What is a Pro Camera?!

Bringing up the topic of Pentax Dslrs lagging behind is an argument that inevitably stirs and offends the loyal pentax user.

I am one of these loyal pentax users but the fact is if you want decent quality I would never dream of using my Ds (even with * or Ltd lenses), I would use either my Pentax 67 or Sinar.

What everyone seems to be hazy about is the requirements for a Pro Photographer.

I am in my final year of studying 4 years at the London College of Printing (the final show is on the 13th of June if anyone is interested).
http://www.arts.ac.uk/events/16028.htm
Just about everyone in the show is working with 5x4 or 10x8 and very few are using 6x6. Only one person is using digital that being the Canon's 16mp beast and even he has been criticized for its inferior quality (although to be honest I think they look pretty good, but that’s just artists dislike for digital).
It is a fair argument that composition and content of an image is the main concern but it should also be combined with the highest quality to fully appreciate it.

By defining categories of photographic users I would argue
- a pro to be a large format user or possibly a 5x4 digi back or maybe a medium format high mp back
- a semi pro to be a medium format user or very high Mp Dslr ie 16mp+
- an amateur to use formats below this quality threshold and to be honest with Dslrs of 10-14mp in this group Pentax Dslrs would be at the very bottom of the group.

Then again if you don’t need large sharp prints the Ds is perfect as an AMATEUR camera.

OK, but don't forget there are different types of pro photographers. Newspaper photographers are not going to be using 5x4 cameras, nor are the sports ones.

Landscape photographers might well want 5x4 transparencies, but increasingly I suspect that this will not be viewed as necessary, especially on the grounds of cost. You don't need 5x4 for a half page picture in a magazine, do you?

My definition of a Pro Camera would be one that is used by a Pro. On the grounds that it's the photographer that counts and not (within reason) the camera.

Firstly, I am an amateur photographer.

I would argue that the only requirement of any digital camera, that a pro might use, is to be able to sell his output to his target market.

Now that target market is very wide ranging and to tag any camera with a 'professional' or amateur" label is not that easy, neither is it relevant.

For instance, if you are a web site designer by profession, any 4MP or upwards digital camera would produce images of sufficient 'quality' for your chosen profession. So does that make a 4MP OkiCoki2000 a 'professional' camera, maybe yes.

I could paint other scenarios, but I think you get my drift.

If you are taking pictures to present as an art form, where the 'quality' is in the content, composition, etc. Then a large or medium format (analogue or digital) is possibly necessary, especially if you intend to cover an 8mtr X 20mtr wall with the result.

I suppose my argument is, there are so many 'professions' requiring varying degrees of 'percieved quality' that no one camera can suit all of them.

'Horses for courses' springs to mind. If your chosen profession means that whatever camera you use produces an output that sells, by default, that's a professional camera. IE: It's a camera that adequately satisfies an imaging profession.

Wedding photographer's, for instance, don't use 10X8 'professional' cameras, because they don't need to. I know one such photographer who has had a wedding booked for almost every weekend for the past 2 years. He gets his business by referrals (from previously very satisfied customers) and up until recently uses a 4MP Minolta. Is that a professional camera?

The bottom line is that the term 'professional' when applied to any technology, not just photography, cannot be very easily defined.

As with every thread regarding quality:

A camera is only as good as the person operating it...

For me, I clearly see a huge improvement between the pictures I took with my Minolta Dimage Z1 and the pictures I now take with my DS, but my pictures are a long way off the pictures that some other people in this forum produce. I am really amazed what these people do with their camera and the help of Photoshop. I learn everyday whilst reading this forum.

I have been using SLR camera's in the past but I wasn't experimenting much. So my skills didn't really evolve. Now with the digital SLR I experiment constantly. playing with aperture settings, doing macro work with a reversing ring, play and work with layers in photoshop to do things impossible for an amateur to do with film.

And I agree with the other posts in this thread, you can't place a label on a camera that says amateur or pro. I have seen terrible pictures from top of the range camera's handled by a bad photographer and I have seen fantastic pictures made by a great photographer using a one-way throw away camera. So that makes the cardboard camera a pro camera? Maybe yes...

sumerising a pro camera

1/make the body as large as possible

2/oh black it has to be black

3/it has to have a dustbin for a lens oh yes and an even larger lens hood

4/it must make that chicachica sound when it winds on the louder the better

5/ it must have cost the national debt of the total third world

6/oh and be carried by a part time window cleaner (well thay all carry step with them)

7/must weigh a ton

8/and carried in one of thouse trendy billingham bags

he he he he he he

only joking i appologies to any members of the paperazzi that use this site for describing them down to a tee

but i think that basiclly sums up pro cameras

technically

1/indestructable body

2/fast motor winder

3/good system camera

4/reliable and robust constuction

i have a mate thats a freelancer with ruters news agency and thay supply his cameras (NIKON) if he needs a special lens ie 500mm F2.8 he hires it and thay pay for it

he personaly ownes and uses an old zenith photosniper himself that he swears by

A pro gets PAID.
PAID for his images.
If enough people PAY for those images, equipment manfacturers will PAY the pro photographer for ENDORCEMENTS.
Few pros started making SALES with top of the line EQUIPMENT, they used what they had....
So guess what fuels the debate?
Am I right? Let you know when I (who does makes SALES) get PROlific enought to land an ENDORCEMENT DEAL!

There is indeed a great misconception, especially in the eyes of Joe Public as to what 'Pro' & 'Amateur' mean when it comes to expertise.
Anyone can be a Pro photographer if they simply advertise their images and services for sale/hire. It does not though make them an expert or any better than anyone else. Some indeed are pretty hopeless, but still make a living by conning Joe Public as to their skill.

Being really good has to be demonstrated again and again, especially with photography, and frankly some Pro's simply live off reputation alone, in the same way some Artists do and people will buy from them regardless of how good their work is in reality..

Some camera equipment is better suited than others for certain types of photography, but having it and believing you will therefore become a better photographer is a myth. It's having an eye for a subject and learning the skills to capture it the way you want that matters.

It's like cookery and chefs. You can buy all the so called pro kitchen equipment as used by the most successful professional chefs, but unless you learn to cook properly it will make no odds. My Grandma cooked the nicest meals I have ever eaten, and I've dined at very expensive restaurants, but she had only very basic equipment in her tiny kitchen. What she did have though was the knowledge of how to cook learnt over many years.

It would be interesting to show one of these Editors, together with a non photographer and perhaps a good amateur, a selection of prints of similar scenes (say approx A4) and taken on 35mm, medium and large format (not telling them which) and see how many they can correctly identify.
I suspect that they may well have some difficulty.

Philip

One of the nice things about ePHOTOzine is that it equalises the quality from us all. 500 (or 1000) pixels wide it is, and that's that. So everyone can compete regardless of how many pixels their camera can produce.

Then it's down to the impact of the image, and I like that.

It's pretty much the same with music.
Give a damn fine blues guitarist with music in his soul a cheap guitar and a pretty modest guitarist with little soul or real talent a Fender Strattocaster and I can tell you who I would rather listen to.

Philip

I guess no one at Magnum is a pro then

I am not denying that different cameras are suited to different needs. Any professional photographer will always have an armory of cameras for every situation.

My argument is that the frequent comments such as 'A camera is only as good as the person operating it...' is utter rubbish. Instead it should be that 'a better photographer will always make best use of the available camera equipment.'

Example - Ansel Adams didn’t have to worry about his mountains suddenly moving and therefore could spend hours with his 10x8 camera getting the perfect shot
Whereas Cartier-Bresson/ Salgado/Koudelka etc at Magnum had to generally appear invisible with their subjects so had to resort to 35mm to remain inconspicuous.

Its very easy to turn a blind eye to the technicalities, especially with the advent of digital. For people who have used anything better than their 35mm or DSLr, they will always hope that their best photographs will always be shot on large format so that a beautifully composed image can be fully appreciated.

hit the nail on the head..as far as I'm concerned.
'What makes a pro camera?' is the wrong question, who's answers take one down a long expensive road to nowhere....
'What makes a Pro Photographer?'
Now that's a Question worth asking!

What makes a pro photographer is easy. If he makes his living by selling his photographs, he's a pro.

But good workmen do tend to use good tools. For some people, that's a plate camera. For others, it's a Minox.

But for what it's worth, I would guess that the number of professional photographers who use 35mm/APC DSLR for most of their images outnumbers the users of all other formats put together by a factor of 10 or more.

Any other guesses?

G

I think you would be surprised just how much dislike there is for digital in pro sectors where quality is the main concern ie anything except press!

You will never find a fine artist using digital, in some cases when digital manipulation has to occur the neg is drum scanned, the alterations made and then a 5x4 neg is made from the digital file and then its printed traditionally. (expensive stuff.. Ive only done it twice but it looks amazing)

In terms of commercial most still life photography for advertising is still done on large format and pretty much all fashion is still shot on 6x6 or 6x7

As I mentioned in my first post anyone in London who wants to see examples of high quality photographs (both technically and conceptually) go to London College of Communication degree show from 6th June to the 16th

"Pro sectors"? There are many more "pro sectors" than are dreamed of in the narrow little world of "fine art" photography. And I wouldn't be at all surprised that this narrow little world hates digital.

Why is it that "digital manipulation has to occur"? These are fine artists you are talking about, not professional photographers. These are the people whom you say "You will never find" using digital. A contradiction, methinks.

If you define a "fine artist" as one who uses film, then self-evidently they wouldn't use digital. But there are many photographers selling high quality b&w prints that are entirely digital, and none of the priests of "fine art" can tell the difference.

Perhaps that was true five years ago. It certainly isn't now.

I'm afraid that you do seem to see things in terms that are as black and white as your favourite photographs.

I hope that most exhibitors are more open-minded and better informed than you appear to be.

Nobody would argue that a 10x8 plate is capable of a sharper and more detailed print than any digital camera. But that is hardly an original insight, and does not justify your wild assertions in which you confuse professional photographers with "fine artists" (who might perhaps be described as people who are hung up on ultimate print quality to the exclusion of all else).

Give me Cartier Bresson over Ansel Adams any day.

G