willing to make. Never mind that it is a professional tool only in the
hands of those who are willing to study, work, think, feel, react, and work
even more. Never mind all that, sell it to Mom & Pop anyway - "See, the pros
use it and just look at their pictures!"
Of course this is less than ethical. Do Mom & Pop, expecting wonderful
pictures, actually GET anything better than they had before? Does the salesman
actually tell them that this requires some thought and effort? Do they even
get a HINT of what all is required to get a real National Geographic image?
In point of actual fact, do Mom & Pop get anything that's measurably better
than what they got from their roll-film brownie? I contend not much, given the
processing available to them. Do the Japanese know this? You bet. Do Modern
Photo or Pop Photo know this? You bet. Does Kodak, with their "Times of Your
Life" ads showing some of the worlds best retouched large-format dye-transfer
images know this? You bet. And they know it translates into $$$. Be assured
the equipment orientation of the photo business is that way for a reason. The
really strange part is that Mom & Pop know it too - they just want to believe.
Well, what of the advanced amateur, that fellow who caught on and is now
"into" photography? This is the guy who didn't exist before the Japanese "de-
veloped" the market. He typically sports a couple of lenses, a new body every
couple of years, and several pieces of "accessory" equipment: filter sets and
flash attachments. Yes, we're dealing in stereotypes here, but remember that
STEREOTYPES ARE A STATISTICALLY VALID WAY OF UNDERSTANDING A POPULATION - it is
just that people think statistics can be used to characterize individuals
within a population, which is not true. So don't flame me if you "sport a few
lenses, a different body every couple of years, and. . .", because I have no
way of telling whether YOU individually take meaningful pictures or not. Mean-
ingful to your, or meaningful to the world, I don't care. We're talking here
about the "ugly photographyer" - the guy who uses all this stuff for anything,
everything, and nothing at all. I've met such people who are totally unaware
that the object of all this equipment is an image. You've met him, I'm sure.
You may even BE him - statistics not charactierizing individuals works both
ways :-).
The trouble is that as long as this guy's on the manufacturer's merry-go-
round, he'll never discover that there even IS such a thing as contemplative
photography, or that there IS an art form to explore, or that there IS a means
of getting in touch with one's inner self. Now, as I said when I started this
tome I don't claim that's for all. I claim that the present hyped environment
will prevent people from ever discovering that this possibility exists - and
that is a tragedy resulting from less than ethical behavior on the part of all
who have created the environment.
So who does this hurt, you say? You and me, brother. Nowdays, we get RC
paper in the stores, and no fiber based papers at all. Now, RC is getting
better but it's still a far cry from real photobraphic paper. So yes, you've
caught me in an inconsistency when I say don't buy Seagull because they in fact
DO deserve our business for putting out a fine product. It's just that I worry
that if they sew up that business, then they'll suddenly "discover" RC, and
THEN watch the ruthless elimination of quality papers. It would exactly fit
their past business methods. The paper business is only an example.
There is another side of the coin, as you point out. Auto exposure is not
inherently bad, it's just an automatic way of matching needles. Plastic - so
what, as long as it works and holds up. Lens design has been improved contin-
ually (but only so that more 35mm stuff can be sold). Advances are being made,
and many who complain about them are not looking at them objectively. However,
perhaps they recognize the disease but are only aware of the symptoms. I hope
that this explains better the general nervousness - "sure as Ex-Lax".
A couple of years ago for a very short time, Nikon had an ad campaign that
showed a hulk of a guy saying "I may not be able to paint, but with my Nikon
I'm a hell of an artist." Yes, in those words.
If anyone recongizes himself in the above be aware there are alternatives!
Brian Diehm
Tektronix