of monkeys and typewriters
«no man is an island»
It is a necessary in this art to know about equipment. I find that knowing the shortcomings of these well crafted lenses and sensors/films is an important step in getting what I want out of photography.
Recently I have caught a few discussions on blogs about equipment. There is the classic Nikcannon debate, and other goodies as technology moves on. It amazes me how these debates are so childish, defensive and, ultimately, does not involve the mention of photographs. That is, there is no context. What about just buying what makes one happy, never mind what others use, and show us what you can do with what you got. The forest has been lost because of the trees. Of course, I think a discussion about the physics/engineering/marketing of equipment is fantastic, illunimating and quite insightful, but such debates are rarely fruitful as they turn into a pissing contest. (Not sure that I have caught one female of the opposite sex involved in those discussions.)
I cannot find mention of equipment in one of the most impressive arrasys of images, I have seen in a while, from a film maker Nuri Belgi Ceylan Turkey Cinemascope offers a very impressive use of whatever camera he uses.
I use to love that aspect ratio, or at least 16x9 as in the image above. However, most of these days I am favoring 4x5, with some venturing into 6x6 and 5x7 to go either side. It seemst that 16x9 and above offer an automatic feel for cinema, and so to make a photograph be cinematic at 4x5 is a greater challenge. That is a nice thing, I think.
