Glyphs of Time :: a blog by jarvis grant

February 17, 2010

You Get What You Pay For: Installment #1

Filed under: Digital Tech,Observations,Photography — Jarvo @ 11:31 pm

OK. When we hear this phrase, we think if I don’t pay a lot what I have is a chip piece of crap! Therefore, I must spend a lot for quality. Yes and No. For some odd reason, photographers feel that they must spend a lot of buck to get the “best” equipment. Sound logical. They also feel that the more they can spend, the better a photographer they must be. Hey it makes sense, right?

I’m here to tell ya, that’s what equipment manufactures want you to think For example, when you go into the field, take a laptop computer. A laptop? I’m not getting paid for these images.  So hey, let me take a hard drive with a screen into the field. That way I can see the images I’m taking and download those images to the drive and free up my capture card. That makes sense. Of course it does, but… What if I would like to backup those images while shooting? Damn,  I guess I do need my laptop?

Yet, I guess instead of taking a $600-$800 80 GB screened hard drive into the field that isn’t doing what I need, let me take a $1200 MacBook into the field, (or the PC equivalent) for more control and options. Yeah, That makes sense.
OR
How about this, maybe take a Netbook that cost, on the high-end, $400 with a DVD burner at $50? The Netbook has a 160 GB hard drive and an OS that will support basic photo editing package, like Photoshop Elements or even a pro package like Lightroom to review the day’s shoot (Not shoot tethered, it’s a Netbook for God’s sake!).  Plus with the introduction of the iPad, Netbooks will just get better. So, if you get what you pay for is true, then spend another $150 on a 350 GB portable hard drive to backup the photos on, and sync up everything when back in the studio.

So, photographers, stop being victims of marketing hype. Stop being so anal! Use your creative vision to do great things that don’t make other people rich at your expense. Remember, every 18 months, these folks will tell you that you need to spend more money on something that is even greater and better. For those who can, remember those $30,000 Kodak cameras in Nikon bodies that shot, 1.5 megapixel images? What’s the res of your iPhone?

 
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