Does Gear Really Matter? 30 Mind-Blowing Images Taken With Entry-Level Gear

[Derrel]

I read f-stoppers occasionally. Links to their more provocative articles wind up in my Facebook stream one way or another. The site is basically a click-bait specialist. They are The New York Post of on-line photo 'zines. As the article begins, " Let’s not kid ourselves, gear does in fact matter. However, does a photographer need top of the line equipment to produce mind-blowing images? Take a look at this collection and decide for yourself."

The piece shows a bunch of photos which are mostly subject-centric. And a bunch of images that have been Photoshopped and Photoshopped HARD. Wayyyyy hard. And that accounts for the "mind-blowing images". I'm familiar with what it's like to shoot with low-end gear. I struggled against low-end gear for about 10 years,then got mid-level gear, and over the last 13 years I have been fortunate to hit middle age, and the ability to own and use some high-end gear. As to the Sigma 10-20mm lens and its price: its PRICE has absolutely NOTHING to do with being low-end; it is an extreme wide-angle...sooooo much more wide-angle than basically anybody had, or was even on the market at a reasonable price, for literally decades. A 15mm rectilinear ultra-wide??? C'mon...that is an ADVANCED lens design. The d-slr with BUILT-IN image developing and a fully-adjustable contrast,saturation,and sharpening engine with 3D color matrix metering and Nikon's Scene Recognition System? And then, Photoshop to create an image that's basically un-recognizable as the original???

Try shooting you junior high school track meets with a 40-year-old and way out of date 1938 Argoflex twin-lens reflex with an uncoated, pre-World War II f/4.5 lens and 1/25 to 1/200, manually cocked shutter with red-window, knob film advance. THAT is what I started my 'serious photography' career with. Is this guy f***ing kidding me? A d-slr and a 10-20mm ultra-wide zoom, and a world-class 85mm f/1.8 Canon EF (a lens I owned for seven years, and am intimately familiar with, BTW).

I'm not angry at the guy, but the article is full of BS. A 10-20mm ultra-wide rectilinear zoom lens is better than the chit NASA sent up with the Space Shuttle crews. These mind-blowing images are good, as far as they go, yes. Nice illustrations. But I want to see a few wildlife images. And some indoor NCAA volleyball shots. And some wedding reception shots. I'd love to see some straight photography, and some photographs, as opposed to heavily-manipulated photo illustrations. So, that's where I was coming from. I KNOW what it is like to be limited by equipment. Try shooting with 12-shot rolls with knob-wind film advance and a hand-tensioned shutter for a few years. Then tell me how bad things are with an 18- to 24-megapixel d-slr and a 600-shot RAW frame memory card.

I "get" the point of the f-stoppers article. But the "proof" shows me more about how much Photoshop is used as a full set of crutches (AND a wheelchair, in some instances!) than it does about how good the shooters were, or how capable a 10-20mm ultra-wide rectilinear zoom lens and the Canon 85/1.8 EF lenses are on a built-in-darkroom-dslr-camera. If this "article" had some text, it would be an article. Instead, it's click-bait. As he says, "Let's not kid ourselves, gear does in fact matter." And then he trots out the Photoshop parade.

 

[Designer]

Totally agree with this. I just wish he included photos that didn't totally distort the original, rendering the point moot. He needed images that showed what quality you can get from the camera, not out of the processing. Because yes, you could have that level of processing with a high-end camera as well, so when the image is that altered, it doesn't say anything about the camera at all.

Ditto

 

[runnah]

I read f-stoppers occasionally. Links to their more provocative articles wind up in my Facebook stream one way or another. The site is basically a click-bait specialist. They are The New York Post of on-line photo 'zines. As the article begins, " Let’s not kid ourselves, gear does in fact matter. However, does a photographer need top of the line equipment to produce mind-blowing images? Take a look at this collection and decide for yourself."

The piece shows a bunch of photos which are mostly subject-centric. And a bunch of images that have been Photoshopped and Photoshopped HARD. Wayyyyy hard. And that accounts for the "mind-blowing images". I'm familiar with what it's like to shoot with low-end gear. I struggled against low-end gear for about 10 years,then got mid-level gear, and over the last 13 years I have been fortunate to hit middle age, and the ability to own and use some high-end gear. As to the Sigma 10-20mm lens and its price: its PRICE has absolutely NOTHING to do with being low-end; it is an extreme wide-angle...sooooo much more wide-angle than basically anybody had, or was even on the market at a reasonable price, for literally decades. A 15mm rectilinear ultra-wide??? C'mon...that is an ADVANCED lens design. The d-slr with BUILT-IN image developing and a fully-adjustable contrast,saturation,and sharpening engine with 3D color matrix metering and Nikon's Scene Recognition System? And then, Photoshop to create an image that's basically un-recognizable as the original???

Try shooting you junior high school track meets with a 40-year-old and way out of date 1938 Argoflex twin-lens reflex with an uncoated, pre-World War II f/4.5 lens and 1/25 to 1/200, manually cocked shutter with red-window, knob film advance. THAT is what I started my 'serious photography' career with. Is this guy f***ing kidding me? A d-slr and a 10-20mm ultra-wide zoom, and a world-class 85mm f/1.8 Canon EF (a lens I owned for seven years, and am intimately familiar with, BTW).

I'm not angry at the guy, but the article is full of BS. A 10-20mm ultra-wide rectilinear zoom lens is better than the chit NASA sent up with the Space Shuttle crews. These mind-blowing images are good, as far as they go, yes. Nice illustrations. But I want to see a few wildlife images. And some indoor NCAA volleyball shots. And some wedding reception shots. I'd love to see some straight photography, and some photographs, as opposed to heavily-manipulated photo illustrations. So, that's where I was coming from. I KNOW what it is like to be limited by equipment. Try shooting with 12-shot rolls with knob-wind film advance and a hand-tensioned shutter for a few years. Then tell me how bad things are with an 18- to 24-megapixel d-slr and a 600-shot RAW frame memory card.

I "get" the point of the f-stoppers article. But the "proof" shows me more about how much Photoshop is used as a full set of crutches (AND a wheelchair, in some instances!) than it does about how good the shooters were, or how capable a 10-20mm ultra-wide rectilinear zoom lens and the Canon 85/1.8 EF lenses are on a built-in-darkroom-dslr-camera. If this "article" had some text, it would be an article. Instead, it's click-bait. As he says, "Let's not kid ourselves, gear does in fact matter." And then he trots out the Photoshop parade.

I guess we get different things from the same article.

 

[bribrius]

gear does matter. The person behind the gear does too of course.

 

[Derrel]

Great subject matter goes along way in making great pictures, no matter what gear your using.

Being able to separate a beautiful subject, like a stunning woman, or an exotic locale, and look at the photography, is very difficult for most people. If you want to impress most people with your photography skills, it's far better to shoot photos of beautiful women, handsome men, and lovely natural-world locations than it is to be technically "good".

 

[astroNikon]

........looked at my gears again and thought of Kris and his birdies, AstroNikon, Danny...do I really want to be like them when I grow up? Or take macro shots? How many times do I go to the forest to look for birds to photograph? or Florida? Am I really interested in bugs and insects? Do I really need another credit card transaction or two I have to pay off? hmmmmmmm.......I am not Snerd............

Umm .. I think you have better equipment than me ... your d800e, d300s, d90 (from your profile)
compare that to my d7000 and d600

and my lenses are all second hand ... 80-200/2.8 D dual ring (not the modern 70-200/2.8 variants) for sports, 35-70 D/2.8 (really old push pull - yes they are bad pointed to the sun or semi bright light source), 18-35 D/3.5-4.5 (okay, kewl UWA but not too expensive), 24-85 D/2.8-4 (great walkabout lens that does macro .. oh yeah, I have to process those little spider pics I took with macro) & my $100 AF 75-300/4.5-5.6 push-pull ... and all are screw drive.

I have one modern AF-S lens .. the kit 18-105 with the d7000 which great sharpness and faster focusing than all my other lenses.
I do have a telescope .. but it's not a very big one compared to the BIG ones.

Of course, AFS speed focusing would help in sports, and the grab the focus ring for focusing through the soccer net too. But I don't have those advanced features on my older lenses. For that one $$ 70-200 vrii lens .. I basically bought all the lenses that I currently have with several hundred dollars to spare.

The key is learning how to use them, and post processing to get the look you want. My photos have taken a BIG step forward in just learning how to use Lightroom in relation to exposure, color, and other controls.

 

[Derrel]

Well, like KmH said, 30 photos shot with low-end gear, and which were NOT PHOTOSHOPPED TO DEATH would have made a point. But instead, we got a click-bait piece.

I grew up shooting realllllly low-end gear...stuff that was 40 YEARS behind the state of the art. Articles like this one where heavy, heavy, and skilled Photoshop manipulation are required to transform that sow's ear into a rayon purse [not silk, but rayon, an imitation silk), do not impress me with their intellectual honesty.

Here are two cameras I learned on. The SLR has a non-instant return mirror and a FIXED, 45mm f/2.8 lens and an external selenium cell meter. The Kodak Pony 135-B had manually set focus by distance estimation, no light meter, had an f/4.5 lens and speeds of 25.50.100.200, manual knob-wind advance, and a shutter that had to be cocked before each shot.

I'm pretty familiar with low-end gear and what can be done with it. My friggin' iPhone 4 from the summer of 2011 is a better camera than either of these two.

 

[runnah]

It's not about the photoshopping, it's about being happy with what you have and using it to it's full potential.

 

[MSnowy]

Great subject matter goes along way in making great pictures, no matter what gear your using.

Being able to separate a beautiful subject, like a stunning woman, or an exotic locale, and look at the photography, is very difficult for most people. If you want to impress most people with your photography skills, it's far better to shoot photos of beautiful women, handsome men, and lovely natural-world locations than it is to be technically "good".

This is exactly what I was thinking. This approach sells billions of dollars worth of products a year.

 

[snerd]

My ears were burning, now I know why! Turn your back for a second and tongues are wagging!!

.......... The key is learning how to use them, and post processing to get the look you want. My photos have taken a BIG step forward in just learning how to use Lightroom in relation to exposure, color, and other controls.

This. Totally what I'm doing now. Learning how to use my development software. I realized I hadn't a clue about using LR effectively. Even just the basics! If I'm shooting only raw, I simply cannot hope to be any type of amateur photographer if I cannot figure out how to convert my photographs from the camera to being viewable, whether via computer, web or print! I have learned just a couple of the basic things now, and the frustration level is already easing somewhat. I even used the radial filter and the graduated filter for the first time! WOOT!!

Even my bad photos have to be processed correctly, so I just don't think you can separate digital photography from the software that you use to process it.

 

[pgriz]

Put beautiful people into beautiful locations, and you can sell anything, from vitamins, to hair products, to beer, to cameras, to insurance, to watches. What does the eye candy have to do with the products sold? What, are you an anarchist? That's the way the world works!

 

[snerd]

............. Do I really need another credit card transaction or two I have to pay off? hmmmmmmm.......I am not Snerd........

By golly, the assumptions are strong here. Who said I bought on credit, other than the initial transaction?! 32 days on someone else's money ain't a bad deal!

.......... Snerd has a sense of humor? Huh. Are you sure about that? He just always seems so darn.. stoic really.......

Hey! All I got for you is............. virtue is sufficient for happiness. So there!


And for runnah.......... I liked the linked article. Thanks for posting.

 

[astroNikon]

My ears were burning, now I know why! Turn your back for a second and tongues are wagging!!

.......... The key is learning how to use them, and post processing to get the look you want. My photos have taken a BIG step forward in just learning how to use Lightroom in relation to exposure, color, and other controls.

This. Totally what I'm doing now. Learning how to use my development software. I realized I hadn't a clue about using LR effectively. Even just the basics! If I'm shooting only raw, I simply cannot hope to be any type of amateur photographer if I cannot figure out how to convert my photographs from the camera to being viewable, whether via computer, web or print! I have learned just a couple of the basic things now, and the frustration level is already easing somewhat. I even used the radial filter and the graduated filter for the first time! WOOT!!

Even my bad photos have to be processed correctly, so I just don't think you can separate digital photography from the software that you use to process it.

I've recently learned the Highlights & Shadow tools .. awesome .. just awesome. In some of my car shots of the car with the engine compartment open, the shadow feature really brought out the polished engine compartments in all their glory. And incamera Auto WB really just kinda gets you there in overcast days. So much to learn to just bring what you see with your eyes to what you output in the photo. I spent a year trying to perfect that in the camera. Now it's just quicker to tweak it in LR.

 

[nzmacro]

And not one decent BIF shot amongst it............ why do I click on these links !!

Danny.

 

[snerd]

Izzie............... just yanking your chain!

Robbins............ that was Seneca, btw.