It's Not the Camera

If you want to demean a photographer, compliment his camera. Well, that’s not always true.  There’s nothing wrong with admiring good equipment.  But, if you tell me I have a great camera, in the best circumstances, it’ll be an empty compliment.  If you word it wrongly, or if you put it in the wrong context, you might offend me. I do have a good camera.  It had better be good because it cost me $2000.  I also have $3000 worth of other photography equipment.  But, I’m not proud of my gear.  It’s just stuff.  I didn’t make it.  All I did was give my credit card number and somebody sent it to me. But, I am proud of my pictures.  So, if you imply that my camera equipment is the important ingredient to my pictures, you’re belittling me and marginalizing all of the effort that I put into my hobby.  It’s offensive. Something that helps my bruised ego heal, though, is to see the trouble that other people get themselves into when they make that assumption.  I see lots of people that want to try their hand at photography.  They run to the nearest camera store and let the monkey behind the counter sell them a camera that will DEFINITELY take professional photos.  Often, they end up with a $1500 camera attached to a $50 lens.  That, by itself, is funny.  But, that’s not usually where it ends. After a few weeks, they get frustrated and can’t figure out why their $1500 camera takes such crappy pictures.  If they don’t give up there, they start looking for a quick fix.  They post questions on photography forums asking how to change “the settings” in their camera so that their pictures will look better.  From my favorite photography forum: Could someone suggest what in-camera settings I should use when shooting in the English spring? I’m off on holiday to Cornwall on the weekend and want to make sure that I get the most out of my Nikon D50. Am I better of leaving white balance set to Auto or trying to change it to match the scene (with this being England I guess just leaving it on cloudy?)? What about the other settings? Translation: I just spent 1000£ on this camera so now I’m a photographer.  But, I can’t be bothered to read the manual or a book on photography, so can somebody just tell me what buttons to press? Another: I have seen many different settings for various great shots. Some use f/9, some f/11, f/16 and even some f/22 and so on. I see these landscape shots and wonder what determines whether you shoot with f/11 or f/22 or f/16 or f/xx ?  I have heard about hyperfocal distance and the circular-thing you can buy that helps you determine the aperture given the distance from the subject, etc,etc. Ok, so is this what everyone is using? Or not? Right.  You’ve been using the wrong aperture.  That’s why your pictures suck.  Just get one of those circular-things and you’ll be fine. But, changing “the settings” usually doesn’t work, so they think maybe they need some filters.  Another direct quote: I'm thinking about buying a polarizing filter for my Nikkor 18-200mm. Can I use this as an all-round-filter, or should I only use it for outdoor photography? I've already have a UV-filter.  Are the Hoya filters a good choice? No, an “all-round-filter” and a polarizer are two separate things.  A polarizer is used to allow only the light that is polarized in one direction to pass through your lens.  It can enhance or eliminate reflected light in your pictures.  I don’t know what an “all-round-filter” is, but I’m pretty sure Hoya doesn’t make one.  Maybe you should go back and talk to the salesman that sold you your $1500 camera.  I’m sure he has one. But, the filters don’t seem to help, so they figure it must be the lens.  They remember that the salesman had some $1500 lenses that would fit on their $1500 camera, so they run back and pick up one or two of those. There are so many posts asking about what lens to buy, I can’t even pick one to quote.  But, almost everybody is looking for a good light weight “all-round-lens”.  Sometimes people want a good “all-round-walk-about-lens with image stabilization”.  I guess those people want a lens that walks because they are too lazy to carry their camera to the good-picture-taking-place.  And it has to have image stabilization because the “walk-about” lens won’t be strong enough to carry a tripod.  I don’t see the fun in a walking lens, but what do I know.  I still use a tripod. After people have tried all “the settings” and after they have bought the camera, the filters, and the lenses (or earlier, if they already ran out of money), they’re usually faced with two choices.  1 – They can crawl into their own delusions and proclaim themselves professionals; or, 2 – they can accept the fact that the best equipment in the world will not make them good photographers.  People that finally own up to this usually start asking what books they can buy, start reading magazines, and start putting their pictures in critique forums looking for advice.  Those are good things. People who take choice number 1 often bring their ignorance and poor judgment to their friends and family.  One of the most common problems I see with these people is that they think they’re wedding photographers. Another question from the same forum: A friend is in need of some pics for his wedding and I offered to do them but just thought about my style. I dont really follow the rule of thirds and try to center people. I want to konw what you all think about this and if i should get out centering people. any other advice would be very appreciated as well. I will be shooting this with an Olympus E510 and a Cannon S5 IS. The Olympus lens are 40-150 mm and 14-42mm and the Cannon is stock. This is my first wedding but is definitly something that I would love to get into career wise. Thanks all. If you can see through the horrible grammar, punctuation, and spelling, you can easily see that this lady is clueless when it comes to photography.  Her biggest concern for shooting her very first wedding is whether she should center her subjects or not.  BUT, she has TWO nice digital cameras, so I’m sure everything will turn out okay. Just to be safe, though, I advised her to take two of every shot – one with the person centered, and one where they’re at the edge of the frame.  Then, if there’s any more doubt, just take a third and cut off the top of everybody’s head. I hope “career wise” everything works out for her. I’ve never, in my entire life, seen somebody go buy their first guitar (even a very nice guitar) and then expect to be able to play at weddings.  Nobody compliments a talented singer’s microphone.  I’ve never once thought that using a really nice pen would turn me into Shakespeare.  Why on earth do people think that my camera takes great pictures by itself? One person asked me what filters I use to get such nice pictures. I said, “I use a very expensive filter that wakes me up at 4:30 in the morning, takes me to the right place, determines the composition to use, sets the correct aperture and shutter speed, commands the earth and sky to organize in just the right way, and then redirects the light to perfectly flatter the landscape.  I couldn’t afford the deluxe model, though, so I still have to trip the shutter myself.  I can let you borrow that sometime if you want.” One of my coworkers thinks that Photoshop is to thank for all of my pictures.  He fancies himself a photographer – but a real photographer.  One who doesn’t stoop to such underhanded tricks as adjusting the brightness, contrast, and saturation on a computer.  Never mind that his camera is doing all of those things and more.  But, he wouldn’t know that because he has never read the manual. It’s not the equipment, and it’s not Photoshop.  Those things are tools.  It’s dragging myself out of bed at unholy hours and hiking through rivers to be in the right place at just the right time.  It’s hours and hours of scouting just to find one good location.  It’s waiting in the cold and the rain, hoping that I get enough of a clearing for just a few frames. It’s 6 years of practice, dozens of photography books, hundreds of magazines, and thousands and thousands of pictures. It’s the belief that I can and the desire to do better next time. I made those pictures.  It’s not the camera.

 

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