I think I understand the point Tom is making, some people just have the "eye" for photography and it wouldn't matter what equipment they were using, compact or the most expensive professional DSLR, they would still produce great shots (a difference in the actual quality of image perhaps, but the overall shot is still great and can carry the "WOW" factor!)

I personally am slightly embarrassed to be in the aforementioned list of names, though my heart tries to tell my mind that I have the "eye" and passion for photography, sometimes I often wonder if it was just pure luck that I got the desired shot?  I do have a compact - well actually, due to the size of the fixed lens, it's not really compact and doesn't fit in any pocket that I have LOL! But I NEVER use it on automatic setting - to me, the only way forward is to learn how to actually use the camera.  This in itself is bringing me more wasted shots than good ones and more in the way of required postwork to try to make the shot how I actually saw it when I pressed the shutter button.

I personally find that now, despite the fact that I still don't understand how to use the camera and get out of it what I know it can produce, I am becoming very frustrated with it..... I tend to use aparture priority as I feel that the lighting is the most important factor in photography and in the past have had way too many blown-out skies when using automatic.  With the assistance of Tom's very imformative "Spot Metering" tutorial, I have learned so much more and truly believe that I could get great results using this method however, my camera is limited...... the spot meter is fixed to wherever you are focused on (OK, I'm not very good at explaining the technical stuff!) i.e if I wanted to take a shot of a person sitting on a boat in the middle of a river, ordinarily I would try to spot on the person's skin tone, to ensure that he/she was correctly exposed, but if I did that on a bright day, everything would become blown-out behind (the sky, water etc.) so I would then try to spot on the lighter part of the sky to bring out the details of the clouds etc, but then, assuming that the person wasn't just thrown into shadow, I couldn't then move my camera angle to focus on the person after locking the spot - the focus point has been set to the place I set my spot... the sky - hence now, the person is not in focus!!

I probably haven't explained myself very well there, but suffice to say, there are things about my camera that really frustrate me and leaves me not just wanting, but NEEDING a new camera, to enable me to grow further in the hobby I so dearly love.

All that said, when I eventually get my hands on the Canon D10 that I have my eyes on next, will I necessarily produce any better results?  Who knows, but without learning and understanding how to use the equipment, my "eye" will never be able to capture what I want to!!

As Richard says, I suppose it all really depends on the individual needs and what it is that they want to get out of photography - some are happy to just capture the moment without worry about whether it is well composed or correctly exposed, some like me, want more from it, that is my need at the moment and one with which I will focus on (no pun intended LOL!)

To sum up, I suppose the only important thing about photography, if that is your chosen profession or hobby is, to have fun with it - as long as you enjoy it and get satisfaction out of your own results, then nothing else really matters!!

Hugs

Chrissy xx

"I don't suffer from insanity,
I enjoy every minute of it."
:lol:
CCCD Photography  CCC Dezynz