Put marketing in prison (and quickly)

[Shadowman]

I can relate to this story -- I have a very good friend around here and her pictures were most touted at very, very good by friends at our car club so she was made official photographer. One day I went to her place because she said she finally had time to use her studio down their basement. I found out that she has never advanced beyond "Auto" everything. She one of the very first one that bought a D810, the very first one that bought a 35" 4K monitor screen, first everything to buy...name it here, she has it. So in short it is not only tourists who has a $5K+ camera/equipment that operates in auto-everything. I am still woo-ing her to give her old cameras to charity ... It is sad -- I really feel sorry for her. She has all these money to spend as she wants on equipment but she doesn't have time to learn her camera. So I do not open any conversation on cameras with her anymore...and she got this little cute Bichon Frise as her constant model...

Reminds me of an accounting professor who was also president of the accounting society who told a freshman class that when he was a student he never opened a book. Nice motivation for future accountants; which most of us took with a grain of salt.

[NorthernFocus]

Nothing wrong with a $30 tripod....

Context, Boab, context...

...It's back to that thing about being able to operate all the functions of your camera with a cloth over it so that you can't see any of the controls...

This touches on a pet peeve of mine. In regards to marketing this is an area where Nikon just doesn't get it. One would think that their panacea would be customers who purchase multiple (of their) cameras. And the people most likely to do that are professionals who also buy the higher end models and want/need consistency between them. And yet, each and every model that they release has different controls. Perhaps only minor differences but enough to make it very frustrating if you shoot more than one camera body

Another pet peeve is their designing bodies with dual memory card slots that take two different cards. And don't even get me started on batteries....

In the above, it seems the marketing department doesn't have enough input to design in the first example and has too much in the second. In the recent D500 advertising they even tout benefits of the design with two different cards. Paraphrasing, they say if you're not ready to switch to XQD cards yet you can keep using your old SD cards. Really? Do they even understand the benefit of dual cards?

[Donald]

This touches on a pet peeve of mine. In regards to marketing this is an area where Nikon just doesn't get it. ... And yet, each and every model that they release has different controls. Perhaps only minor differences but enough to make it very frustrating if you shoot more than one camera body

Perhaps Canon is better at this, I don't know. I shoot with a 5DS and a 7DMkII. Now, they are two very different cameras that have two different purposes in life. However, I've found there is enough commonality for intimater knowledge of one to transfer readily to the other.

That being said, there are one or two differences in controls (that are not the main differences, which are understood and totally accepted because they are different beasts doing different jobs), that do lead you to ask 'Why?'

You've just got to keep reminding yourself which one you're shooting with at any given time.

[flashback]

I think for starters there is an entirely different group of professionals who write manuals, whereas 'marketers' are tasked with pushing the merchandise. Have to admit I hardly ever see tv ads for cameras (outside of smart phones.)

As for people who buy a product and have no real idea of how to use it, I bet a high percentage of 'drivers' who own a Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari or Lamborghini are closer to death every time they take their vehicle out on the road simply because they have no idea how to drive such high end performance cars. Most certainly true for many people who own 4x4 (SUV) vehicles. Many a winter day we basically go from one 4x4 off-the-road/into-a-tree/into-another-vehicle/into-a-building accident to another (seems people equate four-wheel *drive* with four-wheel *stop*).

So who really cares if *marketers* are pushing products to people who can't use them and have no need for them, or *manual writers* who likely know less about what they write than do the people who read what they write. It's the wonder of capitalism.

[Shadowman]

I think for starters there is an entirely different group of professionals who write manuals, whereas 'marketers' are tasked with pushing the merchandise. Have to admit I hardly ever see tv ads for cameras (outside of smart phones.)

As for people who buy a product and have no real idea of how to use it, I bet a high percentage of 'drivers' who own a Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari or Lamborghini are closer to death every time they take their vehicle out on the road simply because they have no idea how to drive such high end performance cars. Most certainly true for many people who own 4x4 (SUV) vehicles. Many a winter day we basically go from one 4x4 off-the-road/into-a-tree/into-another-vehicle/into-a-building accident to another (seems people equate four-wheel *drive* with four-wheel *stop*).

So who really cares if *marketers* are pushing products to people who can't use them and have no need for them, or *manual writers* who likely know less about what they write than do the people who read what they write. It's the wonder of capitalism. The ads do however display accessories which come with the camera and I'm sure camera cases, extra batteries, and extra lenses appeal to most buyers.

There were a few annoying ads a few years ago starring Ashton Kutcher, but I believe this was targeting P & S. Typically, you'll see product placements in movies, also some movies have been marketing based on the fact they were filmed with a DSLR. The manufacturers website is the best place for more in-depth marketing and capability features. I have often wondered how any camera gets sold through local newspapers, the ads display very few features that most photographers are interested in; except for fps and possibly ISO capabilities.

[drjuice]

I have a Sony alpha700 for serious photography and an Nexus5 for a cell phone. Perhaps the uses to which I have put the marketing squads' efforts will help in understanding why they're necessary and what their job is as well as why it's different from learning photography. I'm in the midst of preparing to put up a photo show at a local cancer center. Reading this discussion just proves to me that nothing has changed on CiC since I had to back away while being medically challenged a couple years back. Two things I've learned while mixing my cameras' output for the photo show.

(a) the most important thing I did was learn each of the camera's functionalities separately, no switching between devices while I was learning. Learning the functionalities by working my way (separately) through the two sets of documentation (from the marketing squads) made it possible for me learn to do lots of things on the fly. For example, a set of pictures of succulents which are plants that don't require much, if any, water, and consequently don't have foliage that's as distinctively different as the second set of images, I took with the Nexus. But, another set that are roses and similar water gobblers gave me tighter control on the DoF so that I could have an entire flower in focus and the foliage associated with it out of focus but still appropriately visible more effectively with the alpha 700 rather than the Nexus 5.

But, I learned how to manipulate the DoF on my first 35mm camera, a fixed lens Mamiya SLR bought in 1963, which stood me in good stead when the Minolta Maxxums came out in the 1970s. And, that skill didn't go away when I switched to the Maxxums (of which I had two so that I could travel with a B/W system and a Kodachrome or Ektachrome system at the same time). Taking pictures in the upper midwest US with those systems was pretty good and I was very pleased with the results. I went with Sony when I bought the alpha700 because I could bring my lenses along and I'd have all my favorite lenses with the new camera. And, since it's digital, I didn't need separate B/W and color devices.

(b) The second thing I did was learn to process my images separately, but using the same software. This had the great advantage that I learned to get rid of artifacts that are a consequence of a particular device so that two pictures of the same people/objects come out essentially the same because I know the settings to vary and how to vary them for the differences between images coming from the different cameras.

Finally, my long-time go-to photo gear store closed a few months ago, so now I'm considering how to go for my next camera purchase. But, my decision won't be hard because I can find the material I want online with the manufacturers' websites and do most of my learning before I even fondle a different camera from the ones I'm already familiar with. I'm also comfortable that my learning curve for a new camera will now be WAY shorter and lower than it was learning about my two current models. I was very pleased to find, just this week, a local photo gear store that actually has replacement InfoLithium M batteries for my alpha 700 in stock.

I'm jes' sayin', "Don't kill or imprison the marketing squad, they need to make a living too."

virginia