at times I need a class in anger management
Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 01:28PM 
My angry cat out in backyard • click to embiggenIf you have been following The Landscapist or my comments on other forums over the years, you probably know that photo equipment freaks and their inevitable rantings about 'the best' stuff bores me to tears. On occasion, it makes me mad.
One such occasion has (collectively) been happening over the past few days - dating from late Tuesday evening, in fact. That was the evening of the invitation-only launch of the new Olympus E-3 dslr, the pro 'flagship' of the Oly 'E'-line of dslrs. Since I am an Oly man (digital-wise), I have more than a passing interest in the new model for its 'pro' features, most importantly its ability to sync with studio flash equipment. That is something that is important to me in my professional life, photography-wise.
In any event, I (not unlike a lot of others) have been searching around for any solid info I can find. This has landed me on a number of forums which have turned out to be mostly dead ends, primarily because, instead of having any useful info, they are mainly exchanges along the lines of; "Olys ... 4/3rds format ... are crap ... etc." - this most often from Canon freaks with a few Nikon guys here and there (none of whom seem to have actually used an Oly).
These swell statements are met mostly with pithy retorts along the lines of; "Oh yeah! Well, you Canon guys are nothing but a bunch of crap-eating freaks .... etc." It goes without saying that all of the pro/con rants are about equipment and absolutely nothing about pictures. And, please note that I have used the word 'guys' because, unless there are some testosterone-laden chicks hiding behind forum user names, it all seems like some gigantic penile pissing party.
It's enough to drive you mad (both angry and insane).
If I could, I'd sic my angry cat on the whole lot of them.
Reader Comments (4)
The little figure in your photo reminds me of my dog Tiny: small, mean, and ugly. I like it.
On your post topic: the fanboys are why I don't waste time at the forums. It's time better spent taking photos with my noisy-at-ISO-1600, last-year model, non-state-of-the-art camera. When I'm ready for a new one, I'll try some out.
Oh yeah?!? Well someday someone's gonna make a digital back for my Holga and I'm gonna whip ALL your asses!
So, um, there.
Isn't it really a distinction between photographers and camera fetishists ? You are interested in info about how these new cameras take photos, while most of the forums are interested in info about the cameras themselves, which are quite starkly different things.
Gearheads...usually spend more time waxing poetic over mega pixels and auto-focus as opposed to actually taking pictures any of us would want to look at, let alone praise.
I agree with Robert, stay away from the forums.
p.s. I love my OM-2