Recently I've been discussing photography clubs/groups/etc and some of the "people" it attracts with another friend, and while we have slightly different angles and takes on the matter, it turns out we are both correct. The more I think back I at one point in time did fit the mold of one of the types of Photography snobs and therefore was a little hypocritical in my "Fight to save APS-C from being erased".
There are several different types of photography snobs: The Gear Snob, The "Only Film" Snob, the Composition Snob and the "I don't tell my "secrets" to anyone!" Snob.
The Gear Snob is by far the most common and the one I have struggled with the most. So this is what I will focus on for this post. I may someday post about the other types of Photography snobs another day, but I have more then enough for a wall of text just about the subject of Gear Snobbery. There are multiple types of gear snobs but I am going to focus on three.
The first is someone who buys into Photography with the sole purpose of using this hobby as a status symbol to flaunt their wealth. We will refer to them as "Gear Chasers" going forward. This is the one I have strongly had issues with and turned me off about photography ever since I started more then once, as well as gave me a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions about anyone who can afford/shoot with high end gear which ironically put me in another type of less common gear snob which I will get into in the last part of this post.
These high-end gear chasers are very detrimental to photography. They will openly go after anyone with lower-end gear and try to convince them that they need to deplete their life savings to buy a camera kit that costs more then their car or else they are just a lowly pleb and noob and their photography is never going to be any good. They will also belittle people for being "too poor to afford Good Equipment" (See Status Symbol).
Additionally, a lot of these gear chaser snobs actually don't get that great of shots, especially when you match them against a Veteran Hobby photographer who has decades of experience. A Gear Chaser's solution to "getting better photos" is simply to throw more money at equipment which doesn't do as much as you think. A veteran hobbyist photographer with a 15 year old DSLR and cheap 50mm lens will get better shots an un-expereinced gear snob with a $5000 body and $3000 lens. Every. Single. Time. Experience over equipment.
Gear Chasers are often the reasons that camera companies can and will push Full Frame cameras at every chance they get; because there's a huge pool of gear snobs that think the only way to be good at photography is to have an expensive full frame camera. So camera MFG are a bit predatory on this concept and sadly it works.
Fuji and Micro 43rds shooters know a deeper truth to the "Full Frame is God" myth but honestly, this is only one part of Gear Chasing (I could easily write up an entire article about the FF vs Crop battle which I might do at some point.)
Gear Chasers are often the first type of
Photography snob you will likely run into and likely will be the first
to leave a bad taste in your mouth about other photographers.
To new photographers they are very influential in getting them to spend thousands of dollars more then they have to for getting into photography and "have the right equipment to Get Good!" which I have seen happen numerous times.
The next type of gear snob is the "Brand Loyalist". This person shares a lot of similarities of a gear chaser and very often the same people who are Gear Chasers are also Brand Loyalists.
This type of snob will look down on anyone who doesn't shoot the same brand as them, and its sadly the most common in the Canon and Nikon shooters (a "debate" which has gone far beyond absurd for decades).
In their mind the only "Valid" photographers are those who shoot the same camera brand as them. Some Brand Loyalists will be a little more receptive of new photographers with Entry Level gear then Gear Chasers so long as that entry level gear is on their brand of choice.
This type of snob is very elitist and often scares away others; and while I have personally ran into more "you need to spend X and be Full Frame to be Good!" there are plenty of other photographers in my circle who state they have been bashed by Brand Loyalists (IE Canon/Nikon/Sony/Etc Sux) the most often especially when they run into one of a "Rival" brand.
Then the last type of gear snob is, I hate to say it, the "Budget or DigiCam Snob". This is the category is the one that I once fell into and am trying my hardest to not fall back into.
DigiCam Snobs are often created as the byproduct of interaction with one of the other two aforementioned types of gear snobs and find themselves as the "Defenders of Real Hobby Photography" and "The Underdogs". A lot of M43 or Fuji APS-C die-hard shooters will fall here.
This is the type of camera snob I have personal experience with. After being bombarded by both Gear Chasers and Camera MFG bombarding me with "You need to get Full Frame good gear to be good!" early on I started to fall into a crusade of finding reasons that APS-C was actually BETTER then full frame to fire back and would even at times go after gear chasers to laugh and ridicule them for wasting money.
This was what got me down the path of collecting Digicams which has become my biggest hobby, and I touched on this concept a bit in a previous post. If you read my "Digi-Cam Reflections" post (which for the record, was
solely my own personal opinions) you can probably pick up a little bit
of this "Looking down on Gear Chasers" I speak of.
However, DigiCam snobs can be very Hypocritical. In their mind the best camera you can use is the cheapest you can find that can take decent photos with. While there's merit to this it can lead to a mentality where they will label anyone with equipment more valuable then what they shoot as a "Gear Chaser" and this is where the ugly side of things comes into play.
It can get to the point where "I can't be friends with someone who shoots a camera kit they spent more then $1000 on!" because of the stereotypes that get ingrained into our head that gear chasers are bad and detrimental to the hobby; and we often blame them for a lack of entry level APS-C cameras being made ETC. It's a rabbit hole that I was down for years and am only starting to claw my way out of.
There are still plenty of times that seeing someone on the street with a high-end camera and lens (especially if they have multiple of them on) provokes a feeling of unease and makes me shake my head and want to avoid that person. Call it an ingrained DigiCam instinct?
This said, what really helped me get out of this void was making some good friends with people who do shoot High End equipment but are not pushy to others or jerks about it. Said friends may have better income then me, may not be a homeowner (Its something I do not recommend to everyone...) or have as much debt as I do and they can both afford and shoot "nicer things". At the same time they don't rely on having a "Nice Camera" as a crutch either. I can respect this, and start to draw the line between what a gear chaser is and what a gear chaser is not.
I will always be a defender of the Underdogs when it comes to photography, especially with used equipment and sensor formats that are not "Full Frame". However over the past few years I have relented that yes, shooting Full Frame is a perfectly Valid choice and preference to have. If I had a bigger camera budget, I would still buy more unique and underrated DigiCams instead of investing it in "The Best equipment money can buy!".
I've been collecting "DigiCams" and other "Underdog" cameras long enough that I could easily sell my entire camera collection and have enough to buy One modern Flagship Full Frame camera and 2-3 high end lenses for it; but that wouldn't be for me. I have a very niche hobby within photography in that regard
A lot of photographers feel more comfortable with the "eggs in one basket" approach and I get it. Not everyone enjoys all the whacky differences between cameras that I do. They want to have the same camera same lens same everything so they can quickly pick up their camera and get the results they want and expect.
To sum this whole post up the true moral of this post is twofold: First don't let anyone belittle you for what brand, sensor format, age of camera or overall budget you have for Photography. Whether you have a 20 year old APS-C DSLR and a kit lens you found at a pawn store for $50 or a latest greatest Full Frame Camera system that you invested $10,000 into go out and have fun with it. Learn your camera. Learn composition. Learn Photography.
Secondly, let other photographers enjoy what they have. Don't go after another hobby photographer simply because they have a different brand of camera then what you enjoy shooting or they have a different budget then you do. Instead just enjoy that you met another person who shares the same passion as you do for taking photos regardless of what camera he/she/they shoot.
Some people will use Photography as a status symbol but it doesn't apply to everyone, and I know that truth can be a hard pill to swallow.
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