Photography

Bit of a vague title, so let me elaborate.

I was watching one of Jay Maisel's videos with Scott Kelby (well worth seeing if you haven't seen them, each one is a goldmine of wisdom). If you're not familiar with Jay Maisel, then a) you should be, and b) he's now 92, so he would have easily been in his late 70s to early 80s in the Kelby videos. Put it this way, he's been around the block. And back. And got the t-shirt.

In the first video, he was using Nikon's 70-300 on a D3. Now this isn't even one of Nikon's top-tier lenses, and even when the video was made the D3 would have been around a bit, but the way he talked about them, you'd think they were made of gold dust. He referred to the lens as "having a 70, a 90, a 135, and a 180 all at once", and said that the D3 let him get shots that were completely impossible up to that point.

I would guess that, compared to the gear that he used at the start of his career, the D3 and 70-300 did indeed seem like alien technology.

Similarly, I've seen Joel Meyerowitz talk about cameras which, by spec sheet alone, are completely outgunned by newer models, but he sounds almost reverent when he discusses them. He's nearly as old as Jay.

This doesn't mean to suggest that the younger generation of photographers (and that's nearer to two or three generations, really) are unappreciative. That would be a gross over-generalisation, and there are likely people out there making spectacular pictures with very simple gear. But you wonder sometimes: every time a new camera comes out with a completely insane spec sheet, there are people who complain that it doesn't have X, Y, or Z. ("Eight stops of stabilisation? I will never buy their cameras again!")

What does everyone reckon? You don't have to specify your age if you don't want to, but I'm trying to get a feel for this. (I'm 50, and while I do find new technology in cameras interesting, I'm perfectly happy shooting a relatively simple camera as long as it has the essentials needed to take a picture).