Sin of having a big camera!

Hi all.

I read on another forum that when the person with a large DSLR was asked by someone with a compact " why he used such a big and expensive camera?"

He replied " these produce a lot less radiation then the compact ones do" he said the look on the mans face was a picture he wish he had taken.:)
 
I went to the Arundel Festival last Monday as two of my nieces were performing in the Festival choir, a group of youngsters aged from 5 to 18 performing for the first time with a live backing band and in front of their parents.

I have never done this before so was a bit nervous, but I needn't have worried, quite a few parents were sporting DSLR's and the press were there as well.

Nobody made any comment about camera's,we all had a good time and I got some good pics as I was sat on the ground about 15 feet in front of the stage.

This is one pic from the day taken with a Canon 350D and EFS 55-250mm

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/gallery/data/6126/29-Aug-002_191.jpg


John
 
akcron said:
I read on another forum that when the person with a large DSLR was asked by someone with a compact " why he used such a big and expensive camera?"

He replied " these produce a lot less radiation then the compact ones do" he said the look on the mans face was a picture he wish he had taken.:)
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:lol:

I'm using that one next time someone asks me why I shoot film :D
 
Strappy said:
Most likely because they were wondering whether you were on your way home from a burglary. I was once stopped while moving house because it was 2am, my car was registered to my old address 150 miles away and it was packed full of stuff. Quick chat with the police confirmed that it was my car and they apologised for stopping me and wished me luck with the rest of the move.
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It really is a sad state of affairs when the police have an attitude of "guilty until proven innocent".
 
boliston said:
It really is a sad state of affairs when the police have an attitude of "guilty until proven innocent".
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Calm down, it's reasonable to suggest if they see something they consider suspicious they'll investigate. How else do you prevent crimes..
 
boliston said:
It really is a sad state of affairs when the police have an attitude of "guilty until proven innocent".
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Really? I thought it was pretty good policing, nice to see them being proactive in checking me out and they were perfectly civil about it.

I've been burgled twice (in different places) and I'd have been very happy if the police had stopped the guys who walked off with my EOS100 (yes, it was that long ago).
 
neil_g said:
Calm down, it's reasonable to suggest if they see something they consider suspicious they'll investigate. How else do you prevent crimes..
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The thing that annoys me is that every night there are groups of louts who walk along the street kicking things, smashing bottles in the road, swearing, generally anti social behaviour yet it's rare to see the police taking any action, yet someone walking on their own in the early hours with a camera is assumed guilty.
 
boliston said:
The thing that annoys me is that every night there are groups of louts who walk along the street kicking things, smashing bottles in the road, swearing, generally anti social behaviour yet it's rare to see the police taking any action, yet someone walking on their own in the early hours with a camera is assumed guilty.
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Sometimes the quiet ones not trying to draw attention to themselves are the ones to watch.

Anyway, let's not turn this into another police bashing thread.
 
I've never had any problems when Ive taken pictures of my kids withca dslr and a big lens.
 
SpikeK6 said:
I think all this will change once people stop buying compacts and buy bridge or DSLR's.

I have just spent 3 weeks in USA, had my camera with me at all times,and not one person looked at me let alone said anything, I had my daughter with me aswell so was taking pics in Disney land too, now if there was one place where there would be 1000's of kids, its there, and again not one person even looked at me.

This could be because very few people had compact camera's, nearly all had a bridge camera or an entry level DSLR.

Peoples mentality needs to change, or be told to change by the powers thats caused this in the first place.

spike
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No-one seems to notice the "big cameras" in South Africa either, or when I was in Zimbabwe, India, Italy (holiday) or Northern Ireland (holiday). The problem seems to be that Britain has more paedophiles and terrorists than anywhere else, or that all these poor, naive, countries just haven't realised how much danger they're in yet.

Why would the state, or the tabloids, who have vested interests in keeping up the fear levels tell people to change?
 
Iv just taken photos for a charity band day to raise money for a childerens ward at northampton general hopsital. Childeren were expected at the day and there were notices up telling people that togs were there and if people didnt want their photos or photos of their kids taken, they should tell one of the togs.

Nobody said anything but there were plenty of dodgy looks and under-the-breath comments muttered. How small minded has our nation become?
 
Lucky for the parents at my daughters school play that I did have my big camera and lens. I was at a theatre and was very moodily lit.... Stangely the phone camera and compact camera images didnt come out too well....

A lot of the parents were gratefull that they got the images from me put onto dvd for them...

:)
 
Ive had police cars drive past me when ive been doing Long Exposure with full size tripod and they haven't said a word. Their probably in a rush to get to Krispy Kreme
 
boliston said:
The thing that annoys me is that every night there are groups of louts who walk along the street kicking things, smashing bottles in the road, swearing, generally anti social behaviour yet it's rare to see the police taking any action, yet someone walking on their own in the early hours with a camera is assumed guilty.
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Ever thought that they may have been waiting for you to get pounced on? You say there's groups of ASBOs around you every night and you decide to go strolling at 1am with a nice expensive camera around your neck, doesn't seem sensible to me if I'm honest.
 
boliston said:
It really is a sad state of affairs when the police have an attitude of "guilty until proven innocent".
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Sadly, I've never yet met a burglar who approached me and told me what he was up to. I've had to stop and speak to all of them, so far. The same also goes for drug dealers, yoofs carrying knives, people breaking their bail conditions... etc.

We stop people. We ask questions. Boo hoo.
 
Sorry when the camera go up to my eye,i dont take much notice of what been said about me,most times ;).

Maybe after the riots,people will be spending more of their time,watching and talking about people using their Blackberry in the street,and give us poor photographer a break :D
 
Photo Plod said:
Sadly, I've never yet met a burglar who approached me and told me what he was up to. I've had to stop and speak to all of them, so far. The same also goes for drug dealers, yoofs carrying knives, people breaking their bail conditions... etc.

We stop people. We ask questions. Boo hoo.
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So someone carrying a camera,is always up to no good,nice to know the police see us in the same light as drug dealers and yoofs carrying knives :(

And with the latest police scandels NOTW,policemen taking money for info,should i now think every policeman is on the the take.
 
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simonblue said:
So someone carrying a camera,is always up to no good,nice to know the police see us in the same light as drug dealers and yoofs carrying knives :(
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what a stupid thing to say, so walking down the road at 1am with a SLR around your neck is normal where you are ?
 
simonblue said:
So someone carrying a camera,is always up to no good,nice to know the police see us in the same light as drug dealers and yoofs carrying knives :(

And with the latest police scandels NOTW,policemen taking money for info,should i now think every policeman is on the the take.
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That is not what Chris was saying, you have gone off at a tangent. If the police stop a car at two in the morning, hundreds of miles from its registered address, stuffed to the gills with all kinds of items, then that is good policing.
The same goes for walking around with a camera in the early hours, a quiet word will suffice.
 
ironiclly, we live in a society that

- has the most CCTV cameras per person in the world
- has idiots attacking paediatricians thinking they are paedophiles
- where just about everyone over the age of five owns a phone with a camera
- our tolerance has allowed terrorism to get a foothold
- where page one of the sun complains a woman sexualising her child by spray tanning a 4 year old, and page 3 has a "just old enough" woman l with her knockers out
 
Richard King said:
i
- where page one of the sun complains a woman sexualising her child by spray tanning a 4 year old, and page 3 has a "just old enough" woman l with her knockers out
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that's not the only reason to buy the sun today, they just started doing the holidays for £9.50 per person again, planning on taking advantage of that this time round! :thumbs:
 
geriatrix said:
I've used an abbreviated version of that - "Since you asked, I just need to compensate". Let them work it out. It often breaks the ice and takes the tension out of the situation.
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I'm not sure this would have made the situation any better when he was taking photos of children :lol:
 
Carlos68 said:
what a stupid thing to say, so walking down the road at 1am with a SLR around your neck is normal where you are ?
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Since when is walking around with an SLR at 1am a crime,or something stupid to do,i walk around anytime of day with my camera,i know where i live,in which police state do you live :D
 
andy700 said:
That is not what Chris was saying, you have gone off at a tangent. If the police stop a car at two in the morning, hundreds of miles from its registered address, stuffed to the gills with all kinds of items, then that is good policing.
The same goes for walking around with a camera in the early hours, a quiet word will suffice.
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So now your saying,there is travel restiction on where you go in this country,i thought theses were the ways of a police state,sorry everybody i did not know we were living in a police state,i thought we were free to travel :D

Maybe a move to Libya,where i can get NATO to protect my rights :)
 
Richard King said:
ironiclly, we live in a society that

- has the most CCTV cameras per person in the world
- has idiots attacking paediatricians thinking they are paedophiles
- where just about everyone over the age of five owns a phone with a camera
- our tolerance has allowed terrorism to get a foothold
- where page one of the sun complains a woman sexualising her child by spray tanning a 4 year old, and page 3 has a "just old enough" woman l with her knockers out
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Is this the same Sun,thats part of NI,that was tapping phones,that the police forgot to investgate,who were also paying some police for info :D
 
Comments like "what's he after taking pictures of with that thing?"

The ridiculous thing is that many compacts and small bridge cameras have a lot more reach than a DSLR with a general walkaround lens on. I get scowled at even with a 50mm prime not even pointing it at people, but completely ignored with a 600mm equivalent on the P&S !

People are stupid basically.
 
This kind of thing isn't restricted to cameras, same goes for anything....cars ,TV's, sound systems ,fashion ,houses, laptops, phones etc etc you name it there will always be someone with something to say. It can be a jelousy thing but i think its just a simple case of whats important to one person isn't important to another.

At the end of the day who cares what some person you've never met thinks, unless they start physically attacking you just ignore them safe in the knowlege your pics will be better.
 
Maybe it's easier to complain about surveillence-creep to someone with a camera in their hand, than to an anonymous cctv camera on a building.

I personally hate the creep of surveillence into my life, I'd have cctv restricted to only those areas it has been proven to have any preventative effect on crime statistics (car parks and theft from parked cars, in case you were wondering).
 
Alastair said:
Maybe it's easier to complain about surveillence-creep to someone with a camera in their hand, than to an anonymous cctv camera on a building.

I personally hate the creep of surveillence into my life, I'd have cctv restricted to only those areas it has been proven to have any preventative effect on crime statistics (car parks and theft from parked cars, in case you were wondering).
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Your right,were watched but never ask question,of those watching us :(
 
simonblue said:
Your right,were watched but never ask question,of those watching us :(
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People do ask questions, but getting answers is another matter. I find it quite depressing how many people I know who have bought into the fiction that this is all for their own safety and security, their own good, or whatever.
 
MartynK said:
People do ask questions, but getting answers is another matter. I find it quite depressing how many people I know who have bought into the fiction that this is all for their own safety and security, their own good, or whatever.
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It never crosses my mind either way, i dont really care who watches me, im not planning on robbing anywhere or stomping on someones head...are you?
 
Silvermuir said:
It never crosses my mind either way, i dont really care who watches me, im not planning on robbing anywhere or stomping on someones head...are you?
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No, of course not, but I expect you knew the answer to that question anyway, so why ask me?
 
MartynK said:
People do ask questions, but getting answers is another matter. I find it quite depressing how many people I know who have bought into the fiction that this is all for their own safety and security, their own good, or whatever.
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Quite agreed with you,it amazes how people are so ready to give up their rights,very sad :(
 
MartynK said:
No, of course not, but I expect you knew the answer to that question anyway, so why ask me?
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I wasn't suggesting you personally were planning something , it was simply to make the point that only people who are planning to break the law should worry about such things, and thankfully most of us aren't. They may use info gathered from long term monitoring of the public for a variety of reasons whoever "they" may be, from traffic flow to imigration to how often we go shopping, and shop chains may use that info to figure out when its best to have a sale for example.

No one of us alone is significant enough to waste resources on unless we've done something wrong or work in a classified place like Mi5. So wether im caught on cctv camera or not is very low on my list of worries.
 
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simonblue said:
Quite agreed with you,it amazes how people are so ready to give up their rights,very sad :(
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I don't want to give up the rights that matter more to the point, some rights are more significant than others. the link below is a few years out of date but funny none the less.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2251280.ece

Personally i find this English right that states "it is legal to kill a scotsman within the walls of york, but only if he is carrying a bow" to be far more worrying than cctv...mind you I am a scotsman.
 
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Silvermuir said:
Personally i find this English right that states "it is legal to kill a scotsman within the walls of york, but only if he is carrying a bow" to be far more worrying than cctv.
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I agree, why just York?
 
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