Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
Back shortly after the dawn of time and before the Internet was available for instant research, I decided I wanted a decent sound system for listening to folk music and bluegrass. Speaking to friends and acquaintances who were audiophiles, the cost of a “decent” (read: adequate but not top end) system kept rising until it became apparent that I would have to spend a considerable fraction of the cost of a new automobile to get an “adequate” system.
Exhausted, demoralized, and confused, I stumbled into an audio shop and poured out my plight to its knowledgeable owner. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Do you want to listen to the music or the equipment?” I bought a modest bookshelf system, listened to my music (and sometimes played along), and never spent a moment wondering whether the high frequency or bass response was all that it should be.
What put me in mind of this encounter was a recent post by Sue (kyteflyer) here: So I took the FZ100 today Take a look at the image of the black shouldered kite; it’s as nice a wildlife photograph as I have ever seen. I would be proud to have taken it.
And guess what? It was taken with an FZ100 – yesterday’s technology, a couple of generations back in the FZ, hardly worth – if you listen to some of the pundits on the Internet – taking into the field. And yet the image speaks for itself. In my not-so-humble opinion, it’s good enough for almost any usage I can think of, including publication in a magazine, with the possible exception of a very large print.
Now here’s the kicker: according to Sue “This is a crop, its only about 25% of the full shot (and resized down anyway).” Seriously? Well, I guess that means I don’t need a full-frame DSLR and a $12,000 telephoto lens with teleconverter to take a shot as nice as Kyteflyer’s.
Recently, I went to a nature photo workshop. A fellow there had a Canon 70D with a Tamron 150-600 mounted. He let me try it. It was a heck of a rig. It had about the same reach as my FZ200 and the autofocus was faster, but it was substantially bigger and heavier than my outfit. I wouldn’t want to carry it all the time on the chance that I might capture something extraordinary.
But my FZ200 or my G12? The only time I have regretted those cameras was when I didn’t have them with me when the Wonderful Thing happened. (Like yesterday, when my wife and watched 15 geese stop traffic as they crossed a highway.)
Sometimes, you just have to travel light and listen to the music.
Cheers, Jock
Exhausted, demoralized, and confused, I stumbled into an audio shop and poured out my plight to its knowledgeable owner. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Do you want to listen to the music or the equipment?” I bought a modest bookshelf system, listened to my music (and sometimes played along), and never spent a moment wondering whether the high frequency or bass response was all that it should be.
What put me in mind of this encounter was a recent post by Sue (kyteflyer) here: So I took the FZ100 today Take a look at the image of the black shouldered kite; it’s as nice a wildlife photograph as I have ever seen. I would be proud to have taken it.
And guess what? It was taken with an FZ100 – yesterday’s technology, a couple of generations back in the FZ, hardly worth – if you listen to some of the pundits on the Internet – taking into the field. And yet the image speaks for itself. In my not-so-humble opinion, it’s good enough for almost any usage I can think of, including publication in a magazine, with the possible exception of a very large print.
Now here’s the kicker: according to Sue “This is a crop, its only about 25% of the full shot (and resized down anyway).” Seriously? Well, I guess that means I don’t need a full-frame DSLR and a $12,000 telephoto lens with teleconverter to take a shot as nice as Kyteflyer’s.
Recently, I went to a nature photo workshop. A fellow there had a Canon 70D with a Tamron 150-600 mounted. He let me try it. It was a heck of a rig. It had about the same reach as my FZ200 and the autofocus was faster, but it was substantially bigger and heavier than my outfit. I wouldn’t want to carry it all the time on the chance that I might capture something extraordinary.
But my FZ200 or my G12? The only time I have regretted those cameras was when I didn’t have them with me when the Wonderful Thing happened. (Like yesterday, when my wife and watched 15 geese stop traffic as they crossed a highway.)
Sometimes, you just have to travel light and listen to the music.
Cheers, Jock