Which is the most important to you?

[Dmitri]

I voted subject but your poll really has no context. Best for what? I love breakfast!

Photographically speaking, bu I do enjoy me a good breakfast too!

 

[Dmitri]

The delete button. I use that the most.

!!! Excellent point!!

 

[Dmitri]

I chose the breakfast, because it includes the subject of breakfast, the orange juice in the glass, how sunlight falls over my coffee, postprocessing occurring in my stomach, and also something else.

Yikes!! Thanks for the visual lol!

 

[Dmitri]

I chose light. When I first started photography, I heard this great quote. It may not be verbatim, but it was something very close to this... "Amateurs think about gear, pros think about money, and masters think about light." That has stuck with me since my very first weeks in photography.

I remember that quote from somewhere also. Very good one!

 

[Dmitri]

You left out a choice: All Of The Above.

Well, if I included an "all of the above" option, then I would have to delete the word "most" in "most important".

 

[Dmitri]

What about inspiration?

Photography is like a cake - its not a single important ingredient to get the final product; its a series of good ingredients - good mixing - good cooking and good icing. Try to cheapen/remove/reduce any one part of the process and the final result will suffer. In some cases (eg poor lighting) you might be able to fix it up in post just and a good camera body and lens might let you get away with it = other times (like the missing subject) its just going to fail because the key parts are missing.

How far you can allow each part to weaken and where you have to put more effort in to correct/counter is going to come down to a shot by shot basis - some cases you'll have the gear and the know how to make inferior lighting still work good - other times you won't.

Inspiration would fall under subject, I would think.

 

[Overread36]

Hmm but I can be inspired to take a shot of a tiger, but if I've no tiger or I can't find a tiger I have the inspiration, but no subject to speak of to enable the inspiration.

 

[Dmitri]

Hmm but I can be inspired to take a shot of a tiger, but if I've no tiger or I can't find a tiger I have the inspiration, but no subject to speak of to enable the inspiration.

If you want to take a photo of a tiger, but you have no tiger, than you have no photo of a tiger.

 

[ghache]

your question /answers is kinda odd.

a good subject with bad lightning and bad postp will get you a shiiity picture.
bad subject with good lightning will also gives you a bad picture.

take a good picture and add a ****ty post processing over it and you got yourself a bad picture so i dont know.

 

[Rit]

I put "Something Else"... My soon to be wife!:hug::

 

[Dmitri]

I put "Something Else"... My soon to be wife!:hug::

Congrats!!!

 

[flea77]

I picked "something else" because there is no single most important thing. Whithout a subject, there is nothing to photograph. Without light on the subject, there is noting to photograph. Without good glass, the subject and lighting can be diminished. Etc. Everything needs to work together to make a nice image.

Allan

 

[HikinMike]

It's all about the light, at least to me as a landscape/nature photographer. Sometimes, the light becomes the subject.

 

[Dmitri]

It's all about the light, at least to me as a landscape/nature photographer. Sometimes, the light becomes the subject.

Great answer!!

 

[memento]

with good light, you can use bad glass, to make a great picture of anything.. including breakfast.. that would require no post-processing.