Imagine I were to land a big grant to do a documentary project (it's not that far-fetched). I get to hire half a dozen photographers for a year to do nothing but go out in the world and shoot—work hard on whatever projects grab their interest, wherever they want to go, with good pay and logistical support—company vehicle, an archivist/IT assistant back at headquarters, etc.
And you're one of the shooters.
There's only one catch. We have to use the cameras donated by various companies that are helping to support the project.
So you and the other five photographers arrive for initiation day and we have a bunch of two-body, three-lens kits waiting from various manufacturers. A D7000 kit, an E-5 kit, a K-5 kit, a 7D kit, and so on. (Since this is imaginary, we're even going to imagine there are two of whatever camera Sony will eventually replace the A700 with, too. Or is that just too outlandishly implausible to imagine? Snark, snark.) And to make matters fair and keep them simple, we draw names out of a hat as to who gets what.
Could you deal with that?
Of course you could. I mean of course you would. Any photographer would, and could. That's my guess, anyway. Each photographer would finish their year of shooting madly with two or three things about their camera they'd initially disliked but figured out how to work around and eventually got used to, three or four things they love about it, and maybe some stealth feature they didn't discover until two months into the project that they now feel they will now no longer be able to live without.
And you know what else? No matter what camera you drew in the lottery, you'd love it at the end of the year. Know why? Because craftsmen learn to love the tools they use the most. It's working with a camera that makes you like it, not picking just the right one to begin with. Whichever camera you drew from the hat, you'd remember fondly all your life.
I'm just sayin'.
Mike Johnston
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