The De-Evolutionary Ladder

I ended up working in Orange Beach today, working from The Stargazer.  It's my thinking spot.

The Wharf Marina was all a-buzz with activity, cleaners and various maintenance people running about.  In prep for great weather and the upcoming boat show..

I found it rather amusing as I took my dingy, by dock cart, to the car, a guy, presumably a boat-service worker of some fashion, sat near the dock burning a bowl-pipe of  weed.  

Right out in the open, for all to see. I admire the moxy but question the judgement...

Speaking of...judgement.. have you ever noticed that the internet is all full of adults acting like bickering grade-schoolers?  Nothing has underlined this more than the events surrounding my decision to invest in a full-frame DSLR.

I started out in research mode.   Considering the D4, D3x, D800, D700, Canon 5DMk2 and the 5Dmk3.

The forums and posts and blogs about these very different cameras are filled with slews of people being rude to one-another.  Paraphrased...

"36 megapixels is too much for anyone.  Only 4 frames per second???? Like GOSH! That's terri-bad, I'll take a D4 any day!!"

"16.2 Megapixels for a D4??!   In my day we shot with a VGA CMOS, up hill - in the snow -- and LIKED IT, I say!"

"D4?  Pukesville man.   Canon totally roxors and you Nikon people are smelly ape-beings for liking that junktastic weaksauce."

.....

Amazing how every discussion about the strengths of one camera would always turn very one sided.    Some know-it-all would jump in with absolutisms like "You CAN'T be a serious sports-wedding-bowling-league-hotdog-eating-contest photographer without a 6 fps body, $12k in lenses and 6 alien bees." or "Only 16 megapixels...  GOSH!  My Windows Phone has a better camera than that and has instagram!!  I needz 128 megapixels for squirrel portraits or for photos collected around the nation of biblical figures' faces occurring in random objects for my upcoming photoblog "Jesus Toast."

Amidst my work-day today, it occurred to me. "Oh yeah, my D800 preorder had a shipping date for today, I'll check that.."   The check let me to NikonRumors.com, this post:  http://nikonrumors.com/2012/03/19/nikon-d800-to-start-shipping-this-week.aspx/

I like that site and respect it as a journalistic source but the comment threads show more schoolyard numbskulls..

Droves and droves of, 

"OMG, LOL I just about peed my pants with excitement waiting for this camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

to the pouty-pants posters:

"Grumble Grumble.  Frowny Face.   There's no way I'm getting the camera tomorrow.      If amazon doesn't deliver tomorrow,  I'm canceling my order!!!!  That'll show em''' those... evil ... japanese capitalists, HA!!"

Sure.. getting new gear is exciting.  Learning and using new gear is even more exciting.  But, do we all have to turn into pre-adolescent weenies in the wake of, or anticipation of, a product release?

If you create mental images of the people behind the keyboards, typing the things we read..  when I read these comments I see little Bobby Baker, in the lunchroom, shooting spitballs as little Suzie Richards.  Suzie acuses
Bobby of having cooties and Bobby calls her something witty like "Puke face."

...and I just.. can't for the life of me...  Envision Bobby and Suzie as career-level pro-or-semi-pro's with the expendable income to support a $4k+ camera setup.

..they must have been skimming off their lunch money for a long time..