Free Workshop at Google Giveaway!

Are you in the LA area and want to join me for a great day at Google for a photography workshop?  I’ll be going through my process inside their secret vaults…  Watch my Google+ Stream today for instructions on how to win the giveaway today.  The workshop will be on Friday in Venice.

Reactions on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter

Thank you for ALL the conversation threads.  I read them all, even though commenting on all of them is almost impossible… so, I have put many amalgamated responses here!

• Facebook Threads – Many great points and some confusion/angst too that I hope this post helps…
• Google+ Threads – A similar discussion to Facebook that broke down along other lines
• Twitter Threads – A lot of quick thoughts and instant reactions, including a mild disagreement with my friend Stu Maschwitz

Scott Bourne Analyzes the Haters

A reaction (and unexpected Defense!) from Scott Bourne went up quickly on his blog.  I will quote a bit below. What do you think?

Here is a snippet from Scott’s full article:

I read a few of them and then grew tired of some of the negativity. You have your nay sayers attacking Trey’s post. These people (in my opinion) break down into a few different groups
1. Those who just spent a ton of money on DSLRs and feel the need to defend that decision so they are upset at Trey’s predictions
2. Those who think you need a “big” or “pro-looking” camera to get pro results or to get paid – pretty sure their portfolios would speak volumes about that statement
3. Those who would disagree with Trey no matter what position he took because they think it makes them cool to fight with a genuine thought leader in the field
4. Those who didn’t read the article carefully and didn’t notice some of the qualifiers he mentioned like – the five year time frame – or the fact that people who shoot fast action (like sports or wildlife) may still have a need for DSLRs
5. Pedants who want to prove how smart they are by picking at every little thing like whether or not these really are “third generation” cameras to which I respond “who cares?”

Will I be capturing images like this without a DSLR next year? Probably. If I can, you can too. It's very exciting...

Further Thoughts… (From Trey, me…. this is getting confusing)

So, remember that I say that DSLR Cameras are indeed a “dyning breed” – it does not mean they are dead. If you (gentle reader) agree that you won’t be using a mechanical mirror-flipping device in the future, then we are in agreement. We may disagree on the rate-of-death — but that is all.

In my judgment, I think the extreme pace of technological change makes this rate-of-death faster than people think, especially given the rate that most camera-owners buy new equipment combined with the inevitable vector of Moore’s Law. I feel confident in saying that most photographers simply want to make interesting images faster and easier.

The path to that future is not one of bulky cameras with flipping innards. It is the one that has been hinted at by the full-frame Leica M9 or the amazing Sony NEX series or any other number of examples. Note that I am not paid or sponsored (now or in the past) by Nikon or Sony or Leica or Panasonic or any camera manufacturer. Because of my recent expose on Photography Magazines, most of them hate me — so I am completely independent and I can clearly state the trends I see.

By identifying these trends, perhaps I can help save you money. Don’t let the popular media goad you into having to dump more money into DSLR technology. Since I already have a good set of DSLR equipment that I will use for the next few years, I am personally not going to not spend any more money on bodies or lenses in this line of cameras. Maybe this is your situation too. (Note that if you are just getting started, then maybe this does not apply, since you are entering the world of photography at a point of tremendous technology upheaval.) I’ll be using my DSLR until these 3rd Gen Cameras make a few more iterations, which will happen faster than most people think.

Caption: I took this photo above with a DSLR, but there is nothing about it that I can’t do with some of these emerging 3rd Gen