If there’s one thing we can count on as photographers, it’s our brethren’s love for debating the finer points of photographic gear. If you have been a pro or an amateur for any length of time and you happen to know others who share this specific, expensive interest, you probably participated in a debate about things such as sensor size or megapixel or some such nonsense. Is there validity to these debates? Absolutely. Will photography gear help make you a better photographer? Absolutely not.
Most of these debates, to me, are a stunning example of putting the cart before the horse. A good number of the participants lobbing volleys back and forth on (insert any column, blog post or article here_____ ) never really say anything about the photographic knowledge required to properly use these tools in the first place. Blah-blah mega pixel blah or sensor this or color space that and the person leaving a scathing comment about any number of the mentioned topics couldn’t explain exposure compensation to me. They will argue endlessly about megapixel making an image higher quality… it does not, by the way. Megapixel is a function of size and size alone. A crappy lens on a high mega pixel camera only serves to produce an enormous crappy picture. This is a fact and not an opinion. The same person arguing about megapixel will have no idea what color temperature is or why it affects their white balance.
All I’m saying is that it might be a good time for us, as a photographic community to get back to basics and forget about gear for a while. Most of the cameras out there, whether they be $6,000 pro DSLRs or $350 prosumer point and shoots, pack within them a level of technological punch that has not been equaled in photographic history. In essence, it is harder to find a crappy camera than it is to find a good one. What this means for all of us is that we should park the egos at the door and start talking about better ways to take pictures with our new, lavish, ever-evolving, amazing equipment.
For those of you who started your photographic journeys in the last 10 years, consider yourself lucky. DSLRs have made learning the craft monumentally easier and far less expensive. When I first dawned a camera, I was racking up time in any number of darkrooms. I bought film and mixed chemistry and printed and dried and mounted. Every time I hit the shutter, it cost me roughly a dollar. I’m not trying to come off as some old fogey harking back to yesteryear, waving my withered finger at the new fangled technology. Quite the contrary. I’m saying appreciate it for what it is and what it allows you to do. I sure have. I can experiment and learn at a rate that was unheard of when I was starting my journey into the photographic world.
Let your gear set you free. Let it make you better and stop looking for what might be wrong with it. Today’s worst DSLR is still light years ahead of the best ones from a mere decade ago.