[awscreo]

Truly amazing work. But with the decent gear, hardly called "any". Plus, it seems that he uses ND filters, and Photoshop clean up.

---------- Post added 11-23-18 at 07:56 PM ----------



It may be. But the statement about "any" gear is misleading as well to be the answer on those blames.

I mean his work goes against the grain of the marketing narrative of any company. We're sold an idea that for best results we need to buy the latest and greatest equipment, and nikon would certainly would want you to buy a d850 instead, with a nikkor 14-28 attached to it as a landscape kit.

His total cost with filters can be purchased for relatively low amount of money. While not being a toy by any stretch of imagination, d3200 is a popular starter kit. I'm sure they weren't actually talking about "any" camera, but most popular options. Just giving confidence boost for new photographers

[Andy123]

I think we are trying to make too much of this statement. I always took it to mean you can produce something amazing with any image recording device. Not you can produce every amazing image from any image recording device.

Some amazing pictures simply can’t be taken with some devices but something amazing is possible from almost any camera.

However, sadly that is not true for cameras in my hands. I have many cameras that won’t amaze.

Andy

[arnold]

I think the main point was that the art of the picture was apart from the means to capture it. The camera hardware, like a Swiss Army knife can add versatility over a simple camera. A simple rangefinder is handicapped in sports and game reserves, but if one works within its parameters, it will allow you to do the job well. After all, many famous photos are famous for their creativity, not their razor sharp renditions. Too many pictures concentrate on the rendition, not the way it was rendered. Certainly a clear clean picture can impress one with the camera and lens, but in the end, even an old war photo can have a more emotional impact even with its technical limitations.
Give someone with an artistic eye a simple camera, and compare the pictures to someone with the latest gear, but who just doesn't see the art in the scene..

[Dartmoor Dave]

Pinhole camera for sports? Absolutistic statements are inherently questionable in their veracity. A single counter example that undermines the assertion disproves the assertion.

Well, yes, but a creative enough photographer actually would be able to take amazing sports photos with a pinhole. Perhaps not conventional sports photos, but the original assertion was about amazing rather than conventional. Here's a sort of example:

The Photographer Who Shoots F1 with a 1913 Graflex 4x5 View Camera

[Rondec]

I guess I see both sides of it. Most of the cameras sold today are pretty amazing -- particularly by film standards. I think the statement is more saying that if you are chasing gear in the hope that it will make you a great photographer you are bound for disappointment.

On the other hand, I like shooting with my K-1 and I wouldn't gladly trade it for, say, a K10, even though I could still figure out how to get good photos with it.

[steve_k]

There is a person I follow on Flickr from Vietnam. He takes some amazing photos using an iPhone 6. It’s all about his composition. I firmly believe that composition can more than make up for so called inferior gear. And I have heard many times on this site and others that the best camera is the one you have with you.

[micromacro]

My rant turned into very interesting discussion thanks to you all.
I guess the statement should be "You can unleash your creativity with ANY photo gear". That's true. Not "you can take amazing images with any camera".

[normhead]

You can take a great picture with any camera, if it's the right tool for the job.

And the corollary, which people like to completely ignore is that, you can botch an image with any camera if it isn't the right tool for the job.

Or you can have the best most expensive gear ever, and botch almost anything. Buying better gear is no guarantee of better results. Buying new gear and taking the time to learn how to exploit it, almost always does.

If you shoot a camera to it's strengths, your images will better than an image taken with a camera shooting something it's not designed for, no matter what the cameras involved are.

[micromacro]

normhead This is honest and helpful approach to give some useful perspectives to new photographers.

[jva59]

One of the guys I follow on 500px shot most of his landscapes with nikon d3200 and a single lens. His work is miles ahead of what I achieved so far with far more capable gear, so I stay humbled

Tomasz Raciniewski (hawranekk) Photos / 500px

I'm thoroughly impressed!

[pentaxus]

All generalizations are false.

[TaoMaas]

I always took it to mean you can produce something amazing with any image recording device. Not you can produce every amazing image from any image recording device.

That's the way I've always taken it, too...and I believe it's pretty true as long as you stay within the wheelhouse of the gear you're using.

[Docrwm]

All generalizations are false.

ROFLMAO

[photoptimist]

Overall, the right tool for the job principle reigns supreme. "You can take amazing pictures with any camera," but you can't always take any given amazing picture with any given camera.

Pinhole cameras and their amazing images are a really good example of the right-tool principle that cuts both ways. First, a pinhole camera cannot recreate the amazing images that required fast shutter speed, shallow depth-of-field, long focal length, or high-resolution that most DSLRs and MILCs can provide. And, at the same time, DSLRs and MILCs cannot recreate most of the amazing images that large-format pinholes cameras have created due to optical physics of diffraction and sensor size. (You might be able to replicate a subset of pinhole images using clever focus stacking but that only works on static subjects which are a tiny subset of the best pinhole images) Pinhole and refractive-lens cameras are really very different tools for very different amazing images.

That said, the vast majority of amazing pictures taken with any given modern (or old) interchangeable lens camera could have been taken with almost any other modern interchangeable lens camera. There's probably tiny subset of super-shallow DoF amazing pictures that required an expensive fast lens on an FF camera that could not have been taken with a M4/3rds sensor, APS-C sensor, or cheap kit lens. There's probably some very low-light amazing pictures that really required an expensive camera from the top of the DXO charts. And there's probably some amazing pictures that required a fast flash sync speed that is only available on a subset of "pro" camera models. But those are mostly exceptions. (I truly doubt there are any amazing images that required mirrorless or required DSLR -- the "right tool" differences between the two architectures is more about subjective preference than objective performance.)

[ThorSanchez]

Somewhere in my house is a Fisher Price Kid Tough Camera. Fixed aperture, fixed focus, 0.3 megapixel, JPG only. Controls consist of shutter and on/off. Viewfinder appears to have been borrowed from a classic Viewmaster.

It would be entertaining to see a top professional photographer use that in going toe-to-toe with an average PF member and a current Pentax camera.