The Quadrant Model of Gear vs Output

[Archiver]

A post in the thread about being 'stuck in a hole' and the tangent of whether gear matters prompted this visualization of gear vs output:

Stuck In A Hole - How to find enjoyment in actually taking photos?

I could never ignite my love for Photography by using a Sony, nor ignite my love for driving by driving a Hyundai Sonata. A lot of us here are fortunate to be able to choose to not use a Sony, or whatever the equivalent of driving a Hyundai Sonata is. The point that I'm getting at is that if...

rangefinderforum.com

A lot of us here are fortunate to be able to choose to not use a Sony, or whatever the equivalent of driving a Hyundai Sonata is.

The point that I'm getting at is that if your passion for photography is so great—the actual act of taking, printing, and looking at photographs—then whatever tool you have will be good enough to use to express the creative impulse inside of you, and if done passionately and with dedication, that can no doubt lead to something great and worth doing.

I don't understand the bitterness or why you seem to think I'm taking a jab at you or something. I'm simply stating that there is a spectrum where on one end all the care and obsession goes into the output and on the other the obsession goes into the object used to make the thing. My guess is that at a certain point if you skew too far to the object end the likelihood of making something boring and rote with that object is high.

30k darkroom prints? That's cool. A good silver gelatin print is a beautiful object. But a boring photograph, even if printed well on silver paper, is a boring photograph.

Look at Jeff Mermelstein. Made outstanding and interesting work with a Leica. Then made extremely interesting work with an iPhone in his book #nyc.

I've met fine art photographers who use medium format cameras like the Rolleiflex, but if you ask them about gear, they can't tell you a thing. They just found a medium they liked, and stuck with it.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are any number of gear-obsessed button pushers who produce the most banal and uninspiring work (cough YouTube cough).

Other professionals have basic Canon and Nikon DSLR's but produce excellent work, because they maximize their output through an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of their gear. And there are combinations of gear/output all along this spectrum. You could even think of this is a four axis graph:

(I hope this quadrant chart formats properly!)

(edited to add: this chart didn't format properly, so I'm embedding a screenshot)

Quadrant A represents where people with decent gear produce bad work, which includes many gear obsessed hobbyists, and well monied but uninspired professionals.

Quadrant B is where money/resources meets talent, skill and hard work.

Quadrant C is where a lot of beginners start, then they move into other quadrants. Some move to QA if they buy better gear but don't upgrade their skill. Some stick with their lower end gear, either through preference or necessity, but move to QD because they refine their eye, shot selection and processing. People can move into QD when they get better gear and skills.

Quadrant D is where a person with a Canon Rebel shoots fashion for local magazines, a Yashica point and shoot owner creates art, and where a smartphone user emotively and accurately documents a warzone.

Where do we think our work lies these days? For me, I move between QA and QB. I have decent gear, not the best, but decent. I take a lot of bad photos, but I can reliably produce decent ones when the need is there. How about you fine folk?

 

[AlwaysOnAuto]

I like to think I'm just above the middle line going from A and B quadrant depending on the subject matter of my photos.

 

[boojum]

A post in the thread about being 'stuck in a hole' and the tangent of whether gear matters prompted this visualization of gear vs output:

Stuck In A Hole - How to find enjoyment in actually taking photos?

I could never ignite my love for Photography by using a Sony, nor ignite my love for driving by driving a Hyundai Sonata. A lot of us here are fortunate to be able to choose to not use a Sony, or whatever the equivalent of driving a Hyundai Sonata is. The point that I'm getting at is that if...

rangefinderforum.com

I've met fine art photographers who use medium format cameras like the Rolleiflex, but if you ask them about gear, they can't tell you a thing. They just found a medium they liked, and stuck with it.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are any number of gear-obsessed button pushers who produce the most banal and uninspiring work (cough YouTube cough).

Other professionals have basic Canon and Nikon DSLR's but produce excellent work, because they maximize their output through an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of their gear. And there are combinations of gear/output all along this spectrum. You could even think of this is a four axis graph:

(I hope this quadrant chart formats properly!)

(edited to add: this chart didn't format properly, so I'm embedding a screenshot)

Quadrant A represents where people with decent gear produce bad work, which includes many gear obsessed hobbyists, and well monied but uninspired professionals.

Quadrant B is where money/resources meets talent, skill and hard work.

Quadrant C is where a lot of beginners start, then they move into other quadrants. Some move to QA if they buy better gear but don't upgrade their skill. Some stick with their lower end gear, either through preference or necessity, but move to QD because they refine their eye, shot selection and processing. People can move into QD when they get better gear and skills.

Quadrant D is where a person with a Canon Rebel shoots fashion for local magazines, a Yashica point and shoot owner creates art, and where a smartphone user emotively and accurately documents a warzone.

Where do we think our work lies these days? For me, I move between QA and QB. I have decent gear, not the best, but decent. I take a lot of bad photos, but I can reliably produce decent ones when the need is there. How about you fine folk?

View attachment 4851161

It is tough and often unfair to categorize folks. And not all folks with cameras are chasing the same rabbit. Some are fascinated with the gear and how it works and some with just the final image and all in between. The usual adage is that it was not his chisel that made Michelangelo great. And no doubt HCB could have shot with different cameras. So is it the gear or the result of the gear? To me it is whatever floats your boat. You can be the Merlin of Mediocrity but if you are happy at it you are a success.

I just had a fellow tell me that the only way to shoot is RAW. Oh, is that so? Please show me the rule book where that is printed. I shoot what I please. It works for me. It's a hobby. It is supposed to be fun.

That said, your quadrant is a fun study.

 

[tortellini_man]

top left 🙂

 

[boojum]

top left 🙂

Is it crowded yet? Is there still room for me?

 

[WoodallP]

Is it crowded yet? Is there still room for me?

Does it have a well kitted out workshop? If so save me space, I’m fed up of my canteen tray on the dining table!

 

[Timmyjoe]

Some are fascinated with the gear and how it works and some with just the final image and all in between. The usual adage is that it was not his chisel that made Michelangelo great. And no doubt HCB could have shot with different cameras. So is it the gear or the result of the gear? To me it is whatever floats your boat.

Strongly agree with this sentiment. Film cameras are fascinating mechanical/optical contraptions and quite a few that I own from another era can make images, but are kept for their precision quality engineering and machining. These were made prior to CNC machining and 3-D printing. I'm old enough and fortunate enough to have met and talked with individuals who worked in the factories that made some of these 1940's, 1950's, 1960's gems.

That said, I'm also not a big fan of categorizing people, especially when it comes to an art form. I think people move freely between all four of your quadrants. And I hope that folks find the art in themselves and when possible, to use cameras to share it with others.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Godfrey]

No interest in the 'quadrant'.
—
Gear matters, and gear doesn't matter. It depends on the context of the conversation.

Gear matters when you're discussing something like "What's the best way to capture birds in flight" or "I'm going to the Canyonlands National Park, what camera and lenses should I bring?". Or ... "I want to photograph the musicians at a concert, what can I use for that?"

Gear doesn't matter at all when you're discussing "how do I become motivated to make photographs again?" You can't buy gear to spark that kind of motivation ... Even if it works in the short term, the boost is always short-term and then, like an addict, you have to go dip in the "new gear" drug once again.

a- I like gear, I'm fascinated by the designs, the solutions, the many subtleties of different solutions to the same problems.
b- I love photographs, I love making photographs.

I don't confuse 'a' with 'b'.

G

Plant on Patio - Santa Clara 2024
Voigtländer Vitessa, ACROS 100​

 

[agentlossing]

Separating gear into a low-to-high range doesn't really work for me, because it ignores that I don't always know what kind of gear works best for me during a season or a preference for a certain kind of photography, or drive to create a type or body of work.

For instance, I couldn't have predicted that I would want to move from mirrorless (Micro Four Thirds) into DSLR (Pentax). It's not the quality of the gear, but the way the equipment works. For me, it was partially (initially) the difference between how an EVF performs in bright sunlight, compared to how a SLR viewfinder works.

I've gradually acquired higher-end gear, as I could afford it, but I don't think that has had much at all to do with the quality of my photo output. The type of gear, however, has for sure. Having a K-3 mk. III Monochrome has pushed me towards a better understanding of light and shadow and shape, something which I began to learn with B&W film, but which has accelerated with the digital variant because I can iterate more, and see results faster. It's only a side effect that it's the top-end APS-C camera put out by Ricoh-Pentax. I'd own a cheaper monochrome camera if it existed.

If anything, I feel less comfortable with more expensive gear, even while I appreciate the excellent build and image quality.

 

[dourbalistar]

I'm smack in the middle, not in any quadrant, but very high up on the Z-axis sitting on a pile of cameras and lenses. 🤣

 

[Guth]

Over time as my income grew and the amount of time that I put into my photography increased, slowly but surely I found my results moving upward (all the while hugging the far left side of chart while rising from quadrant C into quadrant A). Despite the utter crappiness of my lifelong body of photographic work, I still aspire to achieve mediocrity one of these days.

Yet my photography might just be the shining star among all of my creative endeavors. My guitar playing and my writing have moved from near-mediocrity to absolute crap in recent years despite me acknowledging my love of guitars and typewriters both. Someday when the reviews of others are published, I hope to prove wrong those who claim that I am my own worst critic. Until then I can at least recognize the fact that I have managed to have some fun along the way — regardless of my results.