How about if Michael set up a new forum category where only working pros could post, everyone could read but only pros could post in that section. I'm not comfortable with my real name being on a public forum but maybe to get access to the forum you could email Michael with your credentials and he could decide if he wants to allow you to join the pro forum? Thereby you create a place where working pros get to comfortably chat with each other and not get bogged down which would attract pros and keep the ones here that are already here. This would benefit them and everyone else that gets to read the pro forum. Am I missing something, this seems like a good idea to me, Michael?

To partially quote what I said in another thread....

"I would welcome a breakout forum within these forums for professionals only. I would be pleased to pay a fee, I would only ask that it be limited. People would have to have their real name and info verified, perhaps a website or photo review and ultimately even a referral from an existing member requirement. This has worked over at SportsShooter and the quality and relationships among the membership is superb."

Thanks!

How would you avoid others to register as a pro and start posting those never ending stupid discussions from start agin???? i think it would be better to ignore those people and focus on real issues. It is not our task to make someone buy into a MFDB system. Stop answering 35mm/MF posts on this forum would simply solve the "problem" I as a working pro am not interested in the opinin from people who do not work daily on a professional base and for sure not in those weening about 35mm/MF stuff.
Just ignore those discussions and hopefully they will go somewhere else.

Agreed.

Furthermore. What makes a pro a pro? 10K a year, 100K a year or more? Affiliation with a known pro-organization?

Besides that, I don't really like the elitist smell or attitude. The fun, strength of the Net is also its achillesheel being open for everyone. This includes people that some don't like (and maybe vice versa), various kinds of people also makes it interesting.

How about a flagging system?
You allow the flagging of certain threads , enough flags from different members and the thread shuts down

The selection would be made first by the person supplying some basic information including a real name. A website or submitted work would be required and a minimal quality would need to be established. A fee would be paid. Whether it is called "Pro" or "Membership" or whatever makes no difference. But it does work.

Is the forum really that bad? How about just ignoring the trolls? I had a hard time not getting caught up in it until I found the ignore feature. Only hit that button 2 or 3 times but it cleared out like 10,000 posts that were distracting.

That is truly a good point too. It is also very funny how you clicked it a few times and cleared out that much. Probably could save some bandwidth and storage just by banning a few people

I'm not sure why we would need a fee. It would be nice if we could just ignore the 35mm v MF debates but human nature isn't like that as can be seen in the 14 page recent discussion. How we would decide who is a pro? We wouldn't, Michael would, you would need to upgrade your membership and michael would decide who he figured counting as a working pro and that would be that, it's fairly obvious to be honest. I think there would be more good members here if we had a section that only pros could post in. I don't want this forum going the way of dpreview, it's too valuable.

Again, don't get carried away with the word pro. It is only a matter of meeting a few requirements. And that is enough to keep it "better"

Sounds complicated.
Better for each of us to use the "Ignore" function in our control panel if someone's writings or images are objectionable.

Yes, I think the ignore option would be better.

As for what is pro, and I don't mean to start a discussion on this ;-)

I always thought that a professional photographer was someone that earnt their living or at least the majority of it from the art form.

As soon as you get paid for a job and pay taxes, vat etc...you're doing a professional service. There's a word for people that work partially and it's "partial professional". A partial professional is not the same as an advanced amateur. And an advanced amateur is obviously not an "aficcionado".
In my opinion, an advanced amateur could easily have the same experience and knowledge as a full time working pro.
A closed forum could leave out a lot of knowledge.
But there's other aspects: What about people that work with imaging but not with a camera? Dealer? People working for different companies that aren't actually photographers?

I don't know, not a good idea I think ...

Err, yes that is the definition. I do think that working all day every day with images and working with talented creatives in the field and being constantly judged by these people does lend one a certain extra bit of knowledge on the subject of imagery and the tools used to create it. Not to say that all pros are great, of course not, there are many levels within this category but it does imply a certain level has been reached.

I'm not in favour of a "pro" section with membership requirements. I believe that the Net is a place for learning and exchange. I've also seen sites that have instituted such systems and they have eventually faded away or become elitist and insular.

A pay service is also not of interest to me. My videos are a commercial product which I expect to be paid for, but the site itself is done for its own sake and I wouldn't want to commercialize it.

Michael

Yeah funny how it is that some of the most distracting (too me personally) are the most prolific - a couple of them have like 4 or 5 thousand posts and usually these are excessively verbose posts too - Whoa! Think how much time that is just to write all those posts!


Michael,
I've also gotten a lot out of your forums and website - not just learning but also from the community. It's amazing how this forum brings together people from all around the world.
Thanks!
Eric

I would not like a pro only forum, though honestly I would like more relevant conversation and a lot less of the same questions.

Regardless whatever I want is not relevant as this isn't my house, it's Michael's.

Still, there is a lot of good thought and inspiration that comes from all areas of photography and when you step back and think about it, who is more enthused or even pure about photography than the artist that does it only for the love of the photograph?

It's easy as a professional to get the nose in the air attitude, but honestly even on very large budget projects some of the most inspiring comments or suggestions comes from the "non" creative side of the room. (personally I don't believe there is a non creative side of the room).

Whenever I speak to a school, the first thing I ask is why do you want to be a photographer and what do you want to photograph. Usually when it gets down to the person that says "weddings/portraits" there is a snicker from the other students, but when you think about it, nothing lasts longer than a personal portrait or hopefully a wedding album (well at least 50% of the wedding albums).

We can all brag about seeing our name in print, or our work in times square but in reality those images usually end up in the bottom of the birdcage in 60 days.

It's the photos that hang on walls and in bookshelves that last.


JR

James,

Good points, I do not shot weddings (I promised myself a long time ago that if I considered doing one, I would first go see my Proctologist every day- full exam!, for a whole month).

I respect those that do it and do it well for whatever reason. It's the wannabes and self professed "pros" that I will dis! I have had several offers of shooting a "family gatherings" as I do shoot events, and in disguise was another wedding??? The images and videos were crap from their original "event"! To be honest they got what they paid for, doing that on the skids just to save a few bits of coin for some other useless trivial things?

But I degres, a pro only forum would limit the creative process.

If one does not want to follow a thread, then ignore, there's always crap out there, use your filter and get on with it.

As a distinct amateur, I'd worry that certain threads started by the non-pros wouldn't get the same depth of skill in answers. The segmentation could end up leading to a situation where the non-pro threads are neglected by anyone other than those who do not have the answers. There are plenty of other places where that's what we get. I'd like to think that that would somehow diminish LL in general.

I understand the frustration with some posters, but I'd have to vote against the "pro" section too.

Defining who would be allowed would get difficult, or at best, time consuming. Consider my situation. For a long time, I made my living via "photography," but it involved imaging things from space. Certainly "professional" but probably irrelevent to most commercial photographers. I also do landscape work, but I've sold very little of it, and don't plan to go that route in the near future. Guess that makes me an "amateur," only one who's been doing serious digital imaging longer than the overwhelming majority of "pros."

A lot of my interest in the forum has been in picking up techniques and new ways of attacking the process. A lot of my favorite gleanings have come from the amateurs.

The title of Michael's site contains the word "landscape." Even so, I think most of us have no quarrel at all with the portrait specialists that frequent the group, and who provide a lot of the images in the "recent works" threads, right?

Well it looks to me that things have already improved around here!

Yes it has, though I just saw another post comparing pixels and lenses on a microscopic level, so I found the ignore user control.

What a great feature


JR

This should be fun; i'm getting some popcorn. We're already on page two of another useless-but-contentious thread and it just opened.

Maybe the ignore function is the was to go, I hadn't heard of that before, amazing what you can learn on these forums. Man I'm turning that one on right now.

I'm an amateur. I only sell a few prints, and I don't come close to making a living at it.

I can't stress enough how valuable forums have been for my photography.
But now that I'm moving closer to buying a MFDB, this forum, and GetDPI have become absolutely essential. There just doesn't seem to be another source of good info. The medium format manufacturers are not good at providing info, and the markets too small for the media to give it much coverage.

Clearly for MFDBs, but also for DSLRs, the pros are generally the ones who provide the most info and best advice. I don't have much to offer in return, but I am very appreciative. !:^)

I would like to be able to ask a few questions. I do think I have a certain responsibility to keep my mouth shut about things I know nothing about. The threat of the ignore button can back this up!

Thanks Micheal for the forum and great web site , and the Pros and others who give generously of their knowledge and time. It makes a huge difference for some of us. I'm not sure I'd venture into the MFDB world without it.

Thanks,

Mitchell

Mitchell,

The MFDB reps and dealers are the best and many are here. They really do understand what a major investment it is for us and the support is excellent.

Ask away I am sure no one is going to ignore you. Just start a thread and get it going.

Your probably right and I shouldn't have started that "why bother" thread, other than to make a point about how we can all draw from a world wide viewership to learn and get better.

The thing is it's not that any one person or thought needs to be sensored (pun intended), it's just that most of these comparisions between different brands or formats become exhaustive and rarely prove anything.

I regularly shoot the same projects with different cameras, usually for effect, or useability or maybe just to wake myself up. That's my way of working and doesn't make it better or worse, or good or bad, it's just my way.

Because I own and shoot the Nikons, Canons and Phases and do it in so many different situations I have a pretty good idea of which one works best for the way I shoot under different lighting and subjects.

In fact I could argue both sides and show detailed data to prove that the Canon is better than the Phase, the Phase stomps a 1ds2, the D3 will resolve equally to anything under high iso.

None of it would do anything to improve anyone's photography.

The first rule, the only rule is to get the shot and to do it beautifully and hopefully with some unqiue quality. Anything past that is just tech talk.

There is a story about the Legendary photographer Phillip Dixon http://tinyurl.com/2tf3u and I don't know if it's true or not but I still love this story. Someone told me that years ago on a very large production with a honeywagon, grip trucks, dozens of crew Phillip planted his tripod and a Nikon F3 and took a few frames of the model that was in hair and makeup, turned to the Art Director and said, "we're finished". The story continues that Phillip then left and went home.

Now whether that is true or not I really don't know but I love the thought behind it and doubt if I've ever had the stones to pull it off, (though I've thought about doing it a lot).

Still, if it is true, that is the way photography should work. A great talent shoots a compelling photograph and then stops.

A friend of mine who worked for years with Guy Bourdin http://www.guybourdin.org/ told me that Guy's process of editing a shoot was to go through the film and stop looking once he found the frame he liked, regardless of what was on the next two, three or four dozen rolls.

I also love that thought that he was so sure of what he wanted and could recognize it that it was just a waste of time to keep looking for something else.

There is a lesson here and that is not to waste time. These forums are great for passing time when your batch processing, or just a break from the tedium of digital post, conference calls, or waiting for your flight delayed plane to final get to the boarding stage.

Still, the most important part of these forums is to come away either entertained or informed, hopefully both.

JR

Ian,

You are absolutely right about this in my very limited experience on the forum.
What I meant to say is that it's seems harder to get data from manufacturer or retailer web sites for the Medium Format than DSLR. It makes the forum even more essential for MFDB.

I guess I'm not used to personal service!

Best,

Mitchell

I am against the Pro Forum as well. Since a pro photographer is someone who makes at least 51% of his income from photography I will most likely never become a pro ( LOL ) and I want to be included in the forum.
This is the best place on net where I can still kill some time while proccessing daily hundreds of Raw's into JPGs and justify not shooting JPGs in the first place. OOOPPPs I forgot, I can't shoot JPG's
with MFDB. I would need DSLR. Does anybody know if I can get similar results with MK3 ?
http://AndreNapier.com

And now seriously if you want a pro's only forum on LL it is already in place and it is called Personal Massage. I use it with some members and I always find time to answer another pro.
Pro is someone who makes images instead of mega pixels.
Andre

So right! I am sometimes so envious towards wedding/portrait photographers (some in particular). The way they can capture true emotion and let it show in their imagery can be fantastic. To make images that will be admired and watched still 30 years and more later.

I don't do weddings because I still feel not being able to capture the same kind of emotion in my own images and letting my clients down this way. To me wedding/portrait photography is the true art.

90% of my work is worthless in the next season (which typically doesn't take longer than 3 to 6 months).

James,
These are great anecdotes - thanks for sharing. Filtering is going to be an every increasing problem with digital. Imagine trying to pull one frame from a session where something like the RED video camera was used for example. If one shoots tethered the files are already on the computer - maybe 1000 or more each day. How many do all of you toss out at the end of the day? I'd sure love to have the talent to know which was the 1 keeper and the discipline to dump the rest. Probably in both stories you shared the photographers were great communicators with their clients so knew exactly what was required and got that to the models/staff so all pre shoot set the stage properly.

I've also heard of a LF photog (forgot his name just now) who would take only a handful of plates to a site, traveling perhaps even across continents to get to a location and waiting days or weeks until the right light or weather, then exposing 3 or 4 plates before returning home to develop. If the first plate was good, he'd just trash the others. The funny thing is with digital you really could just make one exposure - and know you have the shot and be done. But who does it?

Eric

When come in the MFDB forum, I will not read a lot of sunday's photographer's texts !

The quality of differents people's work is not proportional with their professional activities...

The "Recent works" topic let see that an abondant work is not the same as a good, or a good tasting work.

And I also know professional photographers who are technicaly primates.

PdF

I TOTALLY AGREE!!!

@Eric,
Don't shoot with the spray and pray method.

There is one thing I always stress in my workshops and that is SHOOT LESS but shoot more.

Meaning, when you slow down your workflow from 400 shots per session to 40 per session you will notice that the ammount of "wow" shots will increase considerably.

One thing that is a negative from digital is that people shoot too much and wonder why the "pro" photographers are getting such stunning results.

The key in this is, composition, posing, light and pressing the shutter at the moment it NEEDS to be shot.
Posing is acting on 1/1000st of a second one my models always say, and she is absolutly right, there is just one moment that is THAT moment.

Another example when a student of mine shoots with the same light, same model, same posing etc. he/she will still get another picture, this is normal because every photographer is unique and sees the "wow" picture in another way, the first thing however they have to learn is take the time to carefully position their model, make their composition and shoot.
Selecting after a shoot is much more easier when you have to select from 40-50 shots instead of from 400.

On anecdotes:
On real pros.

Picasso had an appointment with a very rich gentleman, he wanted a portrait from his wife and wanted to pay whatever Picasso needed.
Picasso came in, looked at the wife and said, wait here for 2 hours.
He came back with the painting and when the customer asked what it would cost hem Picasso replied $10.000,00
The customer paid but looked surprised and told Picasso.
I'm a very rich man, but man you earn alot of money, even I don't make $5.000,00 an hour.
Picasso replied, "Oh you don't pay for the 2 hours work, you pay for the years and years of learning to do this in two hours".

On the subjects of pro/amateurs.
It's not in the money people make, it's in the time someone needs to direct a shoot into the right direction, I know a few photographers who call themselfs pro (and earning money) who without an assistant don't know how to set light or set the camera, and I occasionally see a photographer who calls himself a beginner directing a model and making a stunning shot in 2-3 takes.

Often for me it's not in the money someone makes, but in the way they work.
In this market nowadays having publications says only you have the right contacts (or at least so it is here )

Utterly appalling idea.

Elitist & snobby. I hate this sort of sh** with a passion.

There's nothing wrong with the way this forum is when all's said & done. - Really get over it.

That's a good post, James. I'm beginning to change my opinion of you already .

However, I'm a bit confused about the above part of that post. I've generally considered cameras as tools rather than status symbols. Knowing which lens to use, which aperture to use, which shutter speed to use, which camera to use, is surely all part of the accummulated skills of the photographer that come not only from experience, trial and error, but instruction and learning.

Whilst lighting, composition, fortuitous events (I just happened to be there at the right moment) might be considered more important, I think we need to know the technical merits of different types of equipment.

What we don't need is some imperious, nose-in-the-air attitude, 'MFDB always produces better quality images and if you can't see that, that's your problem.'

It's all very well making general motherhood statement such as, '35mm is lighter, more compact, more flexible, better at high ISOs etc, whereas MFDB produces smoother tonalities, better DR, better detail etc.'. (For brevity, I won't make a full list.) But people need to see the magnitude of such differences. How significant is this greater DR? Does it only apply to landscapes with deep shadow in the foliage? Is it relevant in the studio where DR is perhaps not an issue except in so far as it allows more latitude with exposure?

Let's not forget the plight of poor John at Pebbles Place who sold off his MFDB equipment for a 1Ds3 then realised he'd made a mistake. In financial straights, he couldn't afford to buy the best Canon lenses, so instead used Hassy lenses and blamed Canon for the poor results.

If he'd had some good comparison images to view, between the P25 and 1Ds3 using lenses designed for the 1Ds3, he might not have got into this pickle. (On the other hand, perhaps the reason why he got into that pickle was he'd actually seen some good comparisons which used the best Canon lenses, and he doesn't realise the Hassy lens is not adequate with the smaller format.)

Are we going to change every thread to a 1DsIII thread ??

Use the Power of the Ignore Button. Stop feeding the trolls.

Not referring to you, Frank.

"Personal Massage"? What kind of pro are we talking about?

Jeremy

what is with the "second" world of MFDB users:
I know people they use MFDB for his crime investigation by the police ..
There ar others they use MFDB for restoration dokumentation in a museum ...
I use MFDB as technology to get welding temerature pictures.

Are we also professional ?

Adina

André!





Best regards,
Thierry

No we're not. There were a couple of hundred words in that post, and only 3 of them were 1Ds3, the latest and best 35mm DSLR.

The thrust of the post was about the necessity of accurate information about different systems, different cameras and lenses, so that intelligent photograhers can make informed decisions about which camera/system to use in which circumstances.

What happens when you use the Ignore User feature? Does the browser automatically filter out any posts from that user?

No. It gives you a choice of viewing the post or ignoring it. It seems to be a device to protect you from unsettling experiences which might result from accidentally viewing an idea or expression which is disturbing.

The nearest equivalent I can think of is the fundamentalist Christian motive of wishing to ban all images that are considered to be pornographic. The concept, if you don't like it, don't view it, is not sufficient. They want to make it very difficult to view it, in case they are tempted against their better interests.

I am joining the vast majority here and voting against a pro section here, for the reasons Michael is pointing out (it is his forum), but also because many of the so-called "amateurs", "semi-amateurs/semi-professionals", "advanced amateurs", etc .... here are often bringing a lot of knowledge, practical or theoretical.

Further, it has been proven that the vast majority of the active members are well-intentioned and do react when a thread gets out of its purpose, which is to inform and share knowledge. I find this to function very well, most of the time.

Thierry

Yes.


I heartily recomend the use of it

Oh god, here we go, I need to find how to use the ignore function right now.

Just click on the name of the user and choose "ignore user".

What I would rather have (and let me know if it already exists) is an ignore thread feature.

Edit: Not a commentary on THIS thread.