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Home >> Learning >> e-Book on Photography Table of Contents Photography e-Book Chapter 4 - The Equipment
In the beginning, the equipment is probably the driving force behind the photography but as one becomes more experienced and learns more about the craft of photography rather than the gear of photography, the better the person will become creatively. However, the desire for the latest and greatest never seems to end and the mindset of just needing that one more lens or filter is a black hole of money being flushed away. Trust me on this as I have so many examples of buying good gear and then selling at a loss or not using it anymore because the next great thing comes within my view. It takes a lot of discipline not to go overboard and throw more good money after bad. Subjectivity and personal neurosis come to play as you see the rich boys and gals play with the good stuff while you slum it with what you think is questionable gear. What has been lost is perspective. Sure, your Manfrotto 190 tripod is not a slick and super light carbon fiber Gitzo tripod but then you did not have to spend half a month's salary to buy the Manfrotto. Meanwhile your non-photographic buddy is using a plastic hunk of junk bought from a drugstore (or maybe even given to him for free during a store promotion) that barely has the stability and strength to hold itself up. You on the other hand may have pangs of desire for multi-kilo buck tripod and head combinations but unless you are schlepping a massive large format rig or some grossly huge and expensive super telephoto, are you really missing out? Are your slides so lacking in sharpness that you need the strength and load bearing of the Arca Swiss B1G on top of the Gitzo 1548? If not then put your money where it really counts, film to shoot with and vacations to go to those places to shoot with and forget about the pros with the expense accounts and/or tax write offs, buying the latest and greatest. Besides while you are easily hoofing it up the trails like a mountain goat with your light but sturdy rig, big time yuppie is huffing and puffing trying to carry his 60 lbs of equipment up the same trail. Of course, the big time pro with the expense account just hires slave-wage locals to carry his burdens. What about the damn equipment though? One simple rule to follow, buy the best you can afford. If that means that you can only afford a Nikon F65 type of camera with a 50mm f1.8 lens then do so but if you can stretch out the funds for a F80 or even a F100 (and the requisite quality lenses) then that is even better. If you have so much money that you can look at the F5 and all those sexy AF-S lenses without batting an eye when told of the price, send me a check and I will name my next dog after you. Seriously though, if you have the scratch for the F5 without the need to burn through a roll of film in mere seconds and if your style of photography is not about chasing down elusive birds and critters or sporting events, then you might want to consider something far more satisfying than a tiny chunk of 1x1.5 inch film. Medium format - more on that later on. Brand Wars
Forget about the overblown prestige factor of Leica, Contax/Ziess, or Hasselblad. If these companies' products feel good to you and if you have the scratch, then buy it. If you can only muster enough cash to buy a Nikon F65 or Bronica SQ-B, do not think for one minute that you are somehow beneath the prestige brands because your images will still be as good so long as your technique and creativity are good. That is what matters in photography. The equipment is just a means to and end and most certainly not the end itself. Admittedly, fine equipment helps to quicken or ease the process of photography and I personally prefer cameras that are in the higher range of a company's lineup but that has more to do with being forced to buy all the bells and whistles just to get the right combination of features I want. I fully admit that I do not utilize all of the capabilities of my Nikon F100 such as Auto Bracketing or even the well-regarded Five Point Auto focus Pad however, I use enough of the other features that the F100 is a fine upgrade to my former Nikon F90x and Nikon F70 bodies. My medium format Bronica SQ-Ai is just about perfect in features desired from an SLR camera. I can use it as a manual exposure camera or add the prism finder and obtain a very capable Aperture Priority metered camera. The SQ-Ai with the prism is large and heavy but as far as features are concerned there is nothing else I need beyond what this combination offers. I do not even use the SQ-Ai in this configuration for most of my shooting as I work with a handheld meter most of the time with a waist-level finder. When you buy a particular camera body, you have bought into the company's system and over time you will know that camera as merely an extension of your hands. The operations of the camera will become second nature and if satisfied, you will become a fan of the company you bought into. This will happen no matter which brand you buy into. It will be natural to speak well of the company and defend it against its detractors. You bought this camera and it was a fine decision for your use. Nothing that anyone else says should matter or detract from your decision but do not let your sentimentality get in the way of objectivity.
No matter what format you choose you will require some basic pieces of equipment, so let us start from the top and work our way down. You should also keep in mind what you want out of the tools you choose. Just as you would not use a large format camera for street shooting, you would not use an APS camera for landscapes - at least you should not although many ignorant consumers do. Buy the right tool for the shoots you expect to be doing. At the risk of contradicting myself, just because the Leica M6 feels "right" in your hands does not mean that it is going to be the right tool for when you see the nearly extinct warbler you have been chasing all your life, fly right in front of you. And just because the Nikon F5 feels "right" in your hands does not mean it is the right tool to be using at full speed 8 frames per second motor drive in the face of a minister at a wedding service. It can be the case that you should have two or three systems for different types of shoots if you are going to be serious about photography. Most of use are not so flush with cash that we can just up and buy everything from 35mm to medium format to large format to digital to satisfy the myriad opportunities we will encounter. The purchase of a 35mm SLR system is going to be the accepted compromise choice for most people as one that can do most types of shoots reasonably well. For that reason, the comments on equipment is preponderantly towards the 35mm format. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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This
is the section that most people are interested in, the toys for big
boys AND girls. Those sleek, picture-taking machines that denote sophistication
and cutting edge technology. The stuff that photographic wet dreams
are made of.
What
about brands? There is a great deal of brand loyalty among photographers
and you will encounter the inevitable battles about which brand is
superior. You will even find comments about 
Recognize
that all the other major brands have excellent products available
too and that supporting one brand over another is merely your familiarity
with only one or two brands of equipment. Recognize that the camera
and the lenses are tools in your hands and that you ultimately control
the image making process and no matter which brand of camera you have
in your hands you are the one that creates the image and not that
old saw about the lens creating the image. The lens did not see the
scene first and did not compose the scene, it was you and you are
the one who chose the lens for the perspective and coverage desired.
So, forget the Nikon versus Canon, et al debates (even if I did write
a silly essay about it) and use the equipment instead of talking about
the equipment.
