Pros don't use crop bodies

[Derrel]

OMG, Sparky!! Those Harbor Fraught ads are hilarious! I love the 12HP, 4500-Watt Noise & Fume Generator, as well as the 6' x 8' Rickety Aluminum Greenhouse! The Bono Safety Goggles are clever...need to get me a pair of those! The 16 inch manually-cranked chainsaw looks nice.

 

[Braineack]

my three-wheeled HF trans jacked worked just fine over the weekend. Just like I'm able to shoot without a D4s.

 

[chuasam]

any one can take a picture. be paid and valued for your vision and what you add.
Sell what makes your photos unique.

 

[Didereaux]

If all you own is a crop-body d-slr and a 50.1.8 lens, you are exceptionally under-capitalized and honestly, your work could not help but reflect that. It's difficult to hear at times, but the difference to me between a professional photographer and a wanna-be or part-timer is in both results, but also capability and familiarity with a suite of tools. In this thread we've talked about mechanics, but the idea of a mechanic with only ONE single wrench is as absurd as the photographer with a crop-frame body and nothing more than a 50mm lens...that's simply not enough equipment to offer first-class photography. It's just not. Just as one, single wrench is not enough to be a mechanic.

Professional photographers that cannot afford even the basic equipment that 95% of professional photographers own...hmmm...no wide-angle photos? No telephoto images? No flash? No reflectors? I dunno...sounds very low-rent to me. Sounds a lot like the "professional carpenter" (self-professed) who cannot afford anything except a nail gun...no square, no level, no circular saw, no nothing....except the ability to air-sink nails with a nailgun. "Nailgunner" is my personal terms for a number of modern day "carpenters" who cannot even handle an actual hammer...these are the $15/hr. guys hired to do framing work on spec houses.

If the OP wants to come back and flesh out his or her inquiry with a bit more detail, that might be helpful, but the OP itself mentions nothing but a crop-body camera and a 50mm lens and the inability to afford even a third-party 70-200...like a mechanic with one wrench, or a carpenter with ONLY the ability to nail gun in nails...

Bresson produced myriads of superb photos using a little Leica and a 50mm lens, Ansel Adams sold photos he took with a Polaroid SX-70. Picasso produced intricate, and beautiful murals composed of a single unbroken line drawn with a piece of charcoal. Care to argue against this: The only thing necessary is TALENT, not the instrument

 

[astroNikon]

no. real mechanics use Harbor Freight.

Sorry, I just had to!

I NEED that pneumatic slide whistle ... just gotta have one !!

 

[fjrabon]

Bresson produced myriads of superb photos using a little Leica and a 50mm lens, Ansel Adams sold photos he took with a Polaroid SX-70. Picasso produced intricate, and beautiful murals composed of a single unbroken line drawn with a piece of charcoal. Care to argue against this: The only thing necessary is TALENT, not the instrument

Being an artist who sells prints of their artwork is very different from being a paid professional photographer who works by assignment/client. If I had shown up to a playoff game I was paid to shoot with a polaroid I'd have been fired, simple as that.

Further, "little leica" is being a bit disingenuous, at best, about what a Leica is. And a Polaroid SX 70, adjusted for inflation, cost the equivalent of ~$1100 today.

 

[jamiebonline]

Hi again,

So many replies! OK just to clear up. I don't only have a 50mm 1.8. I also have an 85 1.4 and a 17-50 2.8 and a 19mm 2.8. I also have other other studio-related gear.

I did a shoot on the D7000 with the Sigma 17-50 for a website of a school. Pictures of the school staff. They were happy. Maybe I am answering my own question.

I do like most if I get a comment about my work that points to me having a style that the person prefers. It means a lot to me. I build on this.

 

[Derrel]

Bresson produced myriads of superb photos using a little Leica and a 50mm lens, Ansel Adams sold photos he took with a Polaroid SX-70. Picasso produced intricate, and beautiful murals composed of a single unbroken line drawn with a piece of charcoal. Care to argue against this: The only thing necessary is TALENT, not the instrument

Sorry, but the wanna-be "carpenter" with a nail gun and a few belts' worth of fasteners or the wanna-be "mechanic" with just a single, 10-inch adjustable wrench are both utterly incapable of doing much beyond apprentice-level tasks. The person who has a bare-bones kit simply cannot be expected to compete for many jobs that fully-equipped businesses can easily handle, with tools they own and are familiar and proficient with.

World-famous artists, like Ansel Adams by the time the SX-70 came out, could easily have sold their own turds, and their fanboys would have willingly paid vast sums for them. I can envision it now... Ansel Adams, feces in lucite box, San Jose, California, Taco Night Remainders, 1975.

As far as Bresson's talent...his early work was so pathetic he destroyed almost all of his negatives, and kept only the few successful photos he managed to come up with. He was embarrassed by the poor quality of the majority of rubbish he shot. Compare his work of the 1940's to the stuff you see daily on any number of news sites...pretty tame stuff he shot. Buuuut...before the advent of television, his grainy B&W snaps of life outside of the USA must have seemed pretty fantastical.

If anybody wants to burst their HCB fanboy bubble, look into his book of portraiture. OMG, it is dreadfully mediocre. As in really, really bad work. He was clearly not a capable portraitist, but was instead, actually rather bad at it. I looked through the book at Powell's City of Books...OMG...it's awful. It's shocking to see how much a fish out of water the man was when it came to photographing people face to face.

 

[gsgary]

If all you own is a crop-body d-slr and a 50.1.8 lens, you are exceptionally under-capitalized and honestly, your work could not help but reflect that. It's difficult to hear at times, but the difference to me between a professional photographer and a wanna-be or part-timer is in both results, but also capability and familiarity with a suite of tools. In this thread we've talked about mechanics, but the idea of a mechanic with only ONE single wrench is as absurd as the photographer with a crop-frame body and nothing more than a 50mm lens...that's simply not enough equipment to offer first-class photography. It's just not. Just as one, single wrench is not enough to be a mechanic.

Professional photographers that cannot afford even the basic equipment that 95% of professional photographers own...hmmm...no wide-angle photos? No telephoto images? No flash? No reflectors? I dunno...sounds very low-rent to me. Sounds a lot like the "professional carpenter" (self-professed) who cannot afford anything except a nail gun...no square, no level, no circular saw, no nothing....except the ability to air-sink nails with a nailgun. "Nailgunner" is my personal terms for a number of modern day "carpenters" who cannot even handle an actual hammer...these are the $15/hr. guys hired to do framing work on spec houses.

If the OP wants to come back and flesh out his or her inquiry with a bit more detail, that might be helpful, but the OP itself mentions nothing but a crop-body camera and a 50mm lens and the inability to afford even a third-party 70-200...like a mechanic with one wrench, or a carpenter with ONLY the ability to nail gun in nails...

yeah, the lack of lenses is 10000% a bigger issue than having a crop body. You have to be a very certain type of photographer to get away with one lens only, and a 50mm on a crop wouldn't be it in that scenario either. To me its like photographers I see on here who buy a D800, but only own one actual good lens for it.

FF is nice, and has its benefits, but having a decent selection of quality lenses is vastly more important. And you can absolutely do professional level work on a crop body. A lot of big time professional photographers do.

What a load of rubbish and pro should be able to get the job done with what he has, my favourite photographer only used a 35mm lens on his Leica for the whole of his career shooting for one of the top UK papers

 

[fjrabon]

What a load of rubbish and pro should be able to get the job done with what he has, my favourite photographer only used a 35mm lens on his Leica for the whole of his career shooting for one of the top UK papers

LOL, you really think you can do professional sports photography with a single 35mm lens? Even you can't really think that. You can't really, actually, think you could run a portrait studio with only a 35mm lens and a Leica? You can't really, honestly think that you could do wildlife photography with a 35mm and a Leica, can you?

There are a couple of genres that lend to extraordinarily talented individuals with a single lens doing well, but they are certainly the exception, not the norm.

 

[gsgary]

What a load of rubbish and pro should be able to get the job done with what he has, my favourite photographer only used a 35mm lens on his Leica for the whole of his career shooting for one of the top UK papers

LOL, you really think you can do professional sports photography with a single 35mm lens? Even you can't really think that. You can't really, actually, think you could run a portrait studio with only a 35mm lens and a Leica? You can't really, honestly think that you could do wildlife photography with a 35mm and a Leica, can you?

There are a couple of genres that lend to extraordinary talented individuals with a single lens doing well, but they are certainly the exception, not the norm.

Who mentioned sports, I said he worked for a top newspaper

 

[gsgary]

I'm talking real pro, not someone who has picked up a digital camera and calls himself a pro after one job you need to be earning 50+ % of your total income to be classed as pro

 

[fjrabon]

What a load of rubbish and pro should be able to get the job done with what he has, my favourite photographer only used a 35mm lens on his Leica for the whole of his career shooting for one of the top UK papers

LOL, you really think you can do professional sports photography with a single 35mm lens? Even you can't really think that. You can't really, actually, think you could run a portrait studio with only a 35mm lens and a Leica? You can't really, honestly think that you could do wildlife photography with a 35mm and a Leica, can you?

There are a couple of genres that lend to extraordinary talented individuals with a single lens doing well, but they are certainly the exception, not the norm.

Who mentioned sports, I said he worked for a top newspaper

I (the person you were responding to) was talking about sports (and other genres) in the post you responded to. Or was your "this is rubbish" response not actually in response to anything I said, or did you respond to me without reading what I said?

You said "any pro should be able to do the job with whatever gear they have" and then cited a photojournalist as your only support, which photojournalism is absolutely the genre that requires the least variety of lenses. Almost every other genre (besides PJ and its hobbyist cousin, street) of photography requires at least some variety in lenses.

 

[fjrabon]

I'm talking real pro, not someone who has picked up a digital camera and calls himself a pro after one job you need to be earning 50+ % of your total income to be classed as pro

what are you even talking about at this point?

 

[pixmedic]

I'm talking real pro, not someone who has picked up a digital camera and calls himself a pro after one job you need to be earning 50+ % of your total income to be classed as pro

by your own definition, every stay at home mom or dad that shoots mini sessions for $30 is a pro.
since photography is 100% of their income, it clearly goes well over your 50% rule.