I don't spend much on my photo gear but once  a year or so I do that, outlaying more than I thought on accessories  which I want to master and help me do better.  After all, I  inside my personal self, I am  self conscious of things I do, whether in my profression as a designing jeweler or as a photographer.    I get new stuff...the want comes first then the "need" becomes quite real and the cash is in hand...so I get new stuff once in a while. I am not certain it improves my eye one bit but only the method of capturing what I do happen to see.

Then, I look at images posted in galleries by 'rosity members who apparently have a gift of raw talent, the eye for the shot, the mind to recognize the image is there for the taking.  Such stuff comes from Bibby Bear perhaps using her Kodak, from Pascal... and  from a young lady who was here a couple of years ago who took wonderful macro shots in Louisiana, USA...her nickname started with "L" but I cannot recall her name.  Then there is  Valerie Ducom...using a Nikon D50 her images rate with the best.   This is not the most expensive equipment.

Seems a point is made...the eye must see and the mind must see that important enough to click the shutter.  (Then process properly, of course.)

So, I keep trying with what I have and do add to what I have a tiny bit at a time.  I have more than many who do better photograpy and less than some who do much better or worse.

Sure, this is a rambling thought but if you have a comment to make, it would be appreciated. As for those mentioned, I could doubtless mention others who do not have the most expensive or most elaborate gear but who present us with wonderful photos.  I do not mean to leave anyone out or embarass those I did mention.  This is a compliment to all who do so well with what they have.   Sometimes, I have to step back and be amazed.   It is in the eye behind the camera, a thought presented many times before this post.      TomDart.

What you say is true but I will add that one doesn't have to shoot with lesser gear just to prove that they are 'good'... Yeah at times it helps to be able to use that great get to do what you want but it's still only a tool.... You as the artist are the one that makes the ultimate decision, still the one that controls what it does and how you work with it.... 

I keep trying...not knowing my "limits", regardless of the gear. What you say is quite true.

And, practice does help.

Often the difference in equipment is not going to be apparent until you push that equipment further toward its limits. Viewing or producing images for the web can be done with virtually any camera with good results. 
If say a selection of gallery images from here were to be taken and printed at 20 x 16 for an exhibition then i believe differences would begin to show. I have seen this happen at another web site where an exhibition of printed work was shown. Members submitted files which were printed and mounted for them, though they did have the option to submit prints and /or mount their own. 
I'm not suggesting that a printed version is any better or worse than the web images we view, but it is the reason why many professional photographers choose the equipment they do. 
Another major reason for some equipment being more expensive than others is how robust it is in use. When used in a working environment equipment suffers a lot of constant use and abuse, it has to be able to withstand this which is often why pro equipment is made the way it is and is subsequently more expensive.  An amateur photographer doesn't necessarily have the same needs .

In conclusion from my experience it is better to have the equipment that is able to produce the results you want to achieve and this does not mean buying the most expensive if it is not needed.  
I don't use my camera equipment everyday, all day - I don't need to have expensive pro equipment that can do this. When the weather starts to get inclement  I like to be indoors where it is warm and cosy - I don't need expensive pro equipment that is weather proof.  I have the time and inclination to take care of my equipment because it is more important to me than a single shot - I don't need expensive pro equipment that can withstand the knocks it will get when the shot is more important than the equipment. The list goes on and on but I think you get the point .............

One other point I would like to express is I believe smaller compact cameras have their place and excel in some areas where larger more expensive equipment can't keep up.  One of these areas is bug shots - it is far easier and you get better shots imho using a compact camera for this genre than you do using a dslr . One of the reasons is the speed you are able to react and the positions which you are able to get the camera into to make the shot which brings me onto another area where compact cameras excel - spontaneity of capture . Photography is about two main things: light  and a moment in time. When it comes to a moment in time speed and versatility is king and compact digital cameras excel in this. You can hold them in virtually any position with one hand and see what you are shooting. They can be whipped out your pocket and the shot made before the person with the dslr has managed to get it to their eye, let alone thought about if they have the right lens on for the shot and what settings they should be using. This works on a more artistic level too where iin recent years small digital comapcts have brought lots of new images to photography and we see less of the more tracitional shots from the same old angle and pov that we have all seen so many times before. 

Well I've bored everyone enough now if you bothered to read this at all. Should have just said: ' 'Horses for Courses'  and left it at that 

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

Hello Tom,

I know i just produce BW pic, an it is not of the taste of everybody ;o) but imho, the hardware in pure classic photography is juste a detail, because you are using film (no matter of full/not full frame, to loose pixel or not, etc...)

So, the image is the goal, and the only thing you can trust is your heart & soul.

The body i'm using has been created in 1985, lenses (35, 50, 135) are from 1975 & 89, so old, but so 'my friend' !!!

Our brain must learn 'the' pure technique of photography : speed, diaph, dof, composition, and some little bonus that you acquire with time (like taking pic with both eyes open, or use hyperfocal).
Once this has been done, you can forget everything, and just follow your feeling/heart/soul .. your brain will do the rest without thinking about it, you can follow or break rules, normally lol it will be nice !

I think hardware is important in Digital photography because of the big risk to don't capture enough details (due to ccd or something like this) to print a exhibition picture (nobody knows, it could happens to everyone of us).

But don't forget one thing : a camera is like a car .. you need to learn it, to understand it, to make it your best friend ! Nobody can do that in a short time. So, time with the same material is good too. 

Like my dear Chrissy said : the most important is to have fun, ffrom the 'clic' to the print/web

.. ok this is just my opinion ;o)

See ya :oD

Going purely by my own experiences the two main elements to a good shot are lighting and composition, get one  of these right and you'll have a good shot, get them both right and you'll have a great shot no matter what camera you use. Whenever I get a shot that I look at and think "now that's good", more often than not I've just been in the right place at the right time e.g in a mist covered field at the crack of dawn I could point the camera pretty much anywhere and get a good shot.

If I don't get any unexpected bills in the next couple of weeks then I'll finally be getting my hands a DSLR, but will I take any better pictures? I doubt it, in fact until I get to grips with it I reckon I'll be deleting far more than I save, lol. There's nothing wrong with the camera I've got (Minolta Z1) but since I got the 'photo bug' I've wanted to get a better camera for so long now it's become an absolute need. You know what I mean - if I can do this with my camera now, just think what I could do if I had a better camera, lol.

There's a similar thing in astronomy - no matter how big/good a scope you have it's never big/good enough. I guess the same can be said for photography no matter how good your camera/lens etc is, you'll always want a better one.

I guess what I'm trying to say is having an 'eye' for a great shot is worth more than all the photo equipment you could possibly buy. Some people appear to be natural born photographers (and there are certainly plenty here on RR) but I think it's a skill anyone can pick up - just keep practicing!!

• Andy

Quite a while ago, on a saturday  out, I lost my OM2 with equipment (lenses etc) and nearly my life trying to grab the bag when it slid towards the ravin. As we went on the "real" holiday next monday, all I had was a small Olympus µ (MJU). 35mm, f:2.8 .
Man, did I learn a LOT! There were no options, only what I saw (and not even TTL!). And: no bag, no weight to carry.

Sometimes limits are necessary to force us to "focus".

Ouch! Tough way to have to "focus." :'{

Speaking of the "technical means" some have mentioned, a man with whom I work takes finely composed photos. The interesting thing is that he came from film and then with a DSLR, only rarely uses manual. The "beep" is set to indicate focus, which is ok but rarely does he manual focus. To get a good pic he goes from setting, meaning the auto settings on his camera, from landscape to portrait, to night scene, those sorts of settings I never use and my D200 does not have such settings, just ISO, White Balance and  Quality.

A man I knows is both a gemstone dealer and an editor for a leading fly fishing magazine. He has the expensive gear. What does he use for macros for the net of gemstones? His Sony digital, point and shoot with manual over rides.  What does he carry into a trout stream after a hike to the place, the same Sony.  The  SLR and DSLR are just too much for a lug up the trail and in the middle of a brook when trying to catch trout and get a picture. He told me the macros are better than from his very expensive SLR macro lens...

My main point is that some folks do have an eye for what is pleasing and artistic.  Some must learn to duplicate as best they can with a similar process, even if not an easy natural move for them.

For those whom are are given as a sort of natural blessing an eye for things pleasing and artistic, that is the raw talent I mentioned. Sure, the technical must be mastered enough to take that talent and produce a decent image.  Sure, others without a natural eye for the composition can learn the means to see these images, even if not at first from the spirit of it all but see it nonetheless.  Practice, practice, practice.     

well I bought a ton of gear thinking it was going to make me as good as you guys.. and wow did I make a big mistake.. the more I bought the more i had to learn and it all made me loose focus on the shot and i was thinking more about gear and what does what and not seeing the picture anymore... now that i dont worry about my gear and i just shoot. i go oh well I got what I got. and I see people on here that use these small pocket cameras for $300 and do such amazing work. it makes me want to hang up my camera with all the buttons on it and go buy a pocket camera lol

I love seeing people with RAW talent.. the bad part about RAW talent I dont like is. I can not go buy it in a store for myself lol

my husband does some amazing graphics on a computer and he has never been to school for it. and we have seen graphic artist that have been to school for many years and have all the right gear but none of them can draw a stick man without the computer. and when my husband draws anything with a pencil away from the computer it looks like a black and white photo. so I think you have to be some kind of artist first all the gear in the world wont make you an amazing artist.

i find my self studying other peoples images now way more then I would a manual from some gear I bought. I find I learn more from images and I want to know how it was done. if there is an image I really want to know how to get that look I make it my wallpaper on my computer so I have to look at it everyday till I figure it out. then I try it with my own twist to it.

Yes, indeed...I do also often seek the best I can see then wonder...I see the talent and the digital work all combined. Most of all, I see the point of view of the artist...the compo and the stuff that really makes it work.  I see this more than the color or tone.   Then, to emulate or try to do as well is difficult but it is a goal.   I have some raw talent but not like some here have, much less in my zone than some others show, regardless of the perfection of the image.

Thanks for the reply...well noted.      Tom.