“Photography Has Nothing to do with Cameras.” — Lucas Gentry
“[Don’t] focus on the instrument instead of the masterpiece.”
Not long ago, Josh Rose wrote a comprehensive piece about modern digital cameras. He writes that the distinctions between/among digital cameras no longer matter. I agree with Josh’s conclusions but wanted to offer my .02¢. I like to say (in my goofy way), “Cameras is cameras,” and I think that is more true in this digital day than ever before.
I’m no longer a full-time working pro, but since I got into digital in 2007, I observe that digital has more than shifted the paradigm; it has essentially obliterated it. I have not shot a single frame of film since.
The distinctions among cameras used to matter more. When I had my studio in the 70s into the 90s, I had cameras by the gross because they were all specialized. I used cameras for specific jobs; Hasselblads for weddings (replacing the big Mamiya TLRs); the RB67 for color portraits; 4x5-inch sheet film cameras, both view and field types for the many jobs demanding larger format; and a goofy old 5x7" former school camera with a dividing back that took two 3x5" black and white pictures on a 5x7 sheet. That cut the processing time in half, and the big negatives allowed fine retouching directly on the negative, which was much harder to do on anything smaller. I used my 35mm SLRs for event photography other than weddings, the reasoning being that the 6x6cm or larger format was thought to be mandatory for big enlargements. That was stultifying nonsense, but I was trained old school and couldn’t see the bigger picture (pun not necessarily intended).
Some of the giants of 20th-century photography made remarks that could be interpreted as disparaging cameras in general:
“Photography has nothing to do with cameras.” — Lucas Gentry
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” — Ansel Adams
“I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I shall really have become a photographer.” — Alfred Eisenstaedt
I am overfond of quoting myself pontificating that “cameras don’t matter.” At the current stage of our digital miracle, I believe that, but the qualifier is that I have a lot of experience. I can and do routinely bend digital cameras to my will, making them do things well outside their design parameters. I want the picture; the camera isn’t supposed to be able to do it; I make it do it anyway. I suspect not everyone can do that.
You have been told that you must understand and work within a particular camera’s “limitations.” I was enamored of tiny P&Ss because they were pocketable, and I was heartily sick of schlepping. Experts (!) proclaimed that such “toy” cameras were “useless” in low light, lenses too slow, sensors too small, the old it-can't-be-done school. I said, “Why not?” and swam upstream. I was content with pocket cameras and made them do things that experts knew were “impossible!”
The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.
I have always been a “photovore;” anything in my line of sight I want to photograph, with the “camera I have with me,” but I am also a retired professional. Once, in my callow (=stupid) youth, I returned a camera to the store because it “didn’t take good pictures.” At the time, I was blissfully ignorant of the 12-inches-behind rule. EV-er-y-body knows that you can’t blame the hammer for missing the nail.
It isn’t that I don’t know that all cameras may have some limitations; it is that I don’t care. I have no genre and little style, but I am interested in everything. What really was limiting me was film. Do-anything digital threw open the doors and turned on the lights. Limitations? What limitations?!
When I transitioned to digital and lost my tiny mind, I convinced myself that I was happy as a hog in mud with the results I was getting from tiny-sensor-compacts shooting all JPEGs. Even after I acquired my first raw-capable camera, I was reluctant to try raw. I told myself I couldn’t process it, which at the time was probably true since I was still using an old version of Adobe Photoshop Elements that lacked Adobe Camera Raw. However, when I updated to Elements 11, it had ACR, yet still, I avoided raw capture.
…until I didn’t.
Suddenly it was time to get a big boy camera, a system, but I didn’t want to revert to massive DSLRs and bulky cases crammed with kit. I still wanted compact, inconspicuous, yet versatile, so I bought an already obsolete Sony A6000 with a couple of kit lenses. Whoa! Where had this been all my digital life?
But this story is not about GASiness or upgrading or throwing away my tiny pals (except I did sell them). My current cameras are pointedly not “professional.” They are usually ranked as “prosumer,” a bare cut above point-and-shoot. Welp, you can take the boy out of the profession, but you can’t take the professional out of the boy. I still shoot events as an unpaid volunteer. I could shoot a wedding with my current kit despite the pundits warning that my cameras are “inadequate,” sensors too small, lenses too slow, no dual card slots, et cetera yada so on.
If I can shoot flag football in abysmal light with “prosumer” APS-C cameras using “slow and slower” zoom lenses, think I can’t shoot a wedding? I’m not offering; the cameras would be fine, but I am in my dotage, so I would not be; if you’ve ever shot even one wedding, you know.
No one ever cares what camera you use if you can deliver.
The lower group goes back some 11 years, all shot in JPEG with tiny-sensor point-and-shoots. These are some of the actual photos delivered. The processing could use some work, but the client was thrilled, and no one ever cares what camera you use if you can deliver.
Josh Rose is right. The camera today is far less relevant than it once was, even for the professional. For those that just love to take pictures, there are no limits.
Thanks for reading; I do appreciate it. I invite comments.
