When the camera does matter; specialised bodies and lenses and why you need them. Facebook is the world’s largest ‘image library’ with over 100 billion pictures uploaded . Sure, quality might be lost in quantity, but it’s a remarkable indication of how photography has changed. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been asked what camera you use, and how many megapixels it has, followed by a dreamily wishful comment about how it would be good to have an expensive camera that would create beautiful photographs. Obviously, the standard response is to question whether using Renoir’s paintbrushes or Rachmaninoff’s piano might automatically produce mastery. Photographers create photographs, cameras just make them. But maybe this needs more thought? I’m sure that the past masters used the best tools available to them if possible, so why can’t photographers? A great photographer values consistency. They master the craft so that they know how to create the images that they can imagine in a range of conditions. Photography requires learning a few essential principles, and sticking to them; most, but not all, of the time. On my courses, I teach that the camera doesn’t matter. A good photographer can take better photographs with a camera-phone than an untrained person could with the best camera in the world. This photograph was taken in Sierra Leone with a 5mp Sony digital compact.
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Transcript
When the camera does matter; specialised bodies and lenses and why you need them.
Facebook is the world’s largest ‘image library’ with over 100 billion pictures uploaded. Sure, quality
might be lost in quantity, but it’s a remarkable indication of how photography has changed.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been asked what camera you use, and how many megapixels it
has, followed by a dreamily wishful comment about how it would be good to have an expensive
camera that would create beautiful photographs.
Obviously, the standard response is to question whether using Renoir’s paintbrushes or
Rachmaninoff’s piano might automatically produce mastery. Photographers create photographs,
cameras just make them.
But maybe this needs more thought? I’m sure that the past masters used the best tools available to
them if possible, so why can’t photographers?
A great photographer values consistency. They master the craft so that they know how to create the
images that they can imagine in a range of conditions. Photography requires learning a few essential
principles, and sticking to them; most, but not all, of the time.
On my courses, I teach that the camera doesn’t matter. A good photographer can take better
photographs with a camera-phone than an untrained person could with the best camera in the
world. This photograph was taken in Sierra Leone with a 5mp Sony digital compact.