Why it matters.

[Village Idiot]

But why does grandma need a 30"x45" print?

Who said grandma. Why not a client?

How many 3MP cameras are even out there? That comparison is dishonest and out of date. According to Amazon.com, the top 100 sellers, you have a few 7.2MP's, and the majority ranging between 8-10MP. So now, Megapixels, at this point in the game, don't mean a ton of nothing. What matters is how that camera is utilizing those extra MP's.

Presumably, that wonder camera is shooting at a less than ideal ISO which would resolve itself much less efficiently on a lower end camera. Hence - more light. I think you got that but perhaps wanted a bit of snark.

OK. Making a 30"x45" print with an 8mp 30D vs. a 21mp 5D MKII. Two cameras I own. I made a print for a client at 30x45 from an 8mp file. It looked good but there was so much that had to be done to the file for prep. If I were to do the same with a 21mp 5D MKII, then it would be much easier. I'd also have a sharper final image.

And the iPhone has a 2mp camera on it. I can basically only take photos in daylight without having it suffer from camera shake and blur. But if the camera didn't matter, I should be able to shoot weddings, fashion & glamour, portraits, and everything else with it that I do with my current camera. There's not even a way to fire a flash from it.

If cameras didn't matter we'd all be running around with disposables.

 

[Garbz]

Who said grandma. Why not a client?

Before someone crys foul about not everyone here being a professional. I am not. I am an amateur. I print my photos usually no larger than 8x5. But boy was I thankful for the larger resolution when out of the blue a cousin of a friend said she really liked a photo of mine her cousin showed her and could she buy one print roughly A3 in size.

 

[Village Idiot]

The majority of my prints are 8x10 + because of the prices I have on them and what I can order then for.

 

[TheOtherBob]

I see the same thing in music forums .. buying a better guitar will not make you a better guitar player...and it's the musician, not the instrument. 100% true, but a better guitar is definitely less of a struggle and won't get in your way as much. And you can bet that pros are not using crappy $100 guitars.

That's a great analogy. Let's say Jimi Hendrix picked up a $100 guitar. Could he rock out with it?

No.

Cause he's dead.

Ok, let's pretend he were alive...could he?

Sure -- and he'd probably find all sorts of little quirks and oddities about the guitar, and turn them into sounds no one had ever heard before.

But would he prefer to play a better instrument? Probably (though I have no idea what he actually played). The better instrument would allow a better sound quality, but also more precision -- he wouldn't have to work as hard to get the right note, and the sound that came out would be closer to his artistic intentions. So the guitar would matter.

Now, let's say I picked up the guitar. Then...well, it wouldn't matter how much the guitar cost, I'd still suck. And I'd do better spending my time learning how to play on the $100 guitar than saving for a $4000 guitar. Until I got quite a good ways down the line, no one would want to hear me play either.

So in the right hands the tools matter. In the wrong hands, they don't. That seems to me like a fair position.

One addendum, though -- when I say "the tools matter," that doesn't mean that the more expensive tool is always best. Maybe Hendrix would have preferred that $100 guitar, because maybe he could get crazy, random sounds out of it that no $4000 guitar would make. (Or maybe lighting $4000 guitars on fire would get real expensive real quick.)

The professional chooses the right tool -- the tool that does what he or she needs or wants to do -- not necessarily the most expensive tool.

 

[TBAM]

Billboards, large prints, commercial photography and wedding shoots have been around a lot longer than the d3, 1ds, 5d, L series Glass etc has been around.

You say that a 3mp camera can't do 30"x45" prints, yet someone probably has done just that, otherwise there wouldn't have been professional line cameras when digital was first introduced.

A lot of prints that large are not viewed from a close distance, even if they were, the customer / average viewer would not care if there were tiny artifacts, or pixellations, as they all vanish when viewed from the appropriate distance. In addition, the purpose of commercial prints is more often than not, not about the image itself, but what it conveys.

You say, that you need a high ISO camera to correctly shoot a wedding in a dimly lit church. Yet weddings have been photographed for decades in dimly lit churches without high ISO large megapixel cameras.

The camera matters to the photographer, not to the viewer.

The extent of the relevance of a camera in creating an image for the viewer, is only in that some kind of camera was required to take the photo. They don't care what kind of camera took the shot, only acknowledge that a camera was required for the shot to be taken.

The type of camera only matters when the photographer identifies that a particular camera is required to create a particular kind of photo.

However, in general terms, as many others have said. All cameras take photos. Some will do things easier than others. But the relevance of the camera is a sliding scale.

Just like 5 years from now, they'll say you can't shoot a wedding without a 40Mp full frame camera with clean ISO's in the 100,000s.
Whether the photos are "better" or not is completely up to personal opinion. Technicality doesn't matter to the viewer in most situations only to the creator.

However, perhaps that is what you are arguing and I am missing that. I'm not sure.

 

[Battou]

Who said grandma. Why not a client?

Any client stupid enough to fall for that deserves a **** print.

 

[mrodgers]

That's a great analogy. Let's say Jimi Hendrix picked up a $100 guitar. Could he rock out with it?

Yes, a great analogy. Or is it? I happen to have a cheapo guitar. I happen to have never played before and would like to learn. I'm not Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix had been a guitar god, and handing him a $100 guitar compared to me with my $100 guitar has quite a large difference.

With my $200 Fuji, I am limited quite a lot compared to a dSLR. But I am learning quite a bit. I can still learn the basics of exposure and composition. I can use my cheapo camera to its fullest. I've had it for over a year now and I've long ago outgrown it. But there is still things I am learning, especially with composition. I still have a lot to work on with composition, and my Fuji teaches it to me no different than a dSLR would disregarding extreme bokeh which is VERY difficult to do with my Fuji or comparable.

Back to guitars. The difference in playing a musical instrument such as guitar and photography is, the action of your hands and fingers are very important. How to work a camera is pretty simple. How to work a guitar is quite difficult. When you have a cheap guitar, it's not only the sound that is lousy in comparison, but also the way it plays and how you have to play it. A cheap guitar takes more effort to hold down the strings on the frets. It's strings have much more distance from the fretboard making it necessary to lift and move the fingers farther. You can't make the chord changes as smoothly and fluidly with the cheap guitar. Learning soloing, you can't move your fingers as fast because you have to press harder and move them farther.

As being one with both a cheap camera trying to learn photography and a cheap guitar trying to learn how to play, I think the analogy doesn't fit at all.

You can be a Jimi Hendrix guitar god and play anything on any kind of guitar, or you can be an Ansel Adams photography god and shoot anything on any kind of camera. But when you put them in the hands of the less experienced, the differences of that analogy become huge.

 

[Fox Paw]

"I see the same thing in music forums .. buying a better guitar will not make you a better guitar player...and it's the musician, not the instrument. 100% true, but a better guitar is definitely less of a struggle and won't get in your way as much. And you can bet that pros are not using crappy $100 guitars."

What you say is true. I would add that while the difference between a $100 guitar and an $700 guitar is very large, the difference between an $700 guitar and a $3,000 guitar is smaller. You reach a point of diminishing returns fairly quickly. I suspect something similar is true in photography, but I wouldn't know from first-hand experience.

 

[prodigy2k7]

Billboards, large prints, commercial photography and wedding shoots have been around a lot longer than the d3, 1ds, 5d, L series Glass etc has been around.

You say that a 3mp camera can't do 30"x45" prints, yet someone probably has done just that, otherwise there wouldn't have been professional line cameras when digital was first introduced.

A lot of prints that large are not viewed from a close distance, even if they were, the customer / average viewer would not care if there were tiny artifacts, or pixellations, as they all vanish when viewed from the appropriate distance. In addition, the purpose of commercial prints is more often than not, not about the image itself, but what it conveys.

You say, that you need a high ISO camera to correctly shoot a wedding in a dimly lit church. Yet weddings have been photographed for decades in dimly lit churches without high ISO large megapixel cameras.

The camera matters to the photographer, not to the viewer.

The extent of the relevance of a camera in creating an image for the viewer, is only in that some kind of camera was required to take the photo. They don't care what kind of camera took the shot, only acknowledge that a camera was required for the shot to be taken.

The type of camera only matters when the photographer identifies that a particular camera is required to create a particular kind of photo.

However, in general terms, as many others have said. All cameras take photos. Some will do things easier than others. But the relevance of the camera is a sliding scale.

Just like 5 years from now, they'll say you can't shoot a wedding without a 40Mp full frame camera with clean ISO's in the 100,000s.
Whether the photos are "better" or not is completely up to personal opinion. Technicality doesn't matter to the viewer in most situations only to the creator.

However, perhaps that is what you are arguing and I am missing that. I'm not sure.

I doubt any 3MP camera was used for billboards... But yes, billboards are often viewed from tens to hundreds of feet away, the DPI could be very small, allowing a very large image from a low MP count...

 

[Garbz]

Any client stupid enough to fall for that deserves a **** print.

Weren't you bitching about a wedding photographer using a Kodak Easyshare in another thread last week?

This is a pointless discussion given that the client doesn't care. Having a great camera doesn't mean you can take a great picture and visa versa. But a great camera + great photographer will always produce a higher quality image than a great photographer with an average camera. And then when the client wants his A3 image sure you could print it from your 2mpx camera phone, but enjoy telling your client why he can't have the 300dpi image he would have gotten next door.

This "discussion" has turned into heated irrelevant posts none of which prove anything.

 

[Jedo_03]

That's a great analogy. Let's say Jimi Hendrix picked up a $100 guitar. Could he rock out with it?

No.

Cause he's dead.

Ok, let's pretend he were alive...could he?

Sure -- and he'd probably find all sorts of little quirks and oddities about the guitar, and turn them into sounds no one had ever heard before.

But would he prefer to play a better instrument? Probably (though I have no idea what he actually played). The better instrument would allow a better sound quality, but also more precision -- he wouldn't have to work as hard to get the right note, and the sound that came out would be closer to his artistic intentions. So the guitar would matter.

Now, let's say I picked up the guitar. Then...well, it wouldn't matter how much the guitar cost, I'd still suck. And I'd do better spending my time learning how to play on the $100 guitar than saving for a $4000 guitar. Until I got quite a good ways down the line, no one would want to hear me play either.

So in the right hands the tools matter. In the wrong hands, they don't. That seems to me like a fair position.

One addendum, though -- when I say "the tools matter," that doesn't mean that the more expensive tool is always best. Maybe Hendrix would have preferred that $100 guitar, because maybe he could get crazy, random sounds out of it that no $4000 guitar would make. (Or maybe lighting $4000 guitars on fire would get real expensive real quick.)

The professional chooses the right tool -- the tool that does what he or she needs or wants to do -- not necessarily the most expensive tool.

Hendrix actually played a Fender Strat (Stratocaster) - and being a solid BODY, there is/was no "natural" resonance, and the sound quality is/was produced by the pick-ups (guitar microphones)...
However, using a "cheap" amplifier, the Strat actually sounds quite tinny...
So Hendix used Marshall amplifiers... which make a Strat sound quite decent...
The Hendix "sound" though, is/was a product of a variety of "effects" - a number of electroconic devices/pedals which gave him 'echo', 'waa-waa', 'sustain', 'fuzz', 'feedback', 'hiss' and many more...
Hendrix started his musical life as a Jazz Guitarist - hence his mastery of chords and Riffs, then naturally drifted to Afro-Blues, finally finding his style in All Along The Watchtower...
My point here: - Hendrix was a wizard player - but would never have achieved cult status without his additional electroconic "gear"...
So - no matter HOW good you are with your artistic eye - you won't get your images into ANY exhibition unless they are ALSO technically excellent.
Jedo

 

[panocho]

Hendrix actually played a Fender Strat (Stratocaster) - and being a solid BODY, there is/was no "natural" resonance, and the sound quality is/was produced by the pick-ups (guitar microphones)...
However, using a "cheap" amplifier, the Strat actually sounds quite tinny...
So Hendix used Marshall amplifiers... which make a Strat sound quite decent...
The Hendix "sound" though, is/was a product of a variety of "effects" - a number of electroconic devices/pedals which gave him 'echo', 'waa-waa', 'sustain', 'fuzz', 'feedback', 'hiss' and many more...
Hendrix started his musical life as a Jazz Guitarist - hence his mastery of chords and Riffs, then naturally drifted to Afro-Blues, finally finding his style in All Along The Watchtower...
My point here: - Hendrix was a wizard player - but would never have achieved cult status without his additional electroconic "gear"...
So - no matter HOW good you are with your artistic eye - you won't get your images into ANY exhibition unless they are ALSO technically excellent.
Jedo

Don't mean to turn the discussion into a guitar-thing. But being a guitarist myself I feel forced to reply:

1. Solid bodies give resonance as well. Why, if not, the importance of using diferent woods for contructing them? Try a nice old Les Paul, from when they where constructed with the mind in the guitar, not in the business, and hear tha sustain it gives to the notes. Then try a cheapish newer Epiphone Les Paul. You can even go further and do the comparison more precisely: mount exactly the same pickups on both guitars. Do they sound the same? "Are you kiding!?!?" will be the answer.

So does this mean that gear matters? Of course it does, but no way in the sense that better equipment implies better results in the hands of the same person. A better camera, to return to our field, only gives the photographer more possibilities, in a sense, but only if the photographer takes advantage of them will such possibilities mean something. So for a great photographer (or guitarist, or whatever) the "gear matters" means that there will be some camera(s) than they prefer over the rest -this meaning that the results they will achieve will be better, because they feel better, more "in communion" with that certain camera. But such camera might as well be the most simple and technically limited one in the market!

So - no matter HOW good you are with your artistic eye - you won't get your images into ANY exhibition unless they are ALSO technically excellent.
Jedo

:shock: WHAT? A lot of photographers have based all their artistic careers in defying every technical perfection pursuance. And their totally technically-imperfect pictures hang on the walls of many museums

 

[Overread]

I think some people need a trip to the Tate Modern in London to get an idea that one definatly does not need any techincal skill to get into some "art" galleries

However on the whole its solid advice - master both the eye and the technical - one without the other is not a complete kit - at least aim to have a smattering of understanding of both

 

[Village Idiot]

Billboards, large prints, commercial photography and wedding shoots have been around a lot longer than the d3, 1ds, 5d, L series Glass etc has been around.

You say that a 3mp camera can't do 30"x45" prints, yet someone probably has done just that, otherwise there wouldn't have been professional line cameras when digital was first introduced.

A lot of prints that large are not viewed from a close distance, even if they were, the customer / average viewer would not care if there were tiny artifacts, or pixellations, as they all vanish when viewed from the appropriate distance. In addition, the purpose of commercial prints is more often than not, not about the image itself, but what it conveys.

You say, that you need a high ISO camera to correctly shoot a wedding in a dimly lit church. Yet weddings have been photographed for decades in dimly lit churches without high ISO large megapixel cameras.

The camera matters to the photographer, not to the viewer.

The extent of the relevance of a camera in creating an image for the viewer, is only in that some kind of camera was required to take the photo. They don't care what kind of camera took the shot, only acknowledge that a camera was required for the shot to be taken.

The type of camera only matters when the photographer identifies that a particular camera is required to create a particular kind of photo.

However, in general terms, as many others have said. All cameras take photos. Some will do things easier than others. But the relevance of the camera is a sliding scale.

Just like 5 years from now, they'll say you can't shoot a wedding without a 40Mp full frame camera with clean ISO's in the 100,000s.
Whether the photos are "better" or not is completely up to personal opinion. Technicality doesn't matter to the viewer in most situations only to the creator.

However, perhaps that is what you are arguing and I am missing that. I'm not sure.

Each generation of camera and new level of technology is allowing photographers that know what they're doing to photograph subjects that they may not have perviously been able to previously photograph without additional gear, or at all.

Just like in the beginning of modern photography, exposures could take hours. It was nearly impossible to photograph a human being. Then they took minutes and portraiture could be accurately acheived without a brush, paint, and canvas. Then cameras became portable and exposures took less than a second. People could photograph others in motion and performing actions like playing games or sports.

Now it may not seem like such giant leaps, but in the future when some one is shooting in a location with barely any light at 100,000 ISO with an 80MP DSLR with a medium format sized sensor, getting shots that were previously impossible with today's cameras unless we were using thousands of dollars of lighting, then the camera matters.

And that's how is stands today. Shots these new high ISO cameras people are taking, they're doing so handheld and in poorly lit conditions. Thirty years ago a photographer would need most likely need a tripod to get the same shot without blur from camera shake and even then, it would be kind of hard shooting people.

Just like 5 years from now, they'll say you can't shoot a wedding without a 40Mp full frame camera with clean ISO's in the 100,000s.
Whether the photos are "better" or not is completely up to personal opinion. Technicality doesn't matter to the viewer in most situations only to the creator.

It's not that 5 years from now they'll say we couldn't shoot a wedding with the gear we currently have, they'll say we're taking photographs that were technically impossible to take 5 years ago. And you're right that technicality doesn't matter to the viewer in most situations, but having an actual photo in front of them to view does.

 

[JerryPH]

Don't mean to turn the discussion into a guitar-thing. But being a guitarist myself I feel forced to reply:

You completely missed the gist of his post. Hendricks could likely do well on a ukulele with 2 of it's 4 strings broken, THAT was the point.

WHAT? A lot of photographers have based all their artistic careers in defying every technical perfection pursuance. And their totally technically-imperfect pictures hang on the walls of many museums

I don't see many pictures that are badly blurred, focused on the wrong areas poor horizon control, etc... hanging on any museum walls anywhere.

Sure, you can break ANY rule of composition (rules are made to be broken), and have that picture hanging in a museum. But you see, the artist did that ON PURPOSE. There is a vast difference in someone making a compositional choice based on knowledge and artistic freedom for the betterment of a photograph vs some guy at Disneyland who took most of his pics crooked and had poles and trees growing out of his subject's head becuase he did not know better.

THAT is the point trying to be made, I believe.