Does equipment matter?

This thread reminds me of a recent tongue-in-cheek post about using an RF to shoot a grizzly. ;)
 
Do footwear matters? No, if you are born in the wild or are immovable in hospital. Yes, otherwise. Even more it matters, when you are out for specific occasion, be it climbing, fishing, or running marathon. Tell me it doesn't.
 
My equipment matters in the sense that this is the gear I like to use, I feel comfortable with. Some stuff is very common, some is rare/unusual/expensive, but I choose it for what I can do with it and for how comfortable I feel with it.

I use: Leica IIIa, M3 DS, M6 0.85, Chinon Memotron CE-II, Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor, Kodak Medalist II, Horseman 970 and lenses.
 
Maybe the question could be formulated a bit differently... Like "Even if he picked a brand to be used by him because he likes it, could Tiger Woods play golf well with other equipment?" or "Would Salgado's photographs be inferior to the world if he was forced to use a different camera?" or "How different would have been Cartier-Bresson's shots if he used Russian lenses and cameras exclusively?"

Cheers,

Juan
 
Why, yes; one cannot take a photograph without photographic equipment ... beyond that refer to the law of diminishing returns
 
Gear Does matter
but its a 'Good EYE' & being able to 'Capture the Moment'
that Really matters.....:D
 
Then it looks like the answer is yes, gear matters, but matters less than the things that really matter, so gear doesn't really matter that much...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Sometimes it matters very much.

I've done this with a Leica:
P1000036.jpg


But would never try this:
P1000035.jpg
 
Of course you can make excellent photos with cheap kit but on the whole my answer is yes it does matter.

Mostly with lenses of course but to some extent with cameras too, I find for example that there is no substitute for a fast lens to isolate a subject from its background for portraits - for example. You just cannot do this adequately (without a lot of Photoshopping in post processing ) with a slow lens and / or a small format sensor camera where everything tends to be in focus from a few meters to infinity. But that's an issue of the characteristics of the kit (although fast tends to equate to expensive .)

As to quality of equipment yes it does matter too, but the law of diminishing returns sets in quickly. I have a Nikon DSLR in addition to my rangefinder kit and with it I have, amongst other lenses, an 18-70 cheapish kit lens that is a few years old. A very nice lens as it turns out. As an experiment I bought the 17-55 f2.8 pro lens and apart from the aforementioned issue of isolation from the faster lens, mostly I cannot tell the difference apart from a bit of distortion at the wider end of the less expensive lens.

Mostly it then comes down to skill as most photographers do not know enough to be able to get the best from their top end kit.

The final issue I think about is how sturdy the kit is. Pro kit usually has much better build quality and this can count when you do a lot of shooting.

Finally one caveat. I upgraded my DSLR from a Nikon D70s to a D200. I then proceeded to lose a lot of shots while I learned how to use the new cameras fancy capabilities. So sometimes equipment can matter but not in a good way.
 
What is funny is how little gear matters, and how many people with bad photographs, as next step buy more expensive gear instead of finding out why their photographs are weak...

That's why internet galleries are full of thousands of mediocre photographs made with Leicas and Hasselblads... Gear doesn't matter at all in my book (if we talk about brands) as long as the camera used can technically do the job...

Several concepts, skills and experience are a lot more important than gear, to the point of making gear secondary:

1. To know how to be in the right place, and be there.
2. To be unobtrusive.
3. To have the camera as prepared as possible.
4. To have technical skills (light, previsualization, media, camera controls and meanings...)
5. To hit the shutter in the best possible moment.
6. To decide very well the point of view.

With those well covered, it doesn't matter the camera or lens used. Decades ago all brands have enough quality. What matters in photography has NEVER been image quality or gear used, but the strength of the visual narrative an image has for emotional communication... No gear is better than other gear there: that's why it doesn't matter...

Basically there are people who look at gear and tests and reviews, and people who look at what an image conveys... When you go deep in any of those two visions, you don't care too much about the other one... One of those visions crowns brands, and the other one crowns photographers. One is related to engineering, crafts and precision, and the other one is related to creation, feelings and art.

Cheers,

Juan
 
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