If it is pleasurable, why is kitsch considered worthless?

I have been contemplating buying a real camera for years, but never managed to figure out which camera and which lense to get.

/p/ always discourages me further, with their very mean comments, gate keeping, recommendations of only cameras that are not in production anymore, etc

Why are you people like this ?

He starts his day with his beautiful photographic tool, prepared the night before in hopeful anticipation of a day full of visual wonder. Every lens, camera, and sometimes film, combination explored in his mind for the plethora of scenic possibilities that may confront him during the day at hand. He awakes, proudly slinging his camera du jour, venturing to a local café where he may map out his “photo walk”.

Reality sinks in with each sip of his oat milk latte. For months, even years now, he has attempted to capture beautiful, fleeting and increasingly disappearing moments, of a world growing uglier by the day, for a narcissistic audience growing more jaded, self-absorbed and increasingly negative. His images must compete with a digital bombardment of auditory, textual and video excess: algorithmically perfected to a new golden ratio of 1/3 talking-head to 2/3 rage-inducing stimuli. What right does he have to add another speck of white noise to the swarm?

He sighs and takes out his iPhone 17 Pro, carefully composing a tableaux of his static, unused camera with the Leica-red coffee mug, which is sadly one of the reasons why he frequents this cafe. With a click of the iPhone’s screen, 15 raw images are captured instantaneously, stacking them to maximize dynamic range, remove noise, enhance details, followed by the processor’s detection of the subject, auto-masking and then blur effect to simulate “bokeh” and finally a pleasing film-like color science filter is overlaid.

Which camera bag do you currently own?

Does anything currently compete with the McKinnon Sling in terms of price+quality+features? Trying to find one of a similar size that will be comfortable enough for moving around.

It is time.

Snoybob Edition

Old thread autosaged. Dumb questions go here.

I'm looking for my first real camera. I had no idea where to start so I had a look at the image properties of my wedding pictures (which I though were pretty great) to know what camera the photographer used.

Turns out he used NIKON D3100

Would this be a good choice for a first camera?

is this set a good choice for my first camera? Is this type of lense multipurpose? since initially I will only have one lense

The pursuit of being in the right place at the right time to capture the perfect sky no longer holds its former value when that very sky can be synthesized from colored pixels. When a dramatic reddish dawn or an approaching thunderstorm is conjured with a few strokes in Photoshop, or when a telephone receiver in a model’s hand is seamlessly swapped for a sneaker using Adobe Firefly with context-aware lighting adjustments, the photograph was, at best, merely raw material.

Even the need for initial raw material is obsolete, as AI can generate sophisticated images entirely ex nihilo.

Even the tangible, physical nature of the print offers no reliable refuge: A picture developed on photographic paper from a negative, held in the viewer's hand, might still originate from a digitally generated negative, or the photographer might have used analog means to re-photograph a digitally produced and printed image.

In sharp contrast, painting remains a sanctuary of authenticity. Within a painting, the physical labor and the direct interaction of the artist with paint on a substrate are inherently stored and visible. The viewer holding a painted image recognizes the unique signature, the texture of the applied color, and the clear intentionality of the human creator behind it.

While robots can wield a paintbrush, they cannot yet fully simulate the human touch. The immediate, non-reproducible trace of the human creator in the finished work remains the key differentiator. Traditional, handcrafted creation is reclaiming its significance.

This shift in perception is already evident at art fairs which do not show specifically photographs: Visitors often walk past photographs but pause thoughtfully before paintings. In art, people are not seeking the perfect illusion; they are seeking the visible, verifiable, and therefore authentic trace of another human being.

New color film!!!
lucky 200 has finally dropped.
Anybody shot it yet? waiting for my order to arrive.