How do you tell some one to throw away their camera

[JHF Photography]

I have an issue with the blanket statements like "it's the photographer, not the camera" and all the other similar phrases. Yes, a better camera will not improve a poor photographer. Yes, it is the photographer who sees, composes, and takes the shot.

However, equipment can and does make a difference! For everybody who thinks the camera and lenses don't matter, I challenge you to go to a dimly lit club with a little old cell phone camera and try to take pictures of the musical artist performing that are sharp, crisp and clean enough for use on posters, magazines, etc.

Or book an evening wedding in a nice, dark old church and use only a 2 megapixel P&S with a little onboard flash that only offers full auto control... and see how happy the couple is with the results.

Thank you to Iron Flatline and (Ghastly) Kreuger for your insightful comments along this line (that book sounds really interesting, Iron).


Jason

 

[Bevel Heaven]

I would help them discover how to adapt/adjust what they have IF they ask, and I would also NEVER suggest/tell to go buy a better camera...

I have taken absolute gems with a P&S and absolute crap with my DSLR [and vice versa].

It is not what you use it is how you use it [to a point anyways].

* No matter what the sport / job / hobbie etc, there will always be someone bigger, badder, faster or with better gear......

I like to see folks with comparitive CRAP material/.gear etc who excell at what they are trying to achieve. It takes more talent to do great things with inferiour material/gear.....

 

[chris_arnet]

Holgas are some the (technically speaking) crappiest cameras out there. but i love using mine. Its also the only camera ive ever used that when i drop it, the pictures get better. ha.

 

[LeftBehind]

From my experience is the glass and lenses make a lot more of a difference than the camera they're mounted on. Thus, with my tight budget i purchased the cheapest slr I could find and decided to spend money on glass instead.

 

[deanimator]

I read a great book recently. On Being a Photographer, by David Hurn. He's with Magnum.

He talks about gear for a few pages. One of the things he describes is the various phases of burgeoning photographers. He says they all go through a phase where they say "It's not the camera, it's the photographer" but the fact is that great photographers use great gear. Without exception. The only difference is that after a (long) while they settle on a particular camera and lens set, and rarely move from it. The camera becomes so much of an extension of themselves, that they cannot move to anything new easily. It becomes totally intuitive, instinctual, an appendage.

Yes, if you think someone has talent, encourage them to explore it. Suggest better gear, it might give them a bigger creative experience. They can still say "no, thank you."

Excellent book by the way.
Hurn is a very modest and practical man. I had the good fortune to get to know him years ago...and at the time his EOS-1 kit was stolen. He replaced it with several EOS-50 bodies...one of the babies in the Canon range. Hardly a professional camera...or...???
He reiterated the point...the only reason to have the EOS-1 was that it was just a bit tougher and was semi-waterproof. On the other hand, expensive to lose or break. He could buy 10 of the baby brothers for the same money.
See...just being sensible.

At the time I was working for a nature magazine...happily shooting with my Olympus OM series. I had a 1, a 2, and a 4...and good glass. One day, the editor who until then had been more than happy with my work noticed my kit...laughed and said...get a decent camera. I was slightly annoyed by the smirk but said nothing. Some months later nearly all my gear was stolen in broad daylight near Times Square in New York (the cop who took down the description said "yeah, sounds like Mo and Vinnie"...). Anyway, my editor got his wish...I had to buy a whole new kit: Two EOS-5 bodies (just new on the market at the time), a bunch of L-series lenses and a flash.
I don´t believe this improved my photography...I just shot way more film (for a while)...!

I think I have made some of my most satisfying images with a pocket Olympus-XA...black & white landscapes and portraits which with careful darkroom technique are as sharp and detailed as anything from my "real" cameras.

 

[Alex_B]

i seriously think some talented people's potential is locked due to their poor equipment and they have problems to develop.

And some people with good gear have nothing to unlock though


I think some talented guys do not realise what they actually miss if they stick to their cellphone, so Battou's intentions are good!

 

[Alex_B]

The phrase "It is the photographer and not the camera" is a much overused and unreflected phrase. I agree that there is some truth in it, but as everything expressed in less than 500 words, it is a strong simplification of the situation.

 

[deanimator]

Right!
​

 

[Battou]

I only responded to your original words which called it junk cameras.

If you want to test how people react, wouldnt it seem smarter to have the original post not be calling peoples cameras "junk" ?

OR you were just trying to see how far you could go and still have people be polite. ?

I dont like these sneaky, secret question posts.

I dont like being a guniea pig for someone elses website. ba humbug...

go play with your junk cameras.... lol

lol, neither I wanted to go straight past people being polite and give me straight and honest answers. Some times being politically correct only serves to fog the responces with un needed misinturpritations due to trying to be polite and beating around the bush.

And no, I was not making you out to be a guniea pig, I appologise if you felt that way.

i seriously think some talented people's potential is locked due to their poor equipment and they have problems to develop.

And some people with good gear have nothing to unlock though


I think some talented guys do not realise what they actually miss if they stick to their cellphone, so Battou's intentions are good!

I am stuck between a rock and a hard place with this issue, I wish to build a user base of quality and I see this question comming up before it's strong enough to fend for it's self, but as an artist I know it to be moraly wrong to to tell some one they or their ways are wrong and telling them flat out may chase them away.






Now if you'll excuse me, I must go find a Holga.

 

[chris_arnet]

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go find a Holga.

ah, someone agrees with me.

 

[LilmaK]

Although it burns you to witness this, you don't NEED to tell them anything.
If it's really that important to you, then just gradually educate them on general photography and make visible YOUR work and talk about equipment with them and why certain apparatus won't work properly.
By the way I've taken some pretty awesome shots with my 2MP Fujifilm finepix some 3 to 5 years ago so it's NOT the expense that really matters...it's the photographer...NO CAMERA can make you a great photographer.

 

[ZedU54]

...my feeling about this is: in most cases, I'm not sure you can really tell someone to 'throw away' what they are using without sounding 'elitist'; it's something that really depends on the individual...most people use what they are comfortable with, or more importantly, what they can afford...or a combination of the two...and I think you'd be surprised how many of them realize that there's a lot better stuff out there than what they're using, but they either can't afford it or feel they're not ready for it...I can use myself as an example; I've only owned an SLR for the last, maybe, 3 months, and it's the first time in my life I've ever owned an SLR of any kind (and I wanted one for years!)...I have two xi-series Maxxums (3xi and 5xi), plus four lenses and a flash; they are about 15 years and at least three generations old, and they are low- to mid-range, but they are what I happened to be able to get my hands on without spending a mint...now, I know I could do a LOT better, even just sticking with Konica-Minolta/Sony, never mind the more popular or 'better' makes...I've already had people suggesting that I should try a Maxxum 7D or an Alpha and get away from film altogether...but even used, the 7D is going for probably twice what I paid for my entire current setup, an Alpha 100 is even more, and I couldn't even come close to affording an Alpha 700...plus, I'm just learning to use an SLR anyway, and at this point, any of those 'better' cameras would probably be overkill for me...
...the quality of the equipment may have some effect on the quality of the product (naturally, you're not going to get the quality of photo out of, say, a 1.3-MP-tops cell phone camera, or even a 4.1-MP point-and-shoot as you would out of a properly-handled 12-MP DSLR), but ultimately, the camera is only as good as the person behind it...when all is said and done, I think it is better to try to help someone get the most out of what they have than to tell them that what they have is 'no good'...

 

[Sideburns]

I read a great book recently. On Being a Photographer, by David Hurn. He's with Magnum.

He talks about gear for a few pages. One of the things he describes is the various phases of burgeoning photographers. He says they all go through a phase where they say "It's not the camera, it's the photographer" but the fact is that great photographers use great gear. Without exception. The only difference is that after a (long) while they settle on a particular camera and lens set, and rarely move from it. The camera becomes so much of an extension of themselves, that they cannot move to anything new easily. It becomes totally intuitive, instinctual, an appendage.

Yes, if you think someone has talent, encourage them to explore it. Suggest better gear, it might give them a bigger creative experience. They can still say "no, thank you."

I couldn't agree with him/you more. Pros shoot with pro equipment for a reason. The camera doesn't make the shot..but it gives you the opportunity to capture it. 5 fps for example...would have been nice this weekend on the runway. But I only shoot 3fps with my Rebel XT...and shooting RAW I can only get about 7 images off before it starts lagging.

Also, ISO settings and whatnot...the more expensive cameras handles higher ISOs much better than my XT. it would allow me to have got a much better quality of work at the race I went to a month or two ago...could have raised the shutter speed even more to capture the cars moving far too quickly for my camera to capture and still expose the picture. Again...limited by the camera...

He says it in response to a phase we've probably all been through just prior to that one, whereby we acquire a ton of gear hoping it will make our images better... only to find that it only helps incrementally.

I also agree with this point. You get new gear...and you think it'll be night and day. But really, it's only slightly better. It usually IS better...but not as much as you thought. Better stuff makes it easier to capture better pictures. It doesn't take them for you...but it provides the circumstances for you to take them.

It's exactly what happens on this forum all the time - "How do I get my background blurry?", for instance. Well, you explain DOF to them, and they pretty quickly understand that certain equipment allows you to incorporate certain styles more easily, and that such gear tends to be beyond the basic consumer-grade stuff.

Also a great point. If I try to blur the background with the XT kit lens at f/5.6...it isn't likely to work well....
but if I go and use my 50 at 1.8....it blurs the background quite considerably. There's limits to your equipment. You can't fix parallax error without a tilt-shift lens (unless you use photoshop)...
Also, especially important...you can't fake sharp glass...you either have it or you don't.

i seriously think some talented people's potential is locked due to their poor equipment and they have problems to develop.

And some people with good gear have nothing to unlock though


I think some talented guys do not realise what they actually miss if they stick to their cellphone, so Battou's intentions are good!

Awesome point. I agree with you a lot. I know some people with better cameras than me, but they just take the most boring pictures, and leave it on program or auto and just go wild. I use program once in a while, but I like to at least meter properly if I can.

then I see people with Rebels, Xts, d40s, etc...and they take better pictures than the people with D40s and D1s....
I also see that a lot with the powershot series cameras and people walking around with those...they end up taking better pictures than a lot of people I know who use SLRs...

You need to be creative. Even with an EOS 1Ds Mark III....if you're not creative...some kid with a Rebel is gonna make nicer pictures than you if he has the creativity to back up his hobby.

 

[Dagwood56]

Just thought I'd add my 2 cents to this. I agree that good equipment can't make a poor photographer take a better photo, and that a good photographer can be limited by their poor equipment, but here is something rarely touched on in regard to what type of camera a person uses and that is "money". Some of us, like myself, simply can't afford to spend $500 on a dslr, so I presently use an older P&S with 2mp. Its not that I don't appreciate the art of photography, I love photography and have for many years, but when you're married, have only one income, [I'm unable to work] a mortgage, home heating costs, gas and insurance for 2 cars, medical expenses and other household expenses, one sometimes must sacrafice luxury for necessity. I have two perfectly good SLR's with several lenses, but I still use the cheap P&S because I can't afford film and developing costs.

I would say that if you see someone who has potential, but they are using a cell phone or low end P&S camera, don't immediately assume that they don't care - politely ask if its their only camera, point out they have real potential and politely suggest that they look into something more elaborate if they can afford it and point out the benefits of a dslr.