Three Kings Monument
Chiang Mai city hall with umbrella decos
This one was shot in Chiang Mai province of Thailand, I was escaping my self away from the flood in Bangkok. First, I went to Kanchanaburi province of Thailand and stayed at a hotel there for about 4 days. After Kanchanaburi, we went to Nakhonpathom and spent there 3 days. But it was still not getting any better in Bangkok, and we decided to fly over to Chiang Mai, spent there 5 days and temporarily went back to Bangkok. But as soon as we got back to Bangkok on Nov 8th, we realized it was even worse than before, and looked like getting even worse....... So we flew back to Chiang Mai and spent there another week. I really miss Thailand these days. Really missing the calm weather of Thailand these days. Thailand is a great country with lots of beautiful smiles! So are so-called pro reviewers the worst kind of perpetuators in camera world? First, we have to define what is pro camera for most ? But is there really such a thing as pro camera? I remember Marissa Mayer of Yahoo,who introduced the current style of Flick two years ago once said: "there is no such thing as professional photographer." I don't actually agree with her, but the opinion out there that shared by many influential, powerful people like her and others can be very influential and strongly affect or even change the courses of thinking or opinion making process of many people. In the photography world, the CEO of the company that owns Flickr is a person whose opinions really have that kind of power, whose opinions can influence many many people, as I said that can or may change opinions of many many people. So we like her opinion or not, it is very very strongly influential. There was the always interesting anecdote from one of those few former CEO's of Phase One, I did not know if it was true or not, though : once we asked Phase people who actually were buying their real high-end cameras? Phase answered was shocking to some,"CEO's of small companies and Dentists." Not so-called "professionals" are usual their customers, but more well heeled guys. I found it extremely interesting, but it may be true. When I asked a few of our main pro customers who mostly shoot architectures about their opinions on the above Phase anecdote, they replied to us,"well, it may be true,we sometimes used Phase One Backs but we never bought them but just rented their amazing products when we actually needed that kind of resolution,we do not consider ourselves professionals, though." Very interesting, indeed. I'd be willing to bet serious money that an overwhelming majority of A7R2, D810s and 5Ds camera users are just well heeled guys or girls, not shooting anything their "main" income-generating works. I'd put money somewhere around the 80% to 85% of those high end FF users are amatures or part time pros, or just geeks like us. "Professional" (like "prosumer" or "enthusiast") is a marketing word, anyway. When someone from Nikon or Canon or any major camera company tells you that the new D5XS mark 4 is a true "professional" camera, they aren't saying anything meaningful about the camera itself. They're making an advertising pitch to your ego or pride. Since, right now, most actually "professional" using camera in the Nikon lineup might be the cheap but excellent D5500. Or may even be the refubished D3300? But its AF is primitive! It's plastic! It's not weather sealed! Who cares: the D3300's most "professional" feature is the tiny investment for the amazing IQ it stacks against any profit. Real professionals are stingy people and care about money spent on camera gear much more seriously than well heeled amatures or part time professionals. The D3300 is better than the D300s from 2009 in almost every way,and some even consider it a better camera than the D700 and there are very few clients who wouldn't be thrilled by what comes out of a D700 shot with skill and vision. So in terms of sheer IQ, the D5500 can be considered as a pro camera. I have many PRO customers shooting a EOS70D or a Nikon D5500 or a D7200 and many of them use a D3300 as a back-up. Not all pros or serious amatures need super fast AF or 4k video, and I think if they need serious 4k, they buy a dedicated 4k pro camera that can record much longer than 29 minutes a session anyway. It is actually cheaper than buying a half-baked 4k camera like the A7R2 or the GH4 in the long run. So who needs commercial reviewers brainwashing us what they actually want to sell is the best camera or the actual best selling camera ? Second, some die-hard D-SLR loving reviewers always describe the A7X menu system as "inane" or confusing, but which camera has more organized menu system? I've never understood anyone's criticism of camera menu systems. Because every camera's menu is the same, not exactly the same but identically disorganized. They're categorized lists with nested options. None of them are truly optimized for speed, they all bury (different) critical options, they all require a little practice to build familiarity. That's why they love Canon or Nikon menu system better, and they do get confused just being more familiar to them with better for all. But I personally prefer the A7X menu better since it is more customizable, and actually I am more used to it than anything else now. Controlling a camera with a menu is a stupid concept. It was a lazy, terrible idea in 1993 and it remains quite silly and terrible in 2015. Many many many so-called reviewers are really really confused and forcing us to share the really silly "one menu system is more intuitive than the others" kinda concept. But again, what they actually saying is they are more used to the one system than the other systems' menu lay-out or just they are too obtuse to understand anything a bit different than what they are used to using. I guess most of so-called reviewers do not know cameras they think they are testing enough to test it and publish rushed-out reviews, so they never understand how to set up the Sony A7X or even how to shoot it well. If they do understand it, then they should know it is quite customizable and it is less menu-driven than the Canon 5DS or the Nikon D810. The A7X has 4 dials and you can actually change shutter speed, F number, EV value and ISO without diving into the menu.If they have to dive into the deep menu system all the time, then they do not understand how to set it up or customize the buttons ans the dials of the Sony, and without even understand it properly they rush to pan the menu system hard. So what do you expect from so-called reviews? Third,SONY SONY SONY!!! why are they worshiping for the Sony,especially for the A7R2 and the A7S2 all the time and keep releasing so-called hands-on or reviews every other day ? Well be realistic! Most of die-hard high end Nikon or Canon boys and girls are fanatics and difficult to influence or change; as camera sales swirl down the toilet bowl, so does any review site's readership. Writing about or recommending two-year-old cameras or very old fashioned, 1950th minded big conventional cameras that many of their readers already own doesn't sell anything from their affiliates website. It's that simple. When did you actually read any review of any camera last time? a decade ago? Have you ever expected any so-called review pan or even mildly criticize any camera? Do you actually trust any so-called review? I think all your answer should be no to all the 3 questions above. They never criticize as I said, even completely lazy, behind-the-curve products like the Fuji X-M1(only 16mp dated sensor), the Canon 7D(remember that terrible banding machine?), the Sony A58 (worst ergonomics in camera world)and the Nikon D3200(truly just announced to be already dated kind of junk) all got decent scores. No so-called reviewers actually pan anything they review, and definitely never say "we hated this product X or Y", or anything like that because their affiliate will stop feeding them if they actually do that. Meanwhile, actual users of cameras, hate various cameras and lenses all the time. Well, they can't all be unreasonable,obtuse cranks. Then why the views or opinions of real camera users and so-called reviewers are so dramatically different? Well it is easy all review sites are affiliated with several big online camera sellers, such as Amazon, Adorama, B&H,etc in the USA, Digital Rev, Rakuten, Amazon,etc in Asia. So they cannot do real test such as using cameras in a humid Thailand jungle or testing it in an Icelandic mountain, or anything like that. They do not even test cameras with Capture One since Adobe is a big sponsor of those junk camera review sites, but most of us who tether cameras or shoot studio portrait prefer Capture One pro to the cranky slow unreliable LR for tethering work. Well after all, those commercial reviewers never buy any camera with their own money, so they do not get up-set or irritated even if a camera they are reviewing now is a real crap. We real camera users, on the other hand, actually spend our own money to buy our cameras, so we always complain if they are craps, of course. Four, all so-called reviewers usually love the latest and greatest like the Sony A7R2 or theA7S2 or something very gadgetry like the Panasonic GH4 or the Samsung NX1, but none of them actually like Leica or Phase,why? Well easy, they do not sell well, I mean how many more Leicas will sell if those reviews seriously recommend Leica in their silly so-called reviews? None, since we who like Leica cameras already know why we do love their cameras and we do not need any moron in disguise of a pro(oh well)reviewer to tell us about how good or amazing it is. As for Phase, it is not their area, they do not understand that kind of real high quality products anyway, what kind of high end commercial photographers whose main cameras are some sort of Phase One or even Mamiya will be interested in moronic reviews' opinion on Phase cameras ? No one. Can those so-called reviewers from commercial sites possibly some how change opinion of the actual Phase users? never. Well, so-called reviewers are professionals but not photographic pros, they are marketing pros whose main interest is cheating manipulating naive new camera buyers. All so-called reviews are just poorly designed marketing materials and nothing else, so they just recommend something they can sell with high-margin. Then, why are almost all so-called pro reviewers recommending Sony, pushing Sony A7R2 so hard to any one reading them now? Well it is very simple, because it is what their affiliate want to sell and easier to sell because of the user base of that camera is not very narrow-minded like the core user base of the D810 or the 5DS. The potential high-end Sony owners the only kind of high-end camera users that may be willing to listen to so-called reviewers, thus the reviewers think they may be able to manipulate them into buying more of their affiliate pushing products. So they naturally focus on these Sony high-end, high-margin products. And anyway: why shouldn't a high-end camera from 2015 outperform a high-end camera from 2012 ? It should. But the sad reality is that the latest gear does not outperform the 2012 camera. The actual(in practical sense )performance is the same or almost identical, no dramatic improvement has made in the sensor design since 2012(the D800E). The D810 is better than the D800E only at the very base ISO albeit the slower exposure time due to the ISO64 vs the SIO100 base sensitivity difference . The A7R2 is only better than the D800E in video department and at very high ISO for a lot more money. But commercial review sites cannot say it honestly, how can they? if they say it then they cannot sell anything new any more. I just used the Sony A7R2 and the D810 as typical example cases for the kind of products so-called review sites want to hard push to the naive readers, but I know they are actually quite fantastic products, just not as amazing or dramatic game-changers as those silly commercial camera review sites try to make them out to be. But they are good indeed. Just do not listen to the hype too much that just obviously follows the money.