It’s Not The Gear

What do all of these photographers have in common?

Well it’s not the gear. They all own and use very different makes and models of cameras. Some shoot film and some shoot digital. A few even use their cellphone cameras.

So what do they have in common?

For the most part these photographers are all participants in the Toronto Photo Walk group. They learn from each other and over time their photography gets better and better.

So if it’s not the gear, what is it?

It’s the ability to understand the basics of photography. These basics have nothing to do with the gear. You can learn the basics with box or pinhole camera or even a cellphone.

Case in point:

A newcomer on FaceBook asked why the images she shot with a digital camera and loaded to her cellphone looked so poorly when she uploaded the cellphone images to FaceBook?

She asked why the resolution was so bad when she viewed her images online?

Of course part of the answer is she didn’t understand how poorly the tiny cellphone digital sensor renders images compared to any digital camera sensor. She said she didn’t like how poor the resolution of the image looked on FaceBook.

And to a point she was quite right.

Cellphone images can look great if uploaded directly to FaceBook but loading images from a digital camera to the cellphone and then uploading from the cellphone really compromised the look and then FaceBook itself crushed the images further.

So resolution is part of the problem but her image (which I will not share) was also poorly lit and poorly posed and the background was cluttered and her provocative dress had me wondering if we weren’t all being scammed (and I remain suspicious).

But what a lot of newcomers to photography don’t realize is while resolution and sensor size (to a point as I find micro four-thirds more than adequate for everything I shoot) are important things like proper exposure and adequate professional lighting (whether natural light or flash or studio lights) are essential.

Why do I say that?

It’s because when our newcomers asked about resolution what they often really meant was that their image didn’t look good.

Almost all the comments from the 15,000 random strangers on her FaceBook photography page talked about the issues with the tiny cellphone sensor and ignored all the rest of the components of a great image which were lacking in her image.

There are tons of great images shot daily on cellphones and uploaded to social media. Cellphone cameras are designed to produce small images that just pop on screen or even online. So it’s not the cellphone itself that’s the problem.

When it comes to producing pleasing images that look like they were shot by someone who knows what they’re doing it doesn’t matter what gear is used.

What really matters is how the gear is used. To understand how to use the gear, it’s essential to understand the basics of photography regardless of the camera.

So if you’re struggling to produce better images learn the exposure triangle and watch some YouTube videos on framing and composing and exposing. Maybe take a lesson or two from a local club. Then read your camera manual. And, then and only then, pickup your camera and apply that knowledge to