2021-06-20
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Free Thinker and Alex Schroeder are talking about cameras. I found
their thoughts resonate with my own experience. Alex is talking
about how cameras are mostly becoming phone cameras and Free
Thinker is talking about how the barrier between personal space
and the online community is some kind of a sacred thing that is
eroded by the same force that Alex sees empowering, the immediacy.

gopher://alexschroeder.ch/
gopher://aussies.space/1/%7efreet/

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I actually bought a camera some months ago. I think this is the
second camera that I ever bought, even though I am in a line of
business where I often use a camera. The previous camera I had
in the beginning of this century or the end of the last.

The reason for getting the camera was that I was thinking of a
little side project where I might film some videos and put them
on some streaming service online. A bit like a hobby project.
I  was aiming at a level of quality that isn't tv quality, but
almost. I actually think that people have made tv documentaries
with similar equipment as what I got in the end. But lets say
that the gear I got is the cheapest possible for getting close
to that limit of quality. It cost something like 1500 euros.
This is the most money I have spent on any single purchase in
probably ten years.

The gear I got was mainly focused on how the camera interfaces
with other technology. The camera itself is almost a decade old
model, that just happened to still be sold. But the stuff that
I was interested in were things like a rig that goes around the
camera to allow for attachment of mics and an external display
and such. I bought a stereo mic / recorder that can be put on
the camera in addition to a shotgun type mic that can record
more focused sound from the direction the camera is pointing at.
So, the stereo mic creates the sort of audio immersion while the
shotgun mic pics up speech better, for example.

I am just saying this because I think there is some difference
here when it comes to production value. The price difference
is not orders of magnitude greater, but the control you can have
on the equipment is quite different. I think you probably could
get some rig for the smartphone that could host audio equipment
and so on, so I don't know if I am even saying that this is
completely excluded as an option when shooting with a smartphone.
I have never seen such a thing though. I have seen some mics
that can be added on a smart phone, both shotgun style and
lavalier style. These are quite handy since they can fit in
your pocket.

Well, anyhow, I didn't go that direction. But I agree that the
friction between taking a picture and getting it online is a lot
more when having an actual camera. I sort of like it, though.
Then again, I am not a mainstream user. I haven't put any of
my pictures on any social media since getting the camera. 
Instead I am making a few "projects" where I collect pictures
that relate to a theme and putting these on a web page. It is
a neocities site so it does have people commenting once in a 
while, but the function is not at all the same as when putting
stuff up on an actual social media.

As for the video, I am just collecting material on our gardening
and such, but I haven't yet even watched what I have. Maybe I 
will edit it in a year or two. Ironically, I have actually done
none of the original project that I got the camera for. Well,
maybe next year.

Here's a tangent. Many years ago I made a video of a funeral of
a relative. This was because another relative was in the hospital
and couldn't attend the funeral. So the idea was that he could
"be" there. As I have thought about this later on, what happened
was that I was not at the funeral, in some sense, since looking
at it through a lense and thinking about the technical product
of the video of the funeral is such a task that it sort of
overrides the act of being present. So, I traded my being there
to this other person "being" there.

I think that experience turned me off from taking pictures and
video at weddings and such. BTW, this is the bane of a video
professional's life: Everyone thinks that it is almost some
existential responsibility that you shoot video at their 
parties, and edit it painstakingly, free of charge of course,
so that they can archive it somewhere and never even watch it.

Well, that was another side note. In any case, what I am trying
to get at is that now that I have this camera that is only a
camera, instead of a phone, I have a process that is less random.
I actually decide to take the camera out, check that I have the
equipment for this particular use case, and I go out on a little
mission, so to speak. It's a whole different experience than
taking a picture on a phone. At least that's how it seems to me.

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