The Importance of Photographic Equipment
A Balanced View
I don't know how many times someone has seen the camera I have slung over my
shoulder and commented "Gee, that's a really nice camera!"
I generally smile and agree, and wonder what it is that makes them think so.
If we chat further, invariably it will become clear that they don't know anything
about it, except that it is large and black.
Every photographer whose photographs are occasionally admired has had a viewer conclude that they must have been made by an expensive camera. Nobody sees a great sculpture and concludes that the artist must have used a great hammer. Nobody listens to a great song and credits the instruments rather than the musicians. But with photography some do just this, and photographers are sometimes irritated by that.
I think it must be just such irritation that prompts them to say and write things like the following, which is a quote from a photographer who is quite prominent online:
"First and foremost your camera has NOTHING to do with making great photos."
I hear it in many words from many photographers: The equipment doesn't matter. I always wonder then, why do those same photographers often have such very expensive equipment? If the equipment doesn't matter, then why wouldn't they buy less expensive gear?
I think that the truth, as is often the case, may be found in a more moderate view. A poor photographer with expensive gear will not make a great photograph very often. Great photographs come from great skill, or great luck, and great skill is much more reliable.
But the tools also matter. When a great photographer replaces one piece of gear with another, or adds something entirely new, it is often because he thinks that he can use it to make photographs that would otherwise not be achievable. (Sometimes it will be so that he can make them more reliably, or more quickly).
I, too, have many thousands of dollar invested in photographic equipment. I did not buy any of it simply because it was bigger / faster / sharper than some other piece. In each case, I bought it because there was something specific that I could not do with what I already had.
New gear has improved my results, but not nearly so much as years of dedicated practice. Right now as I write this, I am aware that my gear is capable of much more than I am, but it can't get there without me.
Some of my best results are made possible by the use of fine equipment. Most of them would not have happened without a great deal of effort and practice. Very occasionally, they are simply good luck.
