My father said to me, "I can't believe you were willing to buy a camera that costs ○○ yen...", so.
During our recent trip, my father said to me, "I can't believe you were willing to buy a camera that costs 500,000 yen.". By the way, he himself used to be into photography back in his student days. Well, to be honest, it definitely took some determination to actually buy it. But I did have a few solid reasons for making that decision. So let me write them down.
先日の旅行中、父に『50万円もするカメラ、よく買う気になったね』って言われた。ちなみに父も学生時代に写真を趣味にしていたような人。まあ買う前には気合い入れなきゃ買えなかったのは事実。ただそれなりにちゃんとした理由もいくつかある。ってことで書いていってみよう。
Number of pixels.
First, let's talk about megapixels. The Leica M-P Typ 240 has about 24 megapixels. These days, there're cameras with 50 or even 60 megapixels, but honestly, 24MP is more than enough for normal shooting.
A camera with just 1 or 2 megapixels might be hard to use as a "serious" camera five or ten years down the road.
But with 24MP, I felt confident it would still hold up even five years later. In fact, the one I bought was already five years old when I picked it up second-hand, and the model itself was released more than ten years ago. Yet, even now, its resolution doesn't feel outdated at all. And I think even five or ten years from now, having 24 megapixels still won't really be an issue.
まず画素数の話から。件のカメラ、Leica M-P Typ 240 の画素数は2,400万画素くらい。昨今は5,000万画素や6,000万画素を超えるようなカメラも出てきているけど、2,400万画素あれば普通に撮っている分にはそんなに困ることはない。
100万画素とか200万画素とかのカメラは5年先、10年先に『ちゃんと撮る』カメラとして使うのは難しいかもしれない。
だけど2,400万画素は5年後でも十分なスペックだと判断した。実際、中古で買ったのは5年前、新品として発売されたのは10年以上前だけど、その画素数は今でも特に劣ったスペックではない。そしてたぶん今から5年先、10年先でも2,400画素っていう画素数に関してはそんなに問題にならないとも思う。
High sensitivity.
Next, about high ISO shooting. Well, since I don't own any of the cameras released in the past few years, I can't really say for sure... It's true that noise becomes noticeable when shooting at high ISO. But I grew up in an environment where noise at high ISO was simply a given, so I don't really see that itself as a big problem.
As long as you can set the ISO lower in situations where you can secure enough shutter speed without raising the sensitivity, it's not really a problem. By the way, when I shoot during the day, I usually keep the ISO around 200–400. At night, I set it to about 800–1600, and in really dark places I set it up to 3200 before taking.
次に高感度撮影について。うーん、ここ数年に発売されたカメラを持っていないからなんとも言えない部分でもあるんだけど・・・確かに高感度で撮っている時に顕著にノイズは出る。だけど高感度でノイズが出るのは当たり前って環境で育ってきたから、それ自体をあんまり大きな問題とは思っていない。
感度を高くしなくてもシャッター速度を十分稼げる場面では感度を低めに設定しておく、それさえできていれば問題ない。ちなみに自分は昼間撮る時は ISO 200〜400 を基準に、夜に撮る時は 800〜1600 くらいに、相当暗いところで撮る時は 3200 とかにあらかじめ設定している。
Almost stable market.
In short, if it were still an era where specs kept rapidly improving year after year, I wouldn't have bought a 500,000 yen camera. But now, digital cameras have become highly mature, and it's no longer an era where specs including megapixel count are the game. Besides, since smartphones exist, people have pretty much stopped buying cameras.
So even if the camera itself cost 500,000 yen, as long as I can use it for around 10 years, I think that's fine. And if it lasts more than 10 years, then that's just a bonus, right? As I mentioned earlier, it's a camera that was released over 10 years ago, but even now, it still takes photos without any problem at all. To put it extremely, I'd like to use this camera for the rest of my life.
要は数年でスペックがどんどん上がっていく成長著しい時代であったら50万円もするカメラを買うことはなかった。ただ今はもうデジカメ自体はめちゃくちゃ成熟しきって、もはや画素数を含めてスペックががゲームになる時代じゃない。そもそもスマホがあるからみんなカメラ自体買わなくなった。
そんなわけでカメラ自体が50万円したとしても、そのカメラを10年くらい使えればそれでいいかなーと。逆に10年以上使えたら儲けもんなんじゃん？くらいに。先にも書いた通り10年以上前に発売されたカメラだけど、今でも別に全く問題なく写真撮れているし。極端なこといえば、死ぬまでこのカメラを使いたい。
I think this applies to any kind of product, but in the early days of digital cameras, maybe from the late 1990s to around 2015, the specs kept improving every few months or every year. In that kind of environment, even if you bought a high-end model, it would already feel outdated just a few months later.
In that kind of era, I think I would have really hesitated to buy such an expensive camera.
But now, that's hardly the case anymore. By the way, this is probably also because M-type Leicas don't need to take part in the autofocus competition that other companies are so desperately engaged in.
どんな製品もそうだと思うけど、デジカメ黎明期は・・・1990年代後半から2015年頃くらいかな？その頃は数ヶ月とか1年とかのスパンでどんどんカメラのスペックが上がっていくし、そんな環境でハイエンド機を買ったところで数ヶ月後には世代遅れになっちゃうし、みたいな時代だった。
そんな時代背景の中だったら、ここまで高価なカメラを買うのは相当躊躇したと思う。
でも今はもうそんなことはそうそうないからね。ちなみにこれはM型ライカが他社が必死にやっている AF 競争に参加する必要がないから、って側面もあるんだろうね。
Lastly, whenever I get a new camera, it always takes me so much time to learn the controls that I end up not being able to take proper photos, which is kind of defeats the purpose. Especially with today's cameras, there're just so many settings and buttons that I can't keep track of what does what. So, I basically only use the Leica M-P Typ 240 and the Leica Q, and sometimes the RX100III. That's all I really need.
I'll talk more about cameras and photography in another article.
See you then.
最後に。自分は新しいカメラを買うと操作覚えるのに時間がかかってしまって、ちゃんと写真が撮れないっていう本末転倒な状態になってしまう。特に昨今のカメラは設定項目とかボタンとかいっぱいあって、どこで何ができるのかを覚えられない。だから普段は Leica M-P Typ 240 と Leica Q の2台だけ、たまーに RX100III。これだけあれば十分だ。
カメラの話、写真の話はまた別の記事でもしよーっと。
ほなまた。
