CAMERA DOES NOT MATTER?
Friday, July 15, 2005
I was reading Ken Rockwell's article that strongly speaks against valuing your equipments. He condemns those who think that the photographs produced are a function of equipments owned. He asks -"Why is it that with over 60 years of improvements in cameras, lens sharpness and film grain, resolution and dynamic range that no one has been able to equal what Ansel Adams did back in the 1940s? "
That is a theory that can't be questioned. Few people would debate the fact that world has not yet produced someone of the caliber of Ansel Adams. He goes on to say -
"People know cars don't drive themselves, typewriters don't write novels by themselves and that Rembrandt's brushes didn't paint by themselves, so why do some people think cameras drive around and make pictures all by themselves? The most advanced, exotic and expensive car can't even stay in the same lane on the freeway by itself, much less drive you home. No matter how advanced your camera you still need to be responsible for getting it to the right place at the right time and pointing it in the right direction to get the photo you want."
His argument seems to make sense, to a limited extent. But the question that I raise is how would the same argument scale if you were working with birds or wildlife. Anyone who has tried these subjects would vouch by the fact that the longer the lens you have, the better it is to access your subject. And a 600mm lens is indeed cream of all equipments. Add to that, once you have long and heavy lenses, the immediate need is a body that can drive a lens that big which forces you to upgrade to the best camera available.
But in a day-to-day life, and if you are the one who would usually shoot landscapes, studio photos or urban scapes and other such of such kind, Ken Rockwell's words seem to make a lot of sense. Most people agree that a camera does not matter so much as the man behind it. But at the same time, many photographers long for the precious lenses, which, they hope, will make great improvement to their pictures.
Ken Rockwell has written many interesting articles in his personal photography website that are worth a read. The site also hosts his excellent gallery and many tech tips worth reading.
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posted by Arun at 12:23 PM
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5 Comments:
Ken Rockwell's site is on my daily visits list. He's pretty unconventional. Like he does not recommend the use of tripods with digi-slrs (take the noise free higher ISO's to advantage).
Speaking of Ansel Adams, one should realize that he did use the 'best available equipment' of his times and did spend a great deal of money on them. That doesnt mean you can reproduce the same photos today with the same equipment. Many phtographers have used GPS to locate the same co-ordinates he shot, taken the best possible cameras, shot at the same angle and at the same subject,yet the pictures are no where near Adams'.
Shooting wildlife with long lenses definitely needs a good body, though I personally prefer not using Autofocus. High speed continous shooting is a must (atleast 4 fps).
Well sorry about the long comment, just could'nt help writing :)
Q, do you really intend to combine high speed continuous chooting and focussing manually? Sounds pretty tought to me.
Auto or manual does not make much difference to me shooting landscapes. But I don't think I could ever manage shooting birds on MF.
Am comfortable using MF on my equipment. Have not tried out any other bodies or lenses. I should however say lenses with FTM ( Full Time Manual focusing ) ability are a boon for MF, even in AI Servo mode and continous shooting.
I'm new here so don't shoot me if this topic has been discused before. The plural of equipment is 'equipment'. Not 'equipments'. I've checked every online dictionary I can find, and I can not find a reference to 'equipments' as a plural of 'equipment'.
umm.. taken. :)
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