Originally posted by Wheatfield Simply, anything more technologically advanced than a Camera Obscura and some charcoal sticks is a crutch.
Anyone using a modern camera is using a technological crutch to prop themselves up.
The people who so stridently bray that it's the photographer not the equipment are merely showing increasing levels of hypocrisy, depending on the level of technology they are using in their own work.
They probably haven't tried using the wrong piece of equipment for a particular endeavor.
Or you can look at it the other way around too. Does having a higher frame rate per second or a much larger memory card lead to superior photos or make most people better photographers?
Sure equipment is important but is it 90 percent of the equation, 50 percent 10 percent or what?
Once you get to a certain level of equipment, for most photos I believe it is 90 percent photographer and 10 percent equipment.
If your composition is poor, the lighting is poor and your timing is poor, it doesn't matter if you have the most expensive lenses and camera body in the world.
Are photos so much better today than in the film era?
How many people go out and take hundreds of photos using the continuous, and then get home and spend hours deleting photos, and still don't have one that they feel proud of? Quantity doesn't make for quality.
Obsessing over gear only gets one so far, unless that is what turns them on. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Why should one have to throw out ones equipment just because the AF lags behind another or because the FPS is "not up to snuff".
You take the attitude that either you should be drawing with charcoal or you must get the highest speced camera. That argument doesn't cut it either. For me it is the journey and trying to get over the face paced lifestyle that so consumes us that got me back into photography, and not the latest and greatest equipment.