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11/20/2005 01:09:30 AM · #1 |
What is more important from your point of view? Good camera or the photographer?
Controversial or no any doubt in your mind about the answer?
Please share your thoughts.
Bye friends,
Rudra
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11/20/2005 01:12:02 AM · #2 |
The photographer hands down. It's important to have a decent camera (better than a cell phone camera, for example) but in the end it all comes down to the photographer. IMHO, of course.
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11/20/2005 01:14:48 AM · #3 |
A good camera only supplies a better tool for the photographer.
But the tool is useless unless they know how to use it.. |
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11/20/2005 01:16:51 AM · #4 |
Photographer, without a doubt. There are scads of people excelling on this site with subpar cameras. I, on the other hand, have a fairly decent camera and that's clearly not doing me any good! :)
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11/20/2005 01:20:46 AM · #5 |
The photographer -- no doubt!
While it is true a better camera can help, that help is only in the form of convienence. The camera is just equipment. Some equipment is better than others, but that is measured only in how well the photographer is able to keep his attention off of the equipment and on the subject.
David
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11/20/2005 01:21:35 AM · #6 |
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11/20/2005 01:24:30 AM · #7 |
Put group of monkeys in with a type writter long enough and they will write a great novel by chance. Great equipment may help you luck into a nice photo once in a while, but for consistant, excellent results...
Photographer. Which is what I'm here to learn. |
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11/20/2005 01:27:39 AM · #8 |
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11/20/2005 01:33:53 AM · #9 |
Hands down, a good photog can take a toy camera and take a better pic than a hack with a top of the line Canon.
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11/20/2005 01:38:45 AM · #10 |
Absolutely no question. Photography skills are required to produce quality photographs, not quality equipment.
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11/20/2005 01:38:51 AM · #11 |
He, he, old question. Sort of like is it the musician or the instrument.
It's both. But, a good photographer can still make beauty with a "bad" camera, whereas a good camera is not going to make a good photographer out of its owner.
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11/20/2005 01:58:20 AM · #12 |
I'll put a different spin on this since it seems like the majority agree that the photographer is more important than the camera...
In general, the photographer is the most important element of the combination. On a broader scale, a good camera can make a better photographer. I think that a new camera may provide inspiration. This inspiration provides new motivation to a photographer. It may even provide enough motivation that an average photographer becomes a great photographer simply because he/she spends more time shooting and evaluating the results.
You could say that this inspiration and motivation could/should have come from the old camera. I have been around DPC long enough that I have seen this happen. New cameras provide new spark in the photographer sometimes. |
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11/20/2005 01:59:16 AM · #13 |
It's been stated but I'll chime in...
Give your average two-year old a nice guitar and it won't sound good. Get a rock legend to play on a child's guitar and he'll still bring down the house. |
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11/20/2005 02:15:31 AM · #14 |
It is becoming so interesting and confusing to me ;o) I want to add some flavor with it now. What is your thought about running for more and more pixels and mega-pixels? Is it really works every time?
Excuse me friends, this is Sunday 12.50 pm at noon here(calcutta, India) and I am very hungry now :o( That’s why I need a short break for my lunch for half an hour. I am just coming friends. Please keep in touchâ€Â¦Ã¢€Â¦. :o) |
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11/20/2005 02:17:41 AM · #15 |
For me, it's the brand of soda you drink
Clearly, pepsi drinkers make better photographers.
As for the Megapixel race.. it's over-hyped, and not entirely true that more MP = better. It's more the *quality* of those pixels.
10 megapixels on a tiny P&S digicam will look horrible next to 4 megapixels on a full frame sensor.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that 10 megapixels on that small sensor will look even worse than 6 megapixels on that same sensor, since it's most likely being overloaded.
Message edited by author 2005-11-20 02:19:37. |
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11/20/2005 02:57:33 AM · #16 |
When it comes to photography size matters...
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11/20/2005 02:59:41 AM · #17 |
When I switched up from Fuji 4900Z to Coolpix 5700, I went from 3 to 5 Mp and the difference, frankly, was barely noticeable in prints. Not noticeable at all at 640 pixels. As far as "graininess" goes. The Nikon was better built with a longer zoom range, and hat a wonderful flip & twist LCD that was great for low-angle or high-angle shots, but many things about the Fuji were better. Much better "manual" focus (the Nikon's is worthless IMO), bigger and brighter eyelevel viewscreen, generally easier to use in Macro mode.
When I moved to dSLR, I was on a loaner body for a bit, a 300D, 6 Mp camera. MUCH crisper looking than the smaller-sensor, 5Mp Nikon, MUCH better noise level even at ISO 400 than the Nikon at ISO 100. Better dynamic range, more useable in higher-contrast situations. Then I got the 20D, 8Mp, noise even better, clear up to ISO 1600.
So size of sensor much more important than Mp it has, at least compared with the P&S cameras. I'm not so sure the FF sensor dSLRs are noticeably "sharper" or crisper than the 1.6 crop versions like the 20D.
To answer the original question, the photographer of course is the important part of the equation. BUT if you give photographers of equal skill, experience, and creativity cameras of greatly disparate capabilities, you will see the camera making a difference. Precision alone, optically and mechanically, pays large dividends in quality of results when you get to a certain level. Before you get there, it's not the most important thing.
Robt. |
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11/20/2005 06:01:15 AM · #18 |
Deffinately the photographer. Here is proof that you don't need a SLR to kick a$$. JJ
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11/20/2005 06:44:25 AM · #19 |
Camera is more important, no question.
Van Gogh used better paints than Gauguin, and his paintings are clearly superior. |
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11/20/2005 07:13:32 AM · #20 |
| Shouldn't "opportunity" be a part of this discussion? (ie you can't take an award winning news photo if you aren't where the news is etc) |
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11/20/2005 07:16:27 AM · #21 |
| Without a doubt the photographer! The camera is only the tool to capture the image! The image has to be 'seen' first! |
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11/20/2005 09:57:11 PM · #22 |
You'll get as many answers here as there are styles of photography.
There's an art to photography, where the photographer is most important. For example, Robert Farber said that he is experimenting with using cheap cameras, and he produced some awesome shots. But most of Farber's work doesn't seem to be low-grain (or low-noise) sharply focused pictures.
There's a technical aspect to photography that the camera now can greatly improve. Fifty years ago, you had to calculate exposure--if you had a light meter, it was seperate from the camera. And you had to manually focus. Now the camera can do it all. And a better camera will help get better pictures in many cases. For example, I can take pictures of indoor sports with my Digital Rebel and an f/2.8 or better lens and have them turn out ok. The DRebel has iso 1600, and I couldn't take these shots with a P&S. However, the DRebel doesn't have a really effective focusing mode for sports so that if I focus on a player who is running, the camera won't keep focus, where the 1D Mark II has 45 AF points, and (some claim) gets every shot in focus. But the photographer still has to know how -- and more importantly, when -- to set all the knobs and buttons on thier camera.
So the camera can help get the technical aspects correct, and better cameras will usually let a given photographer take better pictures, but the photographers talent and knowledge matter more.
If you want a controversial statement, the better cameras let the less technical, more artistic people take better pictures without learning as much of the technical side of photography. The more technical, less artistic of us still have to learn the artistic stuff-the camera will probably never do that.
Message edited by author 2005-11-20 22:01:58. |
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11/21/2005 08:38:35 PM · #23 |
It's was difficult for Gauguin to get good quality paint on the islands.
Message edited by author 2005-11-21 20:39:01. |
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11/21/2005 09:28:16 PM · #24 |
I can't recall who the photographer was who was asked the same question by Ernest Hemmingway (Walker perhaps?) " Nice pictures what kind of a camera took them?"
Response"I like your books, what sort of typewriter wrote it?" |
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11/22/2005 05:17:07 PM · #25 |
i think it depends on what style your after, if you like out of focus shots or the blurry shots, then any photograher can do that on any camera, if you want nice clear photos then definately the camera.... i think you either have the eye or you don't... if you do.. then a dam good camera is definately the go.....
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