Taking photos in lousy conditions

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CHamilton

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Some interesting comments on shooting in terrible conditions.

“A camera that works great in every shooting situation” isn’t within reach of the average consumer. That’s the definition of a pro camera. You can only have one of those if money and size are truly no object. Would I love to own a camera that can take clean photos late at night even when there’s no direct lighting? You betcha. Would I be willing to spend about $5000 for one? Holy cats, no. A $5000 camera is so laughably out of my sphere of reality that I don’t even need to come up with a colorful response to the “Am I also willing to lug around a camera and lens that doesn’t fit in any of my day-to-day bags?” question.

There’s a “Zeno’s Paradox” sort of thing in effect when you’re hunting for the best camera, anyway. We chase after “perfection, every time” even though that’s just not in the cards. Any camera (even the one in a phone) takes great photos in 50% of the possible photographic scenarios. Want to make it to the 100% mark? A good point-and-shoot camera works great 75% of the time. A consumer-level SLR: 87% of the time. Enthusiast-level: 94% of the time. Pro: 98% of the time. Every level up closes half of the remaining gap. But the gap is getting smaller each time, and each time, the cost of the hardware at the next level doubles. Whatever shooting scenarios are in that 4%, they’d better be pretty damned important to justify thousands of dollars in additional cost.
The writer isn't really a camera/photography blogger; I know him for his writing on technology.
 
Good comments! Over 40+ years of photography at varying levels of professionalism (now use a pocket-size point-and-shoot about 80% of the time, get out my digital SLR mainly when the P&S won't do the job), I've found what he says to be true.

And I'd add one more point: if you do spring for the pro level camera, you need a safe to put it in! I quit pro photography over 20 years ago, because I got sick of losing my profits to thieves. Now everyone's got a digital camera that can take great photos MOST of the time, and that level is fine for me.
 
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