Join Now
Join ePHOTOzine, the friendliest photography community.
Upload photos, chat with photographers, win prizes and much more for free!
The better the camera the better the picture ? Does having a top rate camera mean you will get a top rate picture ? What percentage would you give to the camera and the person taking the shot ? Is it something like 70% camera and 30% photographer or is it the other way around ? Some people i have spoken to seem to think you must have a top rated exspensive camera in order to take a top rated photo ? True or false ? what do you think ? and how would work that out in percentage to camera and photographer ? thanks for your time ?
100% photographer really
give someone rubbish an amazing camera and you'll still get rubbish shots - albeit very high resolution and sharp rubbish shots
the camera becomes important when you take into account the usage of the photo. a fantastic i-phone photo would probably struggle to create a bill board campaign due to lack of pixels... maybe?
Just think of it like this...
the camera is to the photographer as the pen is to the author
or
the camera is to the photographer as the brush is to the painter
or
the camera is to the photographer as the hammer and chisel is to the master mason
The camera is nothing without the photographer! The camera is at the end of the day just a recording device, you will probably find most of your money goes into lenses, at least if you want a good image. Having an expensive camera will definitely not make you a fantastic photographer but will if you're a complete beginner probably create more confusion.
The art is in the person looking through the view finder not the camera. There may be those who think differently.
Steve 
A better camera can help.
Just a few examples. A camera with a 300mm f/2.8 is going to get a better picture for a sports photographer than a camera with a 35-80mm f/5.6.
A camera with a manual exposure option can (when used in the right hands) ensure a tricky lighting shot will come out exposed correctly.
A camera with a macro lens will allow a photographer to go closer to small subjects.
The list goes on.
But the photographer is ultimately responsible for the quality and I've seen brilliant photos with camera phones or basic compacts and poor shots with pro spec SLRs.
I'm not sure anyone could work it out in percentages. certainly with mobile phones and compacts it's more the photographer than the equipment.
LOL as usual at the people who say the "camera doesn't matter" that it's "100% photographer"
You guys must be idiots then and have wasted big money on camera equipment when you could have produced your portfolio using any camera, eg the camera on your phone?
The reality is it's a team effort of photographer and equipment.
Quote: LOL as usual at the people who say the "camera doesn't matter" that it's "100% photographer"
You guys must be idiots then and have wasted big money on camera equipment when you could have produced your portfolio using any camera, eg the camera on your phone?
The reality is it's a team effort of photographer and equipment.
I think the point being made is, eg. if you cant compose an image through the view finder then a Canon 5D MK II with a £4000 lens wont do it for you. There is logic in there somewhere 
When I was studying photography many years ago my tutor said something along the lines of,
"You can use the most expensive and highest quality cameras and lenses available and you can churn out endless average and badly composed images. Alternatively you can use lower quality and priced gear and turn out well composed images with impact!
Display an average image from the expensive camera alongside a well composed image with impact from the lower quality gear and the latter will always get the most attention!"
He was absolutely right!
Ken
I am an idiot, fair enough Chris
how about this then....
I can play, badly, about 4 or 5 chords on the guitar....
I've had a go on my guitarist's £2500 customer fender guitar, and do you know what, I sounded as sh1t on that as I did on my mate's £70 acoustic
However, I'm pretty handy on the keyboard, and I've had a go on a £49,000 steinway in Forsythe's on Deansgate, Manchester.... It sounded amazing, but I also sound pretty good on my £2500 Korg Triton Extreme 88, or even a £200 casio synth.
Kit is completely unrelated to skill
Skill is what makes someone great
Kit is something they apply the skill with
The requirements of a "job" dictate which "kit" is needed.
e.g.
huge billboard campaigns need lots of pixels - enter the Hassleblads or medium format backs.
family portraits rarely get printed that large, so a normal DSLR is required.
sport often needs lots of frames per second in wet conditions - enter the Canon 1D series
etc.
Try doing it without a camera. It's not one or the other, it's a combination of both
WHY NOT TYPE IN CAPITALS AS WELL AS BOLD? WE'LL REALLY HEAR YOU THEN!!!!!!!!!
The camera lens in some cases lets you do things that are very difficult (if not impossbile) with another lens - for example try taking a macro shot with a 600mm f4 or a good one of a bird in flight with a 24mm prime.
As I see it the body is there to make it easier to get the shot you want - for example AF makes it easier to get a good sports or wildlife shot (just think of all those brilliant shots taken before AF came in).
To oversimplify, I think the body is more an extension of the photographer, while the lens is the real workhorse.
Let me put it a wee bit differently:
A great photographer can produce great photographs with virtually any camera. (Someone used the term "decent" camera above - nowadays, virtually any camera costing more than £30 will be "decent" )
An unskilled and untalented photographer will not produce great photographs (other than by accident), no matter how "good" his camera might be.
I don't much like the idea of assigning percentages as was asked, but - maybe 90% photographer and 10% camera. The reason that some of us spend illogical amounts of our hard-earned groats on bigger and better cameras is merely to try and push further into that final 10%.
Let me take that a stage farther:
If you took a random sample of 50 images taken by me on my Nikon D3s dSLR and 50 images taken by my wife on her Nikon P7100 compact, and viewed them full-screen on a normal computer monitor and then "ranked" them according to any subjective assessment of photographic quality, then I guarantee that my wife would have more in the top-20 than I would - simply because she has a better eye for a good photograph.
.
Add a Comment
ePHOTOzine, the web's friendliest photography community.
Upload photos, chat with photographers, win prizes and much more.
Related Content
Join Our Free Newsletter
Awards
Current Competitions
Olympus 'Portraiture' Competition - Win £1000 Worth Of Gear!
30th April 2013 - 31st May 2013
This month, to celebrate the launch of Olympus' new micro site Olympus Image Space, Olympus are giving you the chance to win £1000 worth of Olympus gear!...
Featured e2 Photo
May's Photo Month
Check out ePHOTOzine's inspirational photo month calendar! Each day click on a window to unveil new photography tips, treats and techniques.
