A religious quote: ...

I saw this quote on dpreview on one of the many Sony vs. *** (your brand here) topics:

Very true. I think it goes even deeper than that. The selection of gear becomes their identity. If anything negative is stated on that brand, they become defensive to the point of irrationality. For them, it is more about their brand…their choice…then it is about what that tool is for…photography. Photography becomes secondary to worrying about per pixel sharpness, sun stars, chromatic aberration at 400% screen view, how shadows look if we push the image by 6 stops, etc, etc. All unimportant fluff when compared to what the camera is really for.
The Davinator

IMHO quite a bit of truth here. I wonder sometimes if those people really go out and take pictures. My Sony a7Rii is really nice, but for me not a piece of worship. Okay, I do have a shrine (with humidity control) where it rests, but it’s contaminated with lesser brands, even equipment that uses the C and the N word!

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Everybody with his/hers favorite poison here ;), it does not happen only in photography, but in all other parts of life.

I notice that my want of gear increases when I’m not shooting enough. If I’m thinking about locations to shoot or have images to process, then I feel like my gear is fine.

Coincidentally, I’m thinking of an IR mod for the X-T20.

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I was expecting a religious quote. :sweat_smile: Personally, I think religions get a bad rap, implying that adherents are unreasonable to a fault or even to the danger to public.

It is also true that you are* what you worship. I would actually change “are” to “become”. So, if you (general you) are obsessed with the gear and culture of a certain brand to the point of antisocial behaviour, then you need to take a deep breath and question the veracity of your beliefs, and whether your behaviour is the best manifestation of said beliefs.

E.g., if you think *** brand is so great, then take great photos and give back to the community by _, _ and _, instead of being an :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:.

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Tools. Just tools…

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I learned about “religion” as a high-schooler attending the mac user group meetings in the early 90s. Everything was insanely great and way cool, and Guy Kawasaki came to sermonize on the MacBenefits of religiosity. He gave me his business card in Sacramento. His title was Apple Evangelist.

I remember the first time someone came in with a digital camera. He set it and his Quadra up in the lobby. It was just a shocker to see a) a camera tethered to a computer and b) images from the camera loading onto the screen.

That’s how I see it. And different cameras do different things. The a7rii is a good allrounder, the Nikon P900 is a one-trick-pony with it’s amazing zoom (and total crap in anything else), the Sigma SD Quattro is for doing film - on SD card. And the Sigma BlacknWhite is really amazing.

Once I talked to an ex-Leica collector and while chatting said “I believe that about 10% of Leica owner take pictures”, he replied “no way, not so many!”.

Anyway, they only reason that makes me stick to a brand would be lenses, and I wouldn’t if all had the same mount.