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"A good photographer can take a great photo with low-end gear" Yet an even better shot with better gear. "A bad photographer with good gear doesn't produce go
by fleddr 4y ago
"A good photographer can take a great photo with low-end gear"
Yet an even better shot with better gear.
"A bad photographer with good gear doesn't produce good photos"
Yet still a better photo compared to low-end gear.
My point is that better gear tends to produce better photos at a technical level, regardless of skill. Skill and gear are parallel tracks, not things at odds with each other.
The categories of photography where gear is less important, are fairly limited. Using a mobile phone and some artistic skill you can make quite decent photos of people, large animals that are close, a building here and there, and some landscapes.
Yet if you look at the types of photography where you find the gear-heads, you'll find that most often high-end gear is required, and just skill doesn't cut it.
In wildlife and sports photography, you need big glass. Even if you have it, you may notice your neighbor has AI focus detection and 40fps capturing. He has keepers, you miss the shot or have out of focus ones. Skill cannot compensate for these massive differences in capability.
In macro photography, you need highly specialized gear and lighting equipment. It's a gear-heavy discipline.
In higher-end portrait photography, you need large aperture lenses and lighting systems that do not overheat.
In landscape photography where you want maximum detail, you require high MP cameras, specific lenses and decent tripods.
In none of these cases can you compensate the need for gear with skill.
- hbn 4y ago> "A bad photographer with good gear doesn't produce good photos" > Yet still a better photo compared to low-end gear. Give me an iPhone I can take a half-decent photo. Give me some fancy DSLR camera with 3000 settings and 20 lenses and I'll have no idea where to even start getting a good photo. Myself and most other people don't want to learn how to work a camera, we want to point and shoot.
- koube 4y agoIt depends a lot on what you are trying to do. I agree that most photos an iPhone is sufficient. You do not need bokeh/low light/superzoom for the vast, VAST majority of photos. Once you are going for a certain look or a certain quality of photo though you're going to need to invest in camera gear. It's the margins in which you need the expensive camera stuff, not in the main body of photos, and GP lists some of these margins. I have put thousands into a lens just for taking photos indoors of my kids. Is it overkill? Absolutely. Do I think every cent of it was worth it for me? Absolutely. Not disagreeing with you though, I wouldn't at all recommend that others do the same as me.
- fleddr 4y agoI understand what you're saying, but it wasn't my main point. I probably expressed it poorly. I was considering an artistically lacking photographer with good gear, that knows how the gear works. That's the typical target of these discussions. So the gap is artistic skill, not technical skill. I totally agree with your conclusion that most people don't want to bother with any of this.
- colund 4y agoMost DSLR/mirror less cameras have auto/P mode where you can basically point and shoot and get a picture with better background blur, details, low light performance and less noise than smart phones Smart phones have smaller sensors and not as good lenses as for example full frame cameras.
- lmm 4y agoHow are you defining "better" non-tautologically here? Photographers pay more for lenses with worse optical characteristics that are physically bigger, for example, since looking "pro" is more valuable than having more control over the kind of photos you take.
- fleddr 4y ago"Photographers pay more for lenses with worse optical characteristics..." ??? Example?