Tom, I must admit to not being a complete luddit. I`m more a steampunk, something that fits me well. A fusion of old and young, crossbreed of my oldish age and youngish curiosity.
On one hand a piece of paper and a pencil is my heritage being trained as architect and later doing kind of visual art. On other hand there was AUTOCAD and FINALCUT and PHOTOSHOP as a demand of proff time.
I do follow the digital development in cameras and computers even that lately I find it increasingly trivial. Me too syndrom gets to me now and then, thoughts of getting 5 axis stabilisation, noisefree 6400 ISO, lightning AF, 10f/sec just too catch those fleeting moments and so on on on.
Then cames a reflection telling me, that I cant be and do all things equally well. Looking at my way of seeing the world and depicting it, I have to accept my preferences and visual style. Too late teach old dog new tricks.
Like a man with his field camera taking his time unperturbed by the world rushing by, so do I walking the streets looking for small dramatic moments in plain daily life, well knowing that I cannot stop the flow of visuality, neither record its complexity.
I do, wittingly or not, what my habits and preferences tell me to do. Like a pair of well worn shoes you wouldn`t swap for the smartest and best, so do I, sticking to the poor old GXR which serves me well and whose potential I certainly havn`t fully explored. I just simply got used to it and for time being will keep using it. It feels familiar to my hand, I know layout and menues in a sleep and the rest is up to my ability to see and render.
Of course I have my small improvement wishes but they stem more from the way I use it meore then from its actual performance. I wont list them because Ricoh anyway doesn`t seem to listen to fotogs like they did in old time ( GR 21 anyone? ). When I look at my GXR A12 with collapsed Elmar 50/3.5 or likewise Summicron 50/2, I don`t see around smaller APS-C package with 75mm FF EQ.
Well Ricoh could build GR lens in a flatter A28 package, make A12 75 and A12 10 but I they wont, that`s for sure but I wont cry. Like you said, there`s more to photography then following the maddning digital crowd. Cheers and hurrays from Stanislaw