Picture this.....Have you been here?

RoelHendrickx wrote:

Agree, but not totally. There are some funny people on these forums if you know to look for which names. I'm not going to name them in order not to embarass. Some are funny deliberately, some others are funniest when they try to be serious.

Agree.

The place where I meet some pros now and then is in the frontstage area of a concert.

They will at most throw an interested glance on my equipment (still FT for that), but don't get into pi$$ing contests. They probably know just as well as I do, that one should look at a person's results, not at his tools.

I don't think that in the culinary world, chefs argue a lot about the knives they use. It is mostly the amateur-elitists (like you call them) that go on about the latest carbon-reinforced or ceramic blades, but then those expensive knives of theirs very often doesn't see much use.

I can relate.

To this date, my family still knows exactly what we mean when we call someone a "Pie Vert" (that's a green woodpecker).

We once were on holiday in the Camargue and took a nature & sight-seeing guided tour.

I had my E-330 at the time with the kit lenses and I had it along to capture some shots of wife and kids and maybe some landscapes.

A french guy was on our tour. For starters, while still waiting for the tour to start, he was amazed that our children (Belgian but from the Flemish part) did not speak impeccable french (they were 4 and 2 at the time).

Then he opened the trunk of his car and took out a huge canikon camera with the biggest telephoto prime I had ever seen. He sniffed at my Oly and said that if I wanted to catch bird shots, I had better dump the Oly and invest in serious gear. Bird shots had not even been on my mind so that information was shared by him quite voluntarily.

He lugged around the heavy lens on all of our walk. During that walk, he kept telling me about this amazing shot of a green woodpecker he had once made, after hours of stalking the poor bird.

I made the occasional photo, but he never put the camera to his eye. It was like a fitness exercize for him.

During the long walk we did not spot a single interesting bird, neither near nor far. Probably the wrong time of day or season.

He came back exhausted and grumpy and left without saying goodbye. He was probably also angry at himself for joining a walk through the Camargue with a family with noisy children...

Since then, my wife always says that she supports my photography interests, as long as I don't ever turn into a "Pie Vert".

Very recognizable.

I always feel it is more fun to talk about photos than about photo gear. Maybe I am in the wrong forum. But I cope.

--
Roel Hendrickx
lots of images: www.roelh.zenfolio.com
my E-3 user field report from Tunisian Sahara: http://www.biofos.com/ukpsg/roel.html