I am occasionally nostalgic about the Croatian usenet foto group, where I was quite active in the early- to mid-2000s, but which died along with the rest of the usenet. Unfortunately, there has been no obvious replacement to host the community, so basically it all dispersed. I occasionally look at the forums on the Internet – dpreview.com, for instance. Most threads on the Sony forum are like “I have more money than brains, and I just bought 4 super expensive lenses I don’t know how to use properly, and now I’m thinking about replacing one of them with an even more expensive lens that’s bound to get me the respect and admiration I crave in my midlife crisis”. I check the micro four thirds forum, they are still arguing about focal length and aperture equivalency and trying to convince themselves and others that four thirds is not just good enough, but better than full frame or whatever. I close it in resignation. Then I look at the pictures they send in the dedicated threads, because that’s the bottom line of it all. I have to admit, there’s a few excellent photographers in every forum, I’ve seen great examples of landscapes and wildlife. Of course, most people post generic snapshots of nothing in particular, but that’s expected. The good examples more than make up for it.

But then I get curious about the Croatian photographic community, and I look into the forum.hr site which has a photography section. I look at one of the threads, Sony vs. Canon. “Sony photos have colours like they were taken with a smartphone, Sony is shit”, “No Sony is great, Canon has obsolete sensor design with low dynamic range, Canon is shit”. Ah, so Canon vs. Olympus flame wars are now replaced with Canon vs. Sony flame wars, but everything else remains the same. Honestly, I didn’t miss that at all. Close the browser tab.

Honestly, I don’t know what I expected. Probably something along the lines of pictures from some good location, accompanied by a thread with comments on how to get there, which time of the day is the best, how many tourists are there getting in the frame and how to find spots they don’t know about, and so on. Stuff you actually care about when you’re interested in photography, not just gear-themed dick measuring contests. Or maybe someone’s review of equipment accompanied by their best photographic work with said equipment. Something nice to look at, something that makes you think, something useful and helpful.

I’ve been criticised on the photo group for always saying good things about the gear that I’m using, instead of “being objective”. Honestly, I don’t even know what that means. I use the gear that works for me, and since it works for me, I find it great. It always has flaws, and I also write about those occasionally. If it’s really bad, I get rid of it very quickly and get something that works better, so it’s not like I’m going to whine endlessly about how much something sucks. Yeah, it sucked, I sold it, and got something that didn’t suck, problem solved. I whine if I don’t have an obvious solution for a problem I’m having, for instance when I was in the four thirds system, I was kind of stuck with one lens, because I wasn’t sure if the system was long-term viable, and I actually wanted 35mm but those either cost car money or just didn’t exist. When the technology advanced to the point where that was solved, I had nothing to whine about and just took pictures. I also can’t really write comparative reviews because I use one system at a time. I can’t really tell you whether a Nikon, Canon or Sony version of a certain lens is better, because I use one, and it’s the one that’s in the system that I’m currently using. If people can’t make up their minds about which is better, it means that both are likely so similar in practice that it doesn’t matter which one you use, which solves the problem.

Sony user taking a picture of a Canon user taking a picture. 🙂

It’s not that I’m averse to gear talk. I like gear talk. I’m very technically minded and prefer to get into the physics of how something actually works. If I had to name something I miss from those photographic forums, it’s sharing experiences with gear, and opinions about relative importance of certain metrics, for instance how focal length, aperture and shape of the iris influence bokeh, or how sensor construction parameters influence colours. But those brand flame wars,… kill me now please. 🙂