Do You Need An Expensive Camera To Take Good Pictures

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Your Photographic camera
Doesn't Matter
© 2013 Ken Rockwell

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Mono Lake, Sat, 25 July 1993, snapped with a broken camera. bigger. tech details.

Mono Lake, eleven Baronial 2001, snapped with a floppy-disc photographic camera.

Mono Lake, eleven August 2001, snapped with a floppy-disc camera.

Dawn, Mono Lake, 12 August 2001, snapped with a floppy-disc camera.

This free website's biggest source of support is when you utilise any of these links when you go anything, regardless of the country in which y'all alive. It helps me go along adding to this free website when y'all get yours through these links — just I receive nil for my efforts if y'all purchase elsewhere. Thanks for your support! Ken.

Better Pictures: The Hush-hush Composition Simplicity FART Shadows Lighting

Adjustments  It's Not Your Camera   Exposure   WBDon't Worry: Shoot

NEW, 09 September 2013: Canon 5D Mk 3/24-70 2 vs. SL1/eighteen-55 STM Resolution and High ISO Comparing. As expected, the $699 philharmonic looks the same every bit the $5,800 philharmonic.

The shots at the acme were shot 12 or xx years ago. See more examples iPhone 5 Sample Images, at A $150 vs. a $5,000 Camera. Run into what great shots can exist made with an obsolete $200 Catechism A620, and see what I shot in 2008 on a pocket camera, or in 2003 on one of Canon'due south cheapest digital signal-and-shoots at the time.

Run into Chase Jarvis' art book, The Best Photographic camera, shot entirely on his iPhone. See the online work shot exclusively on his iPhone.

Hither are some shots I fabricated on an expired disposable camera:

Moon over Mono Lake, October 2008. Shot with an expired Fuji QuickSnap 400, 85C filter held over the front.

Bodie, October 2008. Shot with expired Fuji QuickSnap 400.

If you can shoot well, all y'all demand is a disposable, toy camera or a camera telephone to create great piece of work. If yous're non talented, it doesn't matter if you buy a Nikon D3X or Leica; your work will nevertheless be uninspired.

It's ever ameliorate to spend your time and coin on learning art and photography, not past spending it on more cameras.

Why is it that with over 60 years of improvements in cameras, lens sharpness and film grain, resolution and dynamic range that no i has been able to equal what Ansel Adams did back in the 1940s?

Ansel didn't even have Photoshop! How did he do it? Almost attempts fall short, some are as good but different like Jack Dykinga, but no ane is the same.

Try to tell an American he can't, and he will: Homo Uses Barbie Fishing Rod for Record Take hold of!

Why is it that photographers loaded with the nigh extraordinary gear who use the internet to get the exact GPS coordinates of Jack's or Ansel's photograph locations and hike out there with the image in hand to ensure an exact copy (illegal by US copyright laws and common decency), that they get something that might look similar, simply lacks all the touch and emotion of the original they thought they copied?

I'm not kidding. A bunch of these turkeys used university astronomers to predict the in one case in almost two decades that the atmospheric condition would match and had 300 of the clueless converge at simply the right spot. They still didn't get the clouds, snow or shadows correct. This makes Ansel or any other creative creative person cringe. Of class they didn't go anything similar what they wanted. Art is a lot more.

Compelling photographs come from inspiration, not duplication.

Someone asked "If I got a camera with just 6 or 7 MP, can I brand expert pictures with it?"

That reminds me near the guy who breaks a wrist and asks his medico: "Dr., will I exist able to play the piano after this heals?" The doctor replies "Absolutely, no problem!" The man laughs, and points out that that's great, because he never could play the piano before!

Buying a Bösendorfer doesn't mean yous tin can play the pianoforte. Buying a bully camera doesn't mean you tin create compelling photographs. Good pianists can play on anything and a good lensman can brand great images with a disposable camera.

As we all saw in The Blues Brothers, give Brother Ray a keyboard with a glutinous action and he'll play so movingly that the whole boondocks will exist up and dancing.

Cameras don't have pictures, photographers do. Cameras are only another artist'due south tool.

Why is it that fifty-fifty though everyone knows that Photoshop can exist used to take any bad image and turn information technology into a masterpiece, that even after hours of massaging these images look worse than when one started?

Maybe because it's entirely an creative person's eye, patience and skill that makes an image and not his tools. Fifty-fifty Ansel said "The single virtually of import component
of a camera is the twelve inches behind it."

A photographic camera catches your imagination. No imagination, no photo - only crap. The discussion "image" comes from the give-and-take "imagination." It doesn't come come up from "lens sharpness" or "dissonance levels." David LaChapelle's piece of work is all about his imagination, not his photographic camera. Setting up these crazy shots is the difficult part. One time set upward, whatsoever photographic camera could grab them. Give me David LaChapelle's photographic camera and I won't get annihilation like he does, fifty-fifty if you give me the aforementioned star performers.

The simply reason I have a huge lens in my photo on my home page is so I don't have to say "lensman" or "photography." The lens makes information technology obvious much quicker than words. That'southward what visual advice is all about: thinking long and difficult to brand your point clearly and speedily. I oasis't used that huge lens in years.

Just about any camera, regardless of how good or bad it is, can be used to create outstanding photographs for mag covers, winning photo contests and hanging in art galleries. The quality of a lens or photographic camera has almost nothing do with the quality of images it tin be used to produce.

Joe Holmes' express-edition xiii x 19" prints of his American Museum of Natural History series sell at Manhattan's Jen Bekman Gallery for $650 each. They're made on a D70.

Another San Diego pro, Kirsten Gallon earns her living using Nikon's two very cheapest lenses, the 18-55 and lxx-300 G.

In that location are plenty of shows selling shots from Holgas for a lot more money, just that those folks don't tell me most information technology. Holgas sold for $14.95 in 2006, brand new, hither. Yous tin can see an honor-winning shot fabricated with a Holga hanging in Washington, D.C.'southward Hemicycle Gallery of the Corcoran Museum of Art in their 2006 Eyes of History competition of the White Firm News Photographers Clan.

Walker Evans in one case said "People ever ask me what camera I use. It's non the camera, it's - - - " and he tapped his temple with his index finger.

Jesus Christ's dad Joseph built a masterpiece of a wooden staircase in a church building in New Mexico in 1873, and does anyone care what tools he used? Search all you lot want, you'll find plenty of scholarly discussion but never of the tools.

Your equipment DOES NOT affect the quality of your prototype. The less fourth dimension and effort you spend worrying about your equipment the more than time and try you can spend creating neat images. The correct equipment only makes information technology easier, faster or more than convenient for you to get the results you demand.

"Whatever good modern lens is corrected for maximum definition at the larger stops. Using a pocket-sized stop merely increases depth..." Ansel Adams, June 3, 1937, in a reply to Edward Weston asking for lens suggestions, page 244 of Ansel'southward autobiography. Ansel made fantastically sharp images 70 years ago without wasting time worrying about how sharp his lenses were. With seventy years of comeback nosotros're far better off concentrating on making stunning photos than photographing test charts. Of course these large format lenses of the 1930s and today are boring, about f/5.6 typically. Small format and digital lenses work all-time at nigh 2 stops downwards.

Buying new gear volition Not amend your photography. For decades I idea "if I merely had that new lens" that all my photo wants would be satisfied. Nope. I yet want that "one more than lens," and I've been shooting for over xxx years. There is always one more than lens. Get over it. See "The Station" by Robert J. Hastings, as published in "Dear Abby" in 1999, for a better explanation.

The camera's only job is to become out of the way of making photographs.

Ernst Haas commented on this in a workshop in 1985:

2 laddies from Nova Scotia had made a huge effort to exist there and were great Leica fans, worked in a camera store, saved to have them and held Ernst on loftier for being a Leica user (although he used Nikons on his Marlboro shoots, when the chips were down).

About four days into the workshop, he finally maxxed out on the Leica adoration these kids displayed, and in the midst of a give-and-take, when one of them asked i more than question aimed at establishing the superiority of Wetzlar, Ernst said, "Leica, schmeica.  The camera doesn't make a bit of difference.  All of them can record what y'all are seeing.  But, you have to SEE."

Nobody talked about Leica, Nikon, Canon or whatsoever other make of photographic camera equipment for the rest of the workshop.

He too said, "Best broad-angle lens?  'Two steps astern' and 'look for the ah-ha'."

(This Haas chestnut comes from Murad Saÿen, the famous photographer from Oxford, Maine over whom people are all abuzz. Many say he emerged from the back woods as a cross betwixt Eliot Porter and Henri Cartier Bresson. I found at to the lowest degree iii websites claiming to be Haas' official 1 hither and here.)

Here's some other load of data which also confirms why owning more lenses just makes worse photos. I made these B/W photos here with a 50 year old $iii box camera more archaic than today'south disposables.

Andreas Feininger (French, b. 1905 - d. 1999), said "Photographers — idiots, of which there are and then many — say, "Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great photographs." That'southward the dumbest affair I ever heard in my life. Information technology'southward goose egg just a matter of seeing, thinking, and interest. That'south what makes a expert photo. And and so rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture. The wrong light, the wrong background, fourth dimension and then on. Just don't do it, not matter how beautiful the bailiwick is."

People know cars don't drive themselves, typewriters don't write novels past themselves and that Rembrandt's brushes didn't pigment past themselves. Then why do some otherwise intelligent people think cameras drive around and make pictures all by themselves? The well-nigh avant-garde, exotic and expensive car can't even stay in the same lane on the freeway by itself, much less drive you dwelling house. No matter how advanced your photographic camera you still need to be responsible for getting it to the right identify at the correct time and pointing it in the correct direction to get the photograph you want. Every camera requires you to make transmission adjustments now so likewise, regardless of how avant-garde information technology is. Never blame a camera for not knowing everything or making a incorrect exposure or fuzzy image.

Even a skilful driver in a crummy car similar a Geo Metro tin can escape from multi-automobile law chases in wide daylight. Information technology's the driver, not the auto. Read that one here.

Here's how I came to discover this:

When it comes to the arts, be it music, photography, surfing or annihilation, there is a mountain to be overcome. What happens is that for the first xx years or so that you study any fine art you just know that if yous had a better instrument, camera or surfboard that you would be but as proficient every bit the pros. You waste a lot of time worrying nigh your equipment and trying to afford ameliorate. After that starting time 20 years you finally get as good as all the other world-renowned artists, and one day when someone comes upwardly to yous request for communication you have an epiphany where you realize that it'south never been the equipment at all.

You finally realize that the right gear you've spent and then much time accumulating just makes it easier to get your sound or your look or your moves, but that y'all could get them, albeit with a little more than try, on the aforementioned garbage with which yous started. You realize the nigh important thing for the gear to do is just get out of your way. You then likewise realize that if you had spent all the time you wasted worrying near acquiring ameliorate gear woodshedding, making photos or catching more rides that you would take gotten where yous wanted to be much sooner.

I met Phil Collins at a screening in December 2003. It came out that people always recognize his sound when they hear it. Some folks decided to play his drums when he walked away during a session, and guess what? It didn't sound similar him. Likewise, on a hired kit (or "rented pulsate set" as we say in the USA) Phil all the same sounds like Phil. So exercise you still think information technology'south his drums that give him his sound?

A fan from Michigan teaches auto racing at a big circuit. The daughter of one of his students wanted to come up learn. She flew out and showed up at the rail in an rented Chevy Condescending. She outran the other students, eye aged balding guys with Corvettes and 911s. Why? Uncomplicated: she paid attention to the teacher and was smooth and steady and took the right lines, not posing while ham-fisting a lot of horsepower to endeavour to brand upwardly for patience and skill. The dudes were actually ticked, especially that they were outrun by a GIRL, and a i6 year old one at that.

Certain, if you're a pro driver y'all're skilful enough to arm-twist every ounce of functioning from a car and volition exist express past its performance, only if y'all're like most people the car, camera, running shoes or whatever accept little to nothing to do with your performance since you are e'er the defining factor, not the tools.

Catch whatsoever virtuoso who'due south a complete primary of their tools away from his or her sponsors and they'll share this with yous.

And so why practise the artists whose works you lot adore tend to apply fancy, expensive tools if the quality of the work is the aforementioned? Simple:

1.) Good tools just get out of the manner and make it easier to get the results you want. Lesser tools may take more piece of work.
2.) They add immovability for people who use these tools hard all day, every day.
3.) Advanced users may find some of the minor actress features convenient. These conveniences brand the photographer's life easier, but they don't brand the photos whatever better.
4.) Hey, there'due south nada wrong with the best tools, and if you lot have the coin to blow why not? Just don't ever start thinking that the fancy tools are what created the piece of work.

Then why practise I show snaps of myself with a huge lens on my pages? Simple: it saves me from having to say "Ken Rockwell Photography," which sounds lame and takes upward more space. The big photographic camera gets the bulletin across much better and faster then I can just say "Ken Rockwell."

Here are photos fabricated by a guy in the Philippines - with a prison cell phone camera!

One terminal example: I bought a used camera that wouldn't focus properly. It went dorsum to the dealer a couple of times for repair, each time coming dorsum the same way. As an artist I knew how to compensate for this fault, which was a pain because I ever had to apply a manual kickoff to the focus setting. In any instance, I fabricated ane of my very favorite images of all time while testing information technology. This image here has won me all sorts of awards and fifty-fifty hung in a Los Angeles gallery where an original Ansel Adams came downwards and this image was hung. When my epitome came down Ansel went correct upwardly again. Remember, this was fabricated with a camera that was returned to the dealer which they agreed was unrepairable.

The important part of that image is that I stayed around after my friends all blew off for dinner, while I suspected we were going to accept an extraordinary heaven outcome (the magenta sky, but like the photo shows.) I fabricated a 4 minute exposure with a normal lens. I could accept fabricated it on the same $3 box camera that made the B/West images hither and it would accept looked the same.

Likewise, I occasionally get hate mail and phone calls from guys (never women) who disagree with my personal pick of tools. They take it personally just because I prefer something different than they do. Like anyone cares? These folks mean well, they probably just oasis't made information technology past that mount and notwithstanding think that every tool has some absolute level of goodness, regardless of the application. They consider tools as physical extensions of their trunk so of course they have it personally if I poke fun of a certain tool as non being good for what I'm doing. For instance, the Leica collectors here have a real problem with this folio. All gear has different values depending on what you want to do with it. What'due south slap-up for y'all may not be for me, and vice-versa.

Just about any camera, regardless of how adept or bad it is, can be used to create outstanding photographs for magazine covers, winning photo contests and hanging in art galleries. The quality of a lens or photographic camera has almost goose egg do with the quality of images it can be used to produce.

Y'all probably already have all the equipment you lot need, if you'd just larn to make the best of it. Better gear volition not brand you whatsoever improve photos, since the gear tin't make you a amend photographer.

Photographers make photos, not cameras.

It'due south sad how few people realize any of this, and spend all their time blaming poor results on their equipment, instead of spending that time learning how to see and learning how to manipulate and translate lite.

Buying newer cameras volition ensure you get the same results you always have. Didactics is the way to improve images, not more cameras.

Don't blame anything lacking in your photos on your equipment. If you doubt this, go to a adept photo museum or photo history volume and come across the excellent technical quality people got 50 or 100 years ago. The advantage of modernistic equipment is convenience, Not image quality. Become look at the B/W images in my Expiry Valley Gallery. Look sharp to you lot? They were made on a 50 year old fixed-focus, stock-still exposure box camera for which I paid $iii. This camera is more primitive than today's disposables.

I have made technically and artistically wonderful images on a $10 camera I bought at Goodwill, and accept turned out a lot of crap with a $10,000 lens on my motor driven Nikon.

The dandy Edward Steichen photographed Isadora Duncan at the Acropolis, Athens in 1921. He used a Kodak borrowed from the caput waiter at his hotel. The images are, of form, brilliant. Steichen had non taken his own camera because the original programme had been to work only with movie equipment. This image was on display at The Whitney in 2000 - 2001.

You lot demand to learn to come across and etch. The more time you waste worrying about your equipment the less time yous'll have to put into creating smashing images. Worry near your images, non your equipment.

Anybody knows that the brand of typewriter (or the power to prepare that typewriter) has zippo to do with the ability to compose a compelling novel, although a amend typewriter may make typing a piffling more pleasant. And so why practice so many otherwise reasonable people recollect that what sort of camera ane has, or the intimate cognition of shutter speeds, lens design or camera technology has anything do with the ability to create an interesting photo other than catering to the convenience of the photographer?

"…someday I go anywhere with a camera, whether it exist my top-of-the-line pro trunk with fifteen lenses and smart flash or a unproblematic indicate-and-shoot, I might take the best photograph of my life. If, nevertheless, I trapped myself into believing that success of my style would only come through in the grainless technical perfection of a cumbersome larger format or the heady fine fine art of a preconceptualized composition, and so I would lose much of the magic that drew me to photography in the get-go place." Galen Rowell.

Simply as one needs to know how to utilize a typewriter to compose a script, one does need to know how to operate a camera to make photos, but that's only a tiny part of the process. Do you lot have whatsoever thought what brand of computer or software I used to create what yous're reading correct at present? Of course not, unless you read my virtually page. It matters to me, only non to you, the viewer. Also, no one who looks at your pictures tin can tell or cares about what camera you used. It simply doesn't thing.

Knowing how to do something is entirely different from existence able to exercise it at all, much less practice information technology well.

We all know how to play the piano: yous just press the keys and step on the pedals at present and then. The power to play it, much less the ability to stir emotion in those who hear your playing, is an entirely unlike matter.

Don't presume the most expensive gear is the best. Having also much camera equipment is the all-time manner to get the worst photos.

The more expensive cameras and lenses don't practise much of annihilation significant for the huge increases in price.

Want to see reviews of slap-up cameras? See JunkStoreCameras.com for expert reviews.

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Thanks for reading!

Ken Rockwell.

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