I know it all

Something that upsets me time and time again is the "I know it all" attitude of certain people in photography forums. The internet certainly supplied the dillettantes with additional self confidence (one could also say that their lack of decency is countered by a boasted self-esteem).

Recently, someone claimed that mirror lock up would not make much of a difference "as long as you're using a good tripod" - while the benefits of mirror lock up have been described adequatly and readily available on the internet, by Bob Atkins (beware, lots of ads...) and the late Fritz Pölking (article in german) for example.

Other people claim knowledge over all tripods because they know what a "real" tripod is (and cheap travel tripods are "fake", I assume - we'll never know...). It doesn't occur to them that the knowledge they gained might only be true for their experience and their photography (but to their great surprise, not everyone is carrying a 4kg telezoom and a full frame body with battery grip around all the time).

And then there's the hords of pixel-peeping lens evaluators that apparently spend their nights in front of the screen, gazing at 1:1 views or 100% crops, to come up with something like "oh yeah, the xyz lens is a little bit soft at 300mm". Good on you, mate!

But please don't get me wrong. It's important to know your stuff. If you know where your lenses have their peak performance, you can utilize it. If you know how your camera behaves and how it's metering will betray you in this-and-that situation, you can counteract and get the best shot. It's great if people share that knowledge - but it's one hell of an annoying disservice to assume that this what you found out equally applies to all the people in the world!

I think winter is no good for me. I should be out and make photos instead of hanging around in forums.