PhotoMann Travel Photography Blog

“Nice Camera” Syndrome

photomann — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 07:22:12 +0000

I recently started to check out my newly arrived Canon 5D Mark II. I’ve heard comments from various people that they can’t wait to see what pictures it produces. I’m reminded all the time of the uninformed perception that the camera makes the picture. We’ve all head it an it can be annoying as it devalues your photographic talents.

I dug out the image below which is a scan of a drawing my wife had made for me when she was in Thailand a couple of years ago.

It illustrates the result of the following exchange: A photographer is invited over to a friends house for dinner. He brought along some of his pictures to show. The hostess commented that the pictures were great… “you must have a nice camera”. The photographer bit his tongue and didn’t say anything. As he was leaving after the dinner he thanked the cook for the wonderful dinner and commented that she must have some “nice pots”. The cook was none too pleased to hear that!

The moral here is that the camera is just a tool. I could shoot 80+% of my images with just about any camera. The finer the tool the more control and functionality it provides. However, it does nothing to help an unskilled photographer take better pictures. No camera can fix someone’s inability to compose a decent image. Composition and light are the keys to making a great picture.

My new Canon 5D Mark II

photomann — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:55:43 +0000

I just received my new Canon 5D Mark II today! It’s physically very similar to my older 5D. One nice change is the metal flash shoe mount. The only noticeable wear on my 5D is the flash shoe thus this is a welcome improvement. I have to wait till the battery charges to explore the actual functionality.

Still Waiting for my Canon 5D Mark II

photomann — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:23:32 +0000

I’m patiently (Not!) waiting for my new Canon 5D Mark II to arrive in the mail. I was extremely annoyed to receive my Visa bill last week showing I bought the camera but it’s not here yet. Since it’s a holiday weekend I’ll have to wait until Tuesday :-(.

PhotoMann Blog Lives Again!

photomann — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:20:30 +0000

My blog is now back to life. I had to suspend it for a while since bots had hijacked it. The bots were injecting link spam every four minutes. It was seemingly impossible to get rid of the crap so I turned it off.

I just implemented this Wordpress Blog. I’ll eventually change the look to integrate it into my overall PhotoMann design.

PhotoMann and Friends in Tibet

photomann — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:17:37 +0000

PhotoMann and friends in Tibet. This was a mind blowing view of Mt. Everest. We were all in awe!

We had spent hours on a bumpy road with overcast skies on our way to Everest base camp. As we climed up to the mountain pass we were all in a daze. As soon as we reached the pass we had this incredible view. We were all instantly energized… at least as much as the 17,000 foot altitude would allow us. We then walked up a 200 foot hill to where this picture was taken. That 200 feet was the longest of my life! We though we would die trying to get oxygen from the thin air. I usually don’t take pictures of myself but this was an exception. We wanted the evidence that we were actually there. At 17,200 feet wasn’t the highest we went on the trip but it was quite close.