Does Pro spec equipment - make a better photographer?

My 2 Sheckels...
Does better equipment make me (personally) a better photographer?
Yes.
Going digital allowed me to take more photographs, thus get more practice, shooting at least, if not printing.
Practice, as they say, makes perfect.
So making the investment in good equipment has allowed me to grow as a photographer in ways that I wouldn't if I had stayed with film. (Plus if I'd gotten a cheaper DSLR at the time, trust me, it'd be in pieces by now, the D1x is a TANK. I dropped it out of a car moving 20 mph once.)
So I can confidently say that better equipment has helped me be a better photographer.

I bristle a bit at the common refrain "It's the photographer, not the equipment". I think that's a bit elitist, as it implies that good equipment is wasted on...mmmm whats the word... the "mundanes". As if the title "photgrapher" is one reserved for those who can make art gallery work with their phonecams because they have that special magical art elf living in their heads.

I think we should be encouraging folks to get the best equipment they can afford, not just to help them become better photographers, but to also encourage the camera companies to keep making good cameras! I think the more the public at large is exposed to good cameras and lenses and what they can do to help them become better photographers, the more they will demand in the middle class of cameras and thus bring them up to even higher standards.

I think this is already happening with the new mid class Pentax and Nikon cameras.

Oops that was more than two sheckels.
Heres your change

KrisCarnmarker said:

I don't think the answer is so black-or-white.

The human psyche is funny. If buying a pro camera pushes me to invest more time and effort into studying photography, then chances are that I will become a better photographer. When I bought my PRS guitar a few years back, it pushed me past the statu quo of several years. It simply invited me to play more, to renew my interest in learning something new. Now, there are no "pro" guitars. There's just "toy" guitars and "normal guitars". But the PRS was damned expensive, at least relative to the numerous other guitars I own(ed)

Does pro gear produce better images? I doubt anybody could deny that they produce technically better images. If not, why do they exist? Why isn't everybody out there shooting their beautiful landscapes with their phone camera?

Does it make a better image in the artistic sense? Pfff...how can say? The arts world (music, photography, sculpture, dance, whatever) is the snobbiest place in existence. There is no way of defining an artistically superior piece of a art, so the question is meaningless.

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Hi Kris,

Good points. If one buys the more technically advanced camera to get to the next level and one puts in the work, yes!

Re cell phone landscapes, I'm sure that there are or will images that will impress us with artistic power and even perhaps give us some humilty.

On defining superior art, that interests me. It's a long road!

Asher

Louis Doench said:

My 2 Sheckels...
Does better equipment make me (personally) a better photographer?
Yes.
Going digital allowed me to take more photographs, thus get more practice, shooting at least, if not printing.
Practice, as they say, makes perfect..........

I bristle a bit at the common refrain "It's the photographer, not the equipment". I think that's a bit elitist, as it implies that good equipment is wasted on...mmmm whats the word... the "mundanes". As if the title "photgrapher" is one reserved for those who can make art gallery work with their phonecams because they have that special magical "art-elf" living in their heads.

I think we should be encouraging folks to get the best equipment they can afford, not just to help them become better photographers, but to also encourage the camera companies to keep making good cameras! I think the more the public at large is exposed to good cameras and lenses and what they can do to help them become better photographers, the more they will demand in the middle class of cameras and thus bring them up to even higher standards.

I think this is already happening with the new mid class Pentax and Nikon cameras.

Oops that was more than two sheckels.
Heres your change

Click to expand...

Louis,

That "Practice makes perfect" is unchallenged! Digital is the democratic release gate for torrents of images. However, it does take that "special magical "art-elf" in your head" to direct!

The second point is novel and has some validity. The profit margin for Canon is massive for the DSLR's so they for sure don't want any market share stolen from them!

Asher

Gregory Fischer said:

Asher Kelman said:

As long as you don't turn up with a little silver digicam, appearances are not that important!

Asher

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...I'm waiting for my little Panasonic SILVER digicam to arrive tomorrow (via a little brown truck)... It was $20 cheaper than the black version. Before I read your comment above, Asher, I was excitedly anticipating it's arrival... man...
What kind of viper's nest have I stumbled into here...???
(I joined this forum yesterday).
Now I feel I must attempt to demonstrate the merit of the little silver digicam...
(loved the flute quote, by the way...)

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Gregory,

I don't put down digicams! On the contrary, I know of and admire one news reporter who only used several Olympus Digicams to get stellar pictures of the Iraq war! Also the personal continued photo essays like that of Asya Schween show the power of the digicam in the right hands. First the work of Alex Majoli:

Eamon Hickey said:

In 2003, Magnum photographer Alex Majoli shot some big stories for Newsweek magazine.

He spent a month in China shooting documentary images of daily life. He was in Congo for two weeks and Iraq for almost two months. In those two places he was shooting war.

Majoli's images for all three stories drew rave notices, and they earned him some of photojournalism's most prestigious awards in 2004, including the U.S. National Press Photographers Association's Best of Photojournalism Magazine Photographer of the Year Award and the U.S. Overseas Press Club's Feature Photography Award.

It would seem reasonable to guess that all that award-winning work in remote and frequently dangerous places must have been shot with big, fast, bulletproof pro SLR cameras. But in fact, Majoli shot every frame with Olympus C-5050 digital point-and-shoots -- the same camera your snap happy Uncle Maury takes to Disney World.

More recently he's been using the Olympus C-8080, along with his older C-5050 and C-5060 cameras, for many of his assignments, including shooting in Israel for Vanity Fair and the U.S. presidential elections for Newsweek.

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Source is Eamon Hickey's Article in Robglabraith.com "Alex Majoli points and shoots"


From Eamon's article, (April 2003) U.S. troops survey burning oil fields in southwest Iraq. (Photo by Alex Majoli/Magnum Photos)

A second example is as powerful: the personal work of Asya Schween.

DPReview highlighted in 2003 the work of Asya, a brillian young woman from the Ukraine whose website is found here

© Article by Article said:

Quoting Asya:

"Canon PowerShot G1 and Nikon CoolPix 5700, I also have Zenith AM, Polaroid Sx-70 and an antique folding Kodak camera. I'm happy with my three 500 Watt heavy-duty garage lamps, half a dozen of flashlights and home-made soft boxes. I bought $10 fabric for my background and I'm also a proud owner of several 58mm filters. I also have Epson Stylus Color 777 printer, 2.53 GHz P4 computer and 19" ViewSonic monitor."

My reference was only to appearance of a photographer at a wedding with a camera just like those that the guests carry. People will think that this is not a pro and will not likely ask for his card!

Asher

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For me...

Asher,

A physician needs the right tools to do his job - from opthamology, to radiology to surgery.
A baker cannot bake a cake without flour, sugar, eggs and the right pans and of course the oven.
A carpenter cannot frame a house without his saw.

But a photographer has many tools to create his (or her) images. I can point my lens at the same subject with the same tools as you are using and get a different result. One may be more pleasing or have different purpose. Learning to use the various tools will make a better photographer because the result of knowledge and understanding what we are trying to achieve is a part of that process.

That being said, the day I went to Peggy's Cove in 2003 in Nova Scotia and left behind the battery to my Canon G2 was a great learning experience. I had to buy a disposable camera to get any shots - they were the best of the trip. It's all a combination of light, photographer's eye and creativity at work. Would that work if I were a fashion photographer and not a traveler who was creating art? No, of course not. It's all about the intended result.

When the hawk took residence in the tree at the front of my house, my 70-200 was not long enough to get much in the way of an image of more than the tree but the 100-400 was what I needed to do the job. If you were shooting a fashion shoot in studio, would it not be best to have an array of softboxes and grids vs a single tungsten lamp? You could not just set these up and shoot. You have to have the knowledge of what the tools do and how they work. That will make a good photographer.

Asher Kelman said:

3. If one buys a flute, one owns a flute, if one buys a camera one is a photographer. Kolbrenner wrote this in a book of fine B&W pictures he gave me. He's a student and follower of great photographers like Ansel Adams. [...]

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I know what he meant, but I think Kolbrenner has it the wrong way around. He is misquoting Edgar Degas, the revered French Impressionist painter, who said ...

"If you buy a camera, you are a photographer. If you buy a piano, you own a piano."

Degas himself began making photographs in 1895 when he was 61 years old, ten years after the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition. Despite the lack of "pro spec equipment" he became a talented photographer too. ;-)

Thanks for the origin, Robert!

Where did you source this?

Anyway, it should be ..."if you buy a piano, all you need is some wine and you can have a party, as for sure someone will be able to play it for you!"

The flute, by contrast, requires an armature of one's lips and more experience perhaps to get enough for a sing along or other entertainment!

It's fascinating to learn of the evolution of this maxim!

Asher