rubysphoto:

I am on another forum and there is a photographer that does seminars and has a booth at the WPPI that has won awards from the WPPI of 16x20 and larger from a p&s 3.1 megapixel camera. It is how you use it not what you have.

I have had my S3 for over 2 years and see no need to upgrade except for me to say "hey look what I have".

Everything I have posted here has been shot with an old 3.46 megapixel camera.  

Fuji shooters are cool.  Every time I meet one I find that we think a lot alike. 

Obscura:

rubysphoto:

I am on another forum and there is a photographer that does seminars and has a booth at the WPPI that has won awards from the WPPI of 16x20 and larger from a p&s 3.1 megapixel camera. It is how you use it not what you have.

I have had my S3 for over 2 years and see no need to upgrade except for me to say "hey look what I have".

Everything I have posted here has been shot with an old 3.46 megapixel camera.  

Fuji shooters are cool.  Every time I meet one I find that we think a lot alike. 

 

"Heh Beethoven,  That is a beautiful song you just played, What kind of piano are you using?"

Obscura--can I borrow that quote?  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Rachelle:

"Heh Beethoven,  That is a beautiful song you just played, What kind of piano are you using?"

Obscura--can I borrow that quote?  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Ha-ha!  Me too!  One client said to me after looking her portrait proofs "I love the way your camera makes our pictures look!"

Amboo:

Didn't realize a simple question was going to be upsetting...

Will find another site to get info from..

Thanks.

Good luck with that!  You should try www.fredmiranda.com.  They're very gentle over there.    I hear dpreview.com is even kinder.

Leigh:

Rachelle:

"Heh Beethoven,  That is a beautiful song you just played, What kind of piano are you using?"

Obscura--can I borrow that quote?  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Ha-ha!  Me too!  One client said to me after looking her portrait proofs "I love the way your camera makes our pictures look!"

Ha. Be my guest. :-)  Put the quote in your .sig files if you want.

I give customers who suffer from lens envy a pass. 

Before I started learning photography I lusted for a professional camera.  It wasn't until I started learning that I realized it was more about technique than equipment.

Obscura:

"Heh Beethoven,  That is a beautiful song you just played, What kind of piano are you using?"

Ridiculous isn't it?   Yet somehow when it comes to photography it's acceptable to overlook the artists talent and heap praise on his or her equipment.

Now having said that I will also note: In the hands of a talented photographer, medium format digital backs are a wonderful thing.   I used to work with a Leaf digital camera back and it was a real joy to use.

I have mixed feelings about all of that.  Sometimes I think photographers want to make it seem like getting good photos is ALWAYS very difficult and that no matter what, it was their artistic decisions that made the photograph good.  I fully agree that knowledge, skill and practice are all factors in being able to repeatedly get good photos, but I'd also argue that if you give the  best sniper in the Army a cheap handgun, he won't be able to hit a target at 100 yards anymore.

Great equipment lets you use your knowledge, skill/talent and experience to make great pictures.  But without it, you are limited in some of the photos you can take.  A good photographer with a used 350 Digital Rebel and a 50mm f/1.8 lens (CHEAP package) can probably make some pretty good portriats.  But he isn't going to be getting too many "Blue Herons feeding the babies in the nest" shots with that combo.  So equipment can play a role in what you are able to shoot, and how well. 

ESPECIALLY with digital.  With film, everyone has the same "sensor."  The film is the sensor and anyone can afford to put good 35mm film in even their cheap point and shoot 35mm camera and get some good shots.  With digital, most of the point and shoots have such a small sensor that noise is inevitable and picture quality is going to suffer if you try to push the limits.

So... Beethoven might be able to play a really nice song on a basic piano, but you will probably be able to tell a big difference if he has access to a Steinway...

Obscura:

<snip>  Asking about the camera is like this:

"Heh Beethoven,  That is a beautiful song you just played, What kind of piano are you using?"

Ridiculous isn't it?   Yet somehow when it comes to photography it's acceptable to overlook the artists talent and heap praise on his or her equipment.

Now having said that I will also note: In the hands of a talented photographer, medium format digital backs are a wonderful thing.   I used to work with a Leaf digital camera back and it was a real joy to use.  <snip>

That analogy is only ridiculous if you don't play piano and have never had the chance to play on a Steinway grand. 

Sure, this little Yamaha electronic keyboard sitting next to this computer has the same sort of black and white keys as a Steinway - and I can play a tune or two on either one.  The Yamaha even has the advantage that it can be plugged into this computer via a midi cable so I can tweak tunes on the computer and fix all my mistakes.

The Yamaha electronic isn't a Steinway though - not even close.  Sure, a great pianist can do some awesome stuff with my little electric Yamaha, but when he sits down at $120,000 Steinway - OMG!  Let's listen to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a midi keyboard and then on a Steinway grand, the midi keyboard is "cool", the Steinway will make you cry.

I get to hang around with a lot of musicians - aspiring and professional.  I get to take their pictures a lot.  I'm not a great musician though - I just didn't inherit that talent.  I've learned from them something that applies to our art though.  While the tool doesn't make the artist - the right tool gives the artist the means to create. 

I've also learned that our art isn't as expensive as we seem to sometimes think.  We often cringe at the thought of a $1000 lens or even camera body.  My husband plays music on a $7500 flute, it's a flute!  I have friends that play saxophones and clarinets that cost way more than all my gear added together.  They don't hesitate to spend money on their tools when the tool makes a difference.  And, I've seen firsthand that the tools make a difference.  Sure, a professional sax player can sound real good on a beginner sax - they sound even better on a professional one.

Here we are, photographic artists, acknowledging that it's not the tools that make a photographer great - it's the skill of the artist.  We know that a really good eye can take magnificent shots with a point-and-shoot.  We also know (and sometimes attempt to ignore) that the same artist given an 8x10 field cam or a 20MP dSLR or even a box with a hole in it and a lens attached will take a great shot.  That artist is likely not using a box with a hole and a lens though - she's invested in quality tools.  The best she could afford that accomplish her vision. 

Which brings us then to "which camera should I buy?" - if you're serious about this art then buy the very best combination of camera and glass that you can afford.  Not what you can comfortably spend some pocket change on - that you can afford.  These musicians I know, they'd walk everywhere if it meant the difference between a quality instrument or a car.  They'll go without food to get their horn fixed when needed.  How many of we photographic artists are as dedicated to our art as the typical musician? 

Then, they spend 20+ hours during the week preparing themselves to perform for an hour or two.  I've never practiced my lighting and posing for 20 hours before shooting a sitting.  Maybe I should...

Tom_Steele:

Obscura:

Now having said that I will also note: In the hands of a talented photographer, medium format digital backs are a wonderful thing.

ESPECIALLY with digital.  With film, everyone has the same "sensor."  The film is the sensor and anyone can afford to put good 35mm film in even their cheap point and shoot 35mm camera and get some good shots.  With digital, most of the point and shoots have such a small sensor that noise is inevitable and picture quality is going to suffer if you try to push the limits.

So... Beethoven might be able to play a really nice song on a basic piano, but you will probably be able to tell a big difference if he has access to a Steinway...

Yes! That is exactly what I was trying to convey with the last part of my post.    :-)

It should also be said that if I were to sit down at a Steinway you would cover your ears and run because I do not know how to play the piano. 

Your comparison of sensor size between cheap p&s and 35mm digital should also be made when comparing 35mm digital to medium format digital.

Tom_Steele:

Great equipment lets you use your knowledge, skill/talent and experience to make great pictures.  But without it, you are limited in some of the photos you can take.  A good photographer with a used 350 Digital Rebel and a 50mm f/1.8 lens (CHEAP package) can probably make some pretty good portriats.  But he isn't going to be getting too many "Blue Herons feeding the babies in the nest" shots with that combo.  So equipment can play a role in what you are able to shoot, and how well.

Again, I agree completely.    A skilled photographer knows when he or she has run up against a technical limitation of their equipment and should know  what is needed to overcome the limitation.   

Unfortunately, I often see unskilled photographers with the idea that spending money on new and better equipment is going to magically transform them into the next Ansel Adams or Annie Leibowitz. 

A great photographer would know that you could get the "Blue Herons feeding babies in the nest" shot using a digi rebel and kit lens as long as there is a way to rig up the camera so it can be fired via radio or wired remote.  :-)) 

I've noticed on many many forums this one single thing that set's good photogs apart from people who claim to be good photogs. Good photogs don't boast about their equiptment , they show their work and leave it at that. People who boast about what they have and how much they paid for it are generally the one's who can't "put their money where their mouths are".

Equiptment only limits you if you let it.

I once saw an exhibit by Salvidor Dali (yes he used Photography also) that was shot all with a cheap Polaroid... it was magnificent.

 Tom Maybe you will best understand it in these terms, you are in Small Town Market and you can't have an RE20 or a AKG or a Neumann.  You are stuck with a SM58 no Pop Filter... would your show still be as funny?
 

Moose:

 Tom Maybe you will best understand it in these terms, you are in Small Town Market and you can't have an RE20 or a AKG or a Neumann.  You are stuck with a SM58 no Pop Filter... would your show still be as funny? 

I like the radio analogy, let me twist it just a little bit...  (For those of you who don't know, I am the co-host of a morning radio show in Greenville, SC.)

Let me give you an example of how equipment has changed the show: When I first started in radio, we were using reel-to-reel tapes to record phone calls.  We record almost everything so we don't have some yahoo get on the radio and slip in a cussword and get our station fined a quarter million bucks or so (and lose our jobs, probably.)  You know, words we hear every day at Wal-Mart, but are suddenly $250,000.00 finable offenses if some idiot on the radio utters them.  (Don't get me started!)

In the old days with the reel-to-reel, we would talk about some interesting/funny/controversial topic and then record phone calls while a song was playing.  Then when the next song was playing, I would stand at the reel-to-reel machine and physically cut pieces of the tape out with a razor blade in order to edit the call to get rid of some meandering, boring section of the conversation, so we could cut right to the punch line.  I'd also have to find entire calls and cut them out to put two good phone calls together.  But sometimes due to the time limitations, you had to leave a boring segment in the call to get to the punchline, or maybe you didn't have time to get to that short, but boring call in between two good calls and it had to run because you ran out of time to edit.

NOW, we have very nice computer programs to record our phone calls on.  We use something called VoxPro, but Cool Edit/Audition could be used - it just isn't as well set up for organization as VoxPro.  With VoxPro, I can edit probably 100 times faster. The calls are organized and labeled and I don't even have to edit the bad calls, I just don't even save them.  We can record longer while the songs are playing because I know that it won't take me so long to edit.  If we and the caller are both talking at the same time, I can blank one channel so that you can hear what the other channel is saying clearly.  (Usually our channel!  <grin>)

The end result... a funnier show.  Hopefully. 

THAT's where the "photographer skill" part of the analogy comes in to play.  (And I've never said that equipment alone will make you a great photographer, but I do believe good equipment allows you to be a better photographer and will make a mediocre photographer a slightly better photographer.)

If we are a horrible morning show to begin with and have poor judgement skills when it comes to what is, and is not, funny - then the best editor in the world won't make us good.  But if we are good to begin with, or even decent to begin with, then we can be better with better equipment.

Your mic analogy would be better suited to ask if our VOICES would sound as good with the SM58 (I have a beta58A at home) vs the Electro-Voice RE20 (which we use at the station, and I consider to be the standard personally.)

The answer to that is, the high end mics will make our voices sound better, but we will still have to be funny regardless of the mic selection.  But with the RE20 we will sound better while we are being funny. 

I was a Musician for many a year and a Neumann U67 through a Tube Preamp will not make a Bad Singer sound better or even mediocre. It will just let you hear better how bad a singer they are.

 Look it is like this:
A Square is a Rectangle But a Rectangle is not a Square.

A good artist can make art with any camera, A Bad artist cannot make art with any Camera.

"It wasn't until I started learning that I realized it was more about technique than equipment. "

..................say, where is our dear mr meeks anyway?

TheGirlNextDoor:

I've noticed on many many forums this one single thing that set's good photogs apart from people who claim to be good photogs. Good photogs don't boast about their equiptment , they show their work and leave it at that. People who boast about what they have and how much they paid for it are generally the one's who can't "put their money where their mouths are".

Yeah!  I agree!  (As Tom scrambles to erase his sig... )

Equiptment only limits you if you let it.

I appreciate the message you are trying to impart, but I believe in a purely logical and technical sense it is incorrect.  A point and shoot that cannot do high ISO shots is going to make it MUCH HARDER or even impossible to get good low-light wedding shots.

A modestly competent amateur with a 30D and a 70-200 f/2.8 L IS will likely end up with better shots at a low-light wedding than a pro with a Kodak EasyShare digital camera.

YES, you have to know how to use your camera to get consistently good shots, experience is a huge helper, and natural talent to see the shot counts, the are all important.  But GOOD EQUIPMENT is still also an important part of the equation.  Great equipment won't make a lazy person or an idiot a great photographer.  But great equipment can help a pro, or knowlegable amateur get better shots.

I just got my 10-22 wide angle lens, and I don't have much experience with it.  I need to practice and get better with it.  BUT, I am taking shots just playing around that there is simply NO PHYSICAL WAY to take with my other lenses.  Really cool perspective distortion and really neat shots that even stitching with a panorama couldn't get.  Good equipment gives you more ways to get the image you are imagining onto the sensor.

the proof is in the pudding.

http://www.joeyl.com/

most of his incredible pieces of art were taken with a 1.3 MP camera.

TheGirlNextDoor:

the proof is in the pudding.

http://www.joeyl.com/

most of his incredible pieces of art were taken with a 1.3 MP camera.

Not according to his website...

You'll note that he has now upgraded his equipment (assumedly because he could afford to do so, and must have decided that was a good idea for some reason...) and you'll also note that in fact it seems to say a small portion of the work displayed here was taken with a P&S.

I'd also venture to guess that you can't buy large prints from his 1.3MP camera.

He's also photoshopped the bejeezus out of his pictures.  And most of his work is portriature of some kind.  I've been very clear in my posts that good equipment is what lets you get the shots that are technically difficult, like long range, fast moving subjects and/or low light.  Good equipment will also improve your hit/miss ratio, and we have no idea what Joey shot vs what he showed us.  I've got good shots with my P&S's in the past, but I can do more with my better equipment.  Maybe I missed the page where Joey was shooting basketball, football, auto racing, and kids running in the park with his 1.3 mega pixel point and shoot?

TheGirlNextDoor:

I do know he's upgraded, I've followed his work for awhile now, I'm not having a debate over this anymore.

I missed the debate part.  Almost none of my points was ever rebutted. 

 I think you would argue with the devil himself over the temp. in hell if given the chance.

I'm afraid that I don't understand the personal attack.  So... am I just supposed to agree with you and then I wouldn't be the kind of person who would argue with the devil himself over the temperature in hell?  Or if I have a differing view, and am willing to actually spend some time presenting that viewpoint then it is just easier to try to marginalize me with some offhand remark instead of pointing out the errors in my posts?

I took the time to look at the website you offered as pudding proof and found that your declarations about it weren't actually correct.

Apparently we disagree over whether good equipment can improve your photography.  It's not the end of the world.

rubysphoto:

A good camera will take you a long ways with out worring about up grading.

I am on another forum and there is a photographer that does seminars and has a booth at the WPPI that has won awards from the WPPI of 16x20 and larger from a p&s 3.1 megapixel camera. It is how you use it not what you have.

I have had my S3 for over 2 years and see no need to upgrade except for me to say "hey look what I have".

Hope this helps.

Thanks, good advise!