Why Camera Gear Matters

There’s a never-ending argument among photographers as to whether it matters what kind of camera you use. The argument against is that “It isn’t the camera, its the photographer. A great photographer can get great results with anything.” Which is a little like saying a sailor can get to Hawaii with a canoe or a submarine.

Like most arguments in life, it isn’t a black or white issue. Can I get great results with my cell phone camera or an older film camera? Yes. Absolutely. And I have. One of the photo prints hanging on my wall was taken with my Pixel 3 XL. It looks great. I’m very proud of it. But I only used the cell phone because I didn’t have my real camera on me.

Taken with the Pixel 3 XL.

Once I was at a wedding, I used that same cell phone to get a better portrait than the wedding photographer was getting with all her gear. In this case, it was clearly the photographer that was the determining factor. But consider the following photo...

New Orleans Musician Jak Locke. Shot w/ Sony a7c and Viltrox 85mm f/1.8

I was watching the Jak Locke Rock Show at a local bar and decided to put my Sony a7c through its paces. Its a small bar with no lighting to speak of, save for the harsh glow of the neon moon. In a situation like this, you should never use a flash, because you’d be setting it off in the faces of the band members. So to compensate, I had to raise my image sensitivity (the ISO function) to 5000. That’s far higher than I would normally go. I’d shot shows in this bar in the past with my old Nikon D7100. Was I able to get usable shots at the time? Yes. Was I happy with the results? Not really. I could never have gotten shots like this with that camera. Raising the ISO to that level would have resulted in nearly unusable images.

Of course, at that time, I wasn’t nearly as knowledgeable. I was operating under the amateur photographer’s principle that you should never raise your ISO. That’s probably a good topic to revisit in another post.

So yeah. It is about the sailor. But I would rather get to Hawaii in a submarine.