Finding an old picture taken on an old camera prompted a question – how important is gear in photography? A thought coming out of my post the other day, of the picture of the Battistero di San Giovanni in Pisa.
If you missed this picture where were you? Just kidding now….
This picture was taken in 2013, just before I bought my Canon 6D, announced in 2012 at Photokina would you believe!
The Canon 5D Mark 1 was released in 2006. We are now up to the Canon 5D Mark 4.
And I honestly did not realise it was taken with the Canon 5D. Such is the quality of even an old camera like this, with a 12MP sensor.
Which gets me back to the point. The new Canon 6D Mark 2 will be available for purchase shortly.
The point being this.
Do I need a new Canon 6D Mark 2?
No.
Do I want a new Canon 6D Mark 2?
Of course I do.
But I don’t actually need one.
Think about it. My Canon 5D takes pictures of excellent quality. As does my Canon 6D. I have no doubt that the Canon 6D Mark 2 will take better pictures, looking at the specification.
If I do get the new Canon 6D Mark 2, I will take a photograph with the same settings on my current Canon 6D and my Canon 5D and compare the results.
I expect that no one else will be able to tell the difference.
New kit is exciting. New technology is exciting. But in photography, we need to remember this. The gear is not the important thing.
Do you think anyone asked Leonardo da Vinci which brand of paint brush he used to paint the Mona Lisa? Or what size of brush Michalangelo used to paint the Cistine Chapel ceiling?
Of course not.
You get the point.
I am a fan of technology.
And new kit.
Of progress.
Of shiny new things.
But I am also a fan of photography. Photography being defined as
The art or practice of taking and processing photographs. In the online English Oxford Living Dictionaries
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/photography
Photography is the art of taking and processing photographs.
I like that.
That is all. Quite simple really. Sure the gear helps us to do this, but that is all it does.
I find myself spending less time thinking about gear, and more time thinking about composition, image capture and analysing the images I have captured. The gear is the gear. I have my Canon 6D and a selection of Canon lenses. The image capture itself is pretty much an automatic and instinctive process.
My photography is more about what I am photographing than anything else, and do you know what?
This has coincided with the standard of my photography improving.
So to answer the original question – no – it is all about what you point your camera at, and not about what you point at the subject.
