Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
Two thoughts converged in space this am and put me over the edge (in a good way).
The first was Mike Johnston's piece on The Online Photographer -- The Online Photographer -- entitled "Olympus Disappearing?" In it, a financial news website has predicted the demise of Olympus because it imaging division has not been profitable in three years. This, of course, while I was considering the E-M1 as a possible camera purchase.
The second, also from The Online Photographer, came from a comment posted to Ctein's column yesterday. The comment references the following TED talk -- The paradox of choice -- in which Barry Schwartz discusses "The Paradox of Choice." The basic thesis is this: Western societies are based on the idea that the more choice we have, the happier we will be. Schwartz demonstrates that the exact opposite is true: the more choice we have, the less satisfied we are, and he make a compelling case.
For over ten years, I shot with an Olympus D550 and had literally hundreds of pictures published in magazines to accompany my stories. It was my ONLY digital camera, and many of the pictures that I selected for my downloadable ebook -- Airguns of Arizona Blog » About Jock Elliott -- were shot with that camera. Now I own three more digital cameras (the D550 still works), and I have been in "foreplay" on buying another. Each time I bought a new one, I was convinced that this would "be the one."
Having read those two pieces on The Online Photographer, I suddenly became sick of my own dissatisfaction.
So, I give up. I am not going to pine for more choices. I am going to run the wheels off the cameras I already have, take them to -- and perhaps beyond -- the absolute technical limit of what they can do. In the words of another writer: "I will flog them like a red-headed stepchild." I will make the most of what I already have and focus on taking pictures that move me.
I will, however, continue to admire the many fine photographs taken by the good folks here.
Cheers, Jock
The first was Mike Johnston's piece on The Online Photographer -- The Online Photographer -- entitled "Olympus Disappearing?" In it, a financial news website has predicted the demise of Olympus because it imaging division has not been profitable in three years. This, of course, while I was considering the E-M1 as a possible camera purchase.
The second, also from The Online Photographer, came from a comment posted to Ctein's column yesterday. The comment references the following TED talk -- The paradox of choice -- in which Barry Schwartz discusses "The Paradox of Choice." The basic thesis is this: Western societies are based on the idea that the more choice we have, the happier we will be. Schwartz demonstrates that the exact opposite is true: the more choice we have, the less satisfied we are, and he make a compelling case.
For over ten years, I shot with an Olympus D550 and had literally hundreds of pictures published in magazines to accompany my stories. It was my ONLY digital camera, and many of the pictures that I selected for my downloadable ebook -- Airguns of Arizona Blog » About Jock Elliott -- were shot with that camera. Now I own three more digital cameras (the D550 still works), and I have been in "foreplay" on buying another. Each time I bought a new one, I was convinced that this would "be the one."
Having read those two pieces on The Online Photographer, I suddenly became sick of my own dissatisfaction.
So, I give up. I am not going to pine for more choices. I am going to run the wheels off the cameras I already have, take them to -- and perhaps beyond -- the absolute technical limit of what they can do. In the words of another writer: "I will flog them like a red-headed stepchild." I will make the most of what I already have and focus on taking pictures that move me.
I will, however, continue to admire the many fine photographs taken by the good folks here.
Cheers, Jock