I agree this is not right. You actually have more than one nice camera. ;)

Though try shooting UW with a disposable camera. I bet 50K US$ that you won’t be able to do pictures as nice as the one you do with your D60 and 2 DS125. Wanna bet ?

And a chef cannot make miracles as well with a crappy oven. Though he can probably do better than most people due to his arsenal of knowledge.

Call it experience. Just like a pro photographer shoot 25000 pictures in 6 months to make a book of 200 pictures.

Most people will not even shoot 25000 pictures im their whole life.

What makes the difference is mostly creativity. A real chef is the one that can make something nice from something that looks just separate ingredients for a normal person. For a photographer that would be shooting an ordinary scene and making it a nice picture.

Anyone who can read and who has a nice kitchen can do wonders with food assuminghe has some taste ( some people don’t taste and have no taste).

Anyone who can shoot and has nice equipment can do wonders with pictures if he knows just the basic of composition (When I give my camera to random people to take pictures of me it usually endup with a wasted picture. tilted, missing feet, head, arms, whatever… so sure a D60 won’t magically make the picture right here)

Don’t you agree in reality ?

That said, you sure do take nice pictures. You have experience, equipment and obviouslly taste. The result is there.

how about those who shoot with the Holga? That’s a $14 piece of plastic toy to some people, but I’ve been some beautiful images from those camera. To me, it doesn’t matter how good your camera is if you don’t know how to shoot. You may know how to shoot, but you don’t know how to shoooooot, knowwhaatimsaayin? Eric defintely has a good eye in photography, and having nice equipment does help.

Yeah, the cooking metaphor is my fave. The kitchen’s tools are important, but good, fresh, raw ingredients and talent will make for good food even without the tools. Not so the other way ’round.

Adam – you have a very engineering-centric view of a “top of the line” picture. You want sharpness, clarity, and accuracy. A top of the line camera is necessary for those things, unless you are shooting film, in which case all you need is a nice lens on a cheap camera.

But that’s not my definition. So I disagree vehemently that such equipment is necessary for non-specialized forms of photography as art.

In the digital world, things are bit more along the lines of more money = better potential for a good photo, but it will not always be the case because “cheap” cameras are now able to produce wonderful, technically good images at web resolution, and even printed to 4×6 or 5×7.

no one is claiming that there is a non-negligable role! i’m just against assigning “worth” of an image to the camera that took it.

i find that most people who go crazy about the technical aspects of camera equipment tend to talk about it more than they actually use it.

of course. i like to talk about it… ;)

Fair enough… I admittedly know nothing about photography.

Eric–your website looks super cool and has a lot of great content. You must have a nice computer. ;)

Since photographs are created and observed in such subjective ways, I’m sure there are a lot of different opinions about what constitutes a “great photo.” In my most humble opinion (shouting up from an echelon of photographic skill far lower that yours), I’d say that there are four “ingredients” necessary for making a good picture, and the quality of your equipment only accounts for ~25% of the outcome.

1. As David said, the most important thing about a photo is the subject matter. It doesn’t matter how sharp your photos are or how saturated your colors are if you are taking pictures of boring shit. Usually, there is a lot of skill required for selecting subjects, but sometimes, it’s just a matter of luck–again as David said, being in the right place at the right time… and having your camera turned on and in the general vicinity of your eye at the time.

2. Once you happen upon your subject either by luck or by intention, the next factor is how you choose to capture your subject–ie, how you compose the photo. As Norm said, two people standing side-by-side looking at the same exact subject and using the same equipment can take very different photos. Compositional skills and subject selection together constitute the “artistic” 50% of a photo. To this point, your equipment means very little (with one caveat as explained below).

3. I’ll save the equipment issue for last, and skip ahead to what you do with your image after you’ve pressed the shutter release–post-processing. One’s knowledge of how to process the data your camera collects (eg, your decision to crop, sharpen, alter saturation, contrast, etc.) can make a huge difference in how your photo is perceived by the viewer. Also, there is a certain artistic sensibility required to select how to best present your image–eg, full-color vs. black and white, etc. Neither your camera equipment nor your computer equipment have much to do with this component of your photo (provided, of course, that you have some software for manipulating images, which most people these days do have at their disposal). Rather, your skill and technical knowledge, which are both very subjective, are what make the difference.

So up to this point, 75% of the outcome of your image relies on your artistic ability and your technical knowledge, and not on your equipment.

4. Your equipment, as Steve said, determines the window of opportunity for making a nice photo. It’s definitely possible to compose a brilliant photo with a cheap point-and-shoot, but there are more situations in which you can create a brilliant photo if you are using a more advanced camera. For instance, take the issue of shutter lag. If you are using a “cheap” digital camera, you will not be able to take a photo of what you actually see the moment you press the shutter release (you get what happened a second or so later), whereas you can basically do so with a more expensive D-SLR. Granted this only influences your window of opportunity for taking a great shot of a limited subset of subjects, ie, the moving ones. As an example, I’m thinking right now of your fabulous shot of a breaching whale you took several months ago, Eric. You wouldn’t likely have gotten that shot with a point-and-shoot (yes, it would be possible, but much less likely). Finally, to address the caveat I mentioned above, I think there is one way in particular that your equipment can, in and of itself, make the difference between a great shot and an ok one (provided that you have basic compositional skills), and that comes down to your lens and choice of camera mode. For instance, you can take a great low-light portrait of someone outdoors in the evening with a fast lens set by aperture priority to open wide (and probably sitting on a tripod), but you’re just not going to be able to take that same shot with a point and shoot that opens up to f4.0 and only has an autofocus mode. Of course, knowledge is essential for using a “nice” camera/lens to take a “great photo” (I lump such knowledge in with compositional skills). Like you said, you can have a multi-$K dollar set-up and still take horrible photos if you don’t know how to use it.

Bottom line: You’re right; People shouldn’t just say “You must have a nice camera.” They should say, “You are an excellent photographer,” which means you posses a combination of skill, knowledge, and equipment, and an ability to use them together properly.

Okaaay, that was a bit long and maybe not as clear as I intended. Sorry. :)

Hmmm … I am late to the party and it seems most of the points have been covered. I like Aaron’s summary but I think that a combination of the right skills and talent can effectively so-called “nice” equipment. And while talent and skills can produce great photos w/ mediocre or mainstream equipment, specialized or high-end equipment can only serve to improve upon such photos (or whatever else). Otherwise what’s the point of developing such high-end products?

actually eric, your camera sucks. get a nikon.





juuuust kidding!!!!!!!! ;)

yeah, the 1Ds is a sweet camera. i read an interview with nikon’s north american marketing director and he defended the small senor thing and the fact that they’re sort of falling behind on camera technology. he basically said it’s in the lenses and software (firmware, buffering speed, capture software, etc), so with the money people are paying, they’re actually getting more than the competition. go figure…