Ken Rockwell was right: your camera *doesn't* matter!

[Patrick]

Found this on another forum. Figured some would appreciate it.

Ken Rockwell Facts Contributed by liem, Epic|, Fufie, michel_v, neom, Wintre, Bas|k, lament, mattsteg__ and pal.

• Ken Rockwell is the Chuck Norris of photography
• Ken Rockwell's camera has similar settings to ours, except his are: P[erfect] Av[Awesome Priority Tv[Totally Awesome Priority] M[ajestic]
• Ken Rockwell doesn't color correct. He adjusts your world to match his.
• Sure, Ken Rockwell deletes a bad photo or two. Other people call these Pulitzers.
• Ken Rockwell doesn't adjust his DOF, he changes space-time.
• Circle of confusion? You might be confused. Ken Rockwell never is.
• Ken Rockwell doesn't wait for the light when he shoots a landscape - the light waits for him.
• Ken Rockwell never flips his camera in portrait position, he flips the earth
• Ken Rockwell ordered an L-lens from Nikon, and got one.
• Ken Rockwell is the only person to have photographed Jesus; unfortunately he ran out of film and had to use a piece of cloth instead.
• When Ken Rockwell brackets a shot, the three versions of the photo win first place in three different categories
• Before Nikon or Canon releases a camera they go to Ken and they ask him to test them, the best cameras get a Nikon sticker and the less good get a Canon sticker
• Once Ken tested a camera, he said I cant even put Canon on this one,thats how Pentax was born
• Rockwellian policy isn't doublethink - Ken doesn't even need to think once
• Ken Rockwell doesn't use flash ever since the Nagasaki incident.
• Only Ken Rockwell can take pictures of Ken Rockwell; everyone else would just get their film overexposed by the light of his genius
• Ken Rockwell wanted something to distract the lesser photographers, and lo, there were ducks.
• Ken Rockwell is the only one who can take self-portraits of you
• Ken Rockwell's nudes were fully clothed at the time of exposure
• Ken Rockwell once designed a zoom lens. You know it as the Hubble SpaceTelescope.
• When Ken unpacks his CF card, it already has masterpieces on it.
• Rockwell portraits are so lifelike, they have to pay taxes
• On Ken Rockwell's desktop, the Trash Icon is really a link to National Geographic Magazine
• Ken Rockwell spells point-and-shoot "h-a-s-s-e-l-b-l-a-d"
• When Ken Rockwell went digital, National Geographic nearly went out of business because he was no longer phyically discarding photos
• For every 10 shots that Ken Rockwell takes, 11 are keepers.
• Ken Rockwell's digital files consist of 0's, 1's AND 2's.
• Ken Rockwell never focus, everything moves into his DoF
• Ken Rockwell's shots are so perfect, Adobe redesigned photoshop for him: all it consists of is a close button.
• The term tripod was coined after his silhouette
• Ken Rockwell never produces awful work, only work too advanced for the viewer
• A certain braind of hig-end cameras was named after people noticed the quality was a lot "like a" rockwell
• Ken Rockwell isn't the Chuck Norris of photography; Chuck Norris is the Ken Rockwell of martial arts.
• Ken Rockwell never starts, he continues

 

[Iron Flatline]

Can I assume your referring to me?
If so would you like some wedding or portrait stuff. Landscapes I do on my own time for my own pleasure.

No, I wasn't.

 

[bdavis]

In my opinion those photos look a little under-exposed...the camera doesn't matter too much when you know what you're doing, but you can't deny that having a DSLR is a good thing. Besides, Ken Rockwell also says tripods are a thing of the past....

 

[ANDS!]

Wow I just saw this.

That's twice now that you've mentioned my comment about his not getting free equipment from Nikon and not in a loaner sense.

Sorry, but that statement is not unique. It is trumpeted by a good number of the KR haters out there. Unfortunately, you took it personally.

Ken Rockwell HIMSELF had an entry on his own site stating this.

He does not.

Now, I will say it again... note the number of people that support him and the number of people that openly laugh at him. Correlate those numbers to the experience level of the supporters and what you call "haters" and you will see that people who have fallen for his dangerous mix of good info and BS are those of lower experience and those that have gained enough experience to see through his BS are the ones laughing.

I choose to look at the MOTIVATIONS of those who seem to deride the man, all the while having FALSE information either about what he's said, or attributing comments to him that he HASNT said (I'll get to that in a minute). If I went out and spent a ****load of money on gear, and then have some fool dare to suggest that none of my gear matters! Human beings, whether they want to admit it or not, are prideful and do not like to be told that perhaps they have done something they really didn't need to do.

The line, if I recall went something like "it doesn't matter that I haven't paid for a camera since (whatever, I cannot recall)...". It was clear how that statement was meant.

Not at all what that says. The ACTUAL quote comes from an article about NOT having to pay for a camera, buy purchasing and then selling some item or some such. Not a single line in the article mentions him working for Nikon or getting free items. You are remembering the article they way YOU want to remember it to advance your opinion of the man. He updates the article fairly regularly as the latest reference was to the D3x and how to get it for free.

So, as demonstrated, your opinion of the man isn't based in reality - which is ironic as many are saying the mans opinions aren't either. Good times.

Besides, Ken Rockwell also says tripods are a thing of the past....

Is that ALL he said, or did he qualify that statement?

 

[shivaswrath]

those lake side pictures would've have looked UNBELIEVABLE if you had something as simple as a D40 instead of that P&S.

KR contradicts himself WAY too much FAR too often for me to given any credence to what he says.

I personally think the perfect picture is the right time, place, and SKILL of the photographer combined with the appropriate equipment.

It has to be a mix of all of the above; your pictures have the right time, place, and skill. You just needed the right equipment to squeeze that last bit of HuAHHH.

 

[NightElfWarrior]

I once attended a parade here in Portland. A team of horses passed by me, and one of them made a "mess" about 20 feet away from me, on the street. Not far behind was a troupe of bagpipe players in full traditional Scottish regalia (ie kilts & tam o'shanters). They were marching along, and I could see that one of them would have to break formation in order not to intersect the large pile of horse crap. I instantly realized that that special moment in time would be a Kodak moment, and readied my Fuji 2mp P&S. Well, the man in the kilt did a little hop over the crap pile, but I totally missed the shot because my P&S has this maddening shutter lag, approximately 1.5 seconds long, and it is very hard to gauge. That was about 6 years ago, and to this day I still regret not having captured for posterity the image of a middle aged man with salt & pepper beard, in a skirt, doing the high jump over a large pile of horse crap! Now, can you tell me equipment doesn't matter?! :thumbdown:

 

[bdavis]

Is that ALL he said, or did he qualify that statement?

He said they are a thing of the past because with all the ISO control, lenses and camera's that we have now, there's no need for a tripod. Which I think is a load of crap, there are plenty of reasons to use one, but he said the only use is for night photography like shooting the moon. He claims that all you have to do is open your aperture up and crank up the ISO and you can hand hold everything. That's just stupid imo. What if I want everything in focus and have to use a small aperture? Sure I can walk around my town at night with my ISO cranked all the way up to 6400, but whats the point if you cant make anything out in the pics from all the noise?

I'd also like to see him hand hold a long telephoto lens, even with IS/VR, a tripod would be a better option. From his site he says that he aims his camera and takes a burst of shots and says that at least one is sharp. I'm not sure who said it, but whoever it was said it best, "nothing like a little spray and pray."

 

[bdavis]

I once attended a parade here in Portland. A team of horses passed by me, and one of them made a "mess" about 20 feet away from me, on the street. Not far behind was a troupe of bagpipe players in full traditional Scottish regalia (ie kilts & tam o'shanters). They were marching along, and I could see that one of them would have to break formation in order not to intersect the large pile of horse crap. I instantly realized that that special moment in time would be a Kodak moment, and readied my Fuji 2mp P&S. Well, the man in the kilt did a little hop over the crap pile, but I totally missed the shot because my P&S has this maddening shutter lag, approximately 1.5 seconds long, and it is very hard to gauge. That was about 6 years ago, and to this day I still regret not having captured for posterity the image of a middle aged man with salt & pepper beard, in a skirt, doing the high jump over a large pile of horse crap! Now, can you tell me equipment doesn't matter?! :thumbdown:

AMEN...

My girlfriend has a little point and shoot and she's pretty talented with it. She's taken photography before so she knows the basics, but wanted a little pocket sized camera that she can snap photos quickly. Meanwhile I'm lugging around my big DSLR and taking shots too and all she can do is complain about how much better my shots work, or how much faster my camera is because she always misses the moment. This goes along exactly with what NightElfWarrior said...the camera does matter!

Ask yourself this, if the camera doesn't matter, why don't pros use Canon Powershots or Nikon Coopix cameras for there photos? Makes ya think...

 

[andrew99]

He said they are a thing of the past because with all the ISO control, lenses and camera's that we have now, there's no need for a tripod. Which I think is a load of crap, there are plenty of reasons to use one, but he said the only use is for night photography like shooting the moon. He claims that all you have to do is open your aperture up and crank up the ISO and you can hand hold everything. That's just stupid imo. What if I want everything in focus and have to use a small aperture? Sure I can walk around my town at night with my ISO cranked all the way up to 6400, but whats the point if you cant make anything out in the pics from all the noise?

I'd also like to see him hand hold a long telephoto lens, even with IS/VR, a tripod would be a better option. From his site he says that he aims his camera and takes a burst of shots and says that at least one is sharp. I'm not sure who said it, but whoever it was said it best, "nothing like a little spray and pray."

Actually I think he was talking about VR. As usual, he goes way over the top to make his point .. in this case, that he likes VR.

Probably Manfrotto refused to send him some free stuff, so hence the rant. LOL!

 

[JerryPH]

Hahahaha... this one should get "most useless thread that would not die".

 

[ANDS!]

Ask yourself this, if the camera doesn't matter, why don't pros use Canon Powershots or Nikon Coopix cameras for there photos? Makes ya think...

You are doing what several others have done, and that is take the EXTREME of that statement and applied it to what KR has said. Where on that site will you find him recommend a point and shoot for PROFESSIONALS? No where. In fact, in the intro to the D40, he makes a point of saying for the majority the D40 is all they need, however he also makes a point of seperating the pros for average consumners. The man shoots with a D700, so of course the D40 does not have ALL the tools KR needs, however for the average shot it gets the job done "for him). A pro needs MORE than image quality, especially action shooters, so of course they aren't going to go for a D40. And KR knows this. But "most people" are NOT professional shooters.

For the best possible camera for just about anything, fun or serious, I use my Nikon D40.

Sure, I own more expensive cameras, but whenever I grab a camera for my own personal vacations or family photos, it's almost always my remarkable and super lightweight Nikon D40. There isn't anything reasonable I can't do with Nikon's least expensive D40. There is no real reason to pay more for a Nikon D60 or D80. Save your money for more important things, like another lens or flash, or just pocket the difference and enjoy a vacation.

For $499 or less, complete with an exceptionally good 18-55mm lens, it's a no-brainer. (I paid $600 for my D40 in 2006 and still love it.)

I wouldn't bother with the more expensive Nikons unless you really want to spend money, or will be using it all day, every day, or just have to have a bigger screen on the back. Don't worry about durability: I've made 25,000 shots on my D40 and it still looks and works like new.

I only use my more expensive cameras when I'm shooting all day. If I'm spending more time carrying it than using it, I grab my Nikon D40.

Read that. Not just read it, but SERIOUSLY read it. There are several subtle and nonsubtle qualifiers that it seems KRH8T3RS simply don't pick up on.

I don't expect anyone to actually "read" his site, and take the time to understand the comments, but it would make false statements like the above and Jerry's less frequent.

Hahahaha... this one should get "most useless thread that would not die".

Hahaha! Then just skip the thread, close your eyes, and soon enough Big Bad Mr. Rockwell who poopoos on all the learned amateurs haughty misconceptions can live in peace.

 

[JerryPH]

Hahaha! Then just skip the thread, close your eyes, and soon enough Big Bad Mr. Rockwell who poopoos on all the learned amateurs haughty misconceptions can live in peace.

Hahahaha! Welcome to my ignore list, have good day.

 

[DWS]

 

[ANDS!]

Hahahaha! Welcome to my ignore list, have good day.

That is certainly one way of making yourself "right". In any case, hopefully this thread serves as a warning to others that more often than not, the herd mentality of the internets is more dangerous than any one "egotistical Nikon shooter who gets all his gear for free!"

 

[dEARlEADER]

That is certainly one way of making yourself "right". In any case, hopefully this thread serves as a warning to others that more often than not, the herd mentality of the internets is more dangerous than any one "egotistical Nikon shooter who gets all his gear for free!"

lol