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Your Camera
Doesn't Matter
© 2013 Ken Rockwell

As well in Spanish, Ukrainian, French, Italian, German, Chinese, Dutch, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Russian, Portuguese and Hungarian.

Mono Lake, Saturday, 25 July 1993, snapped with a cleaved camera. bigger. tech details.

Mono Lake, 11 August 2001, snapped with a floppy-disc camera.

Mono Lake, 11 Baronial 2001, snapped with a floppy-disc camera.

Dawn, Mono Lake, 12 August 2001, snapped with a floppy-disc camera.

This free website's biggest source of support is when you utilise any of these links when you get annihilation, regardless of the state in which yous live. Information technology helps me keep adding to this free website when you go yours through these links — but I receive nothing for my efforts if yous buy elsewhere. Thanks for your back up! Ken.

Meliorate Pictures: The Secret Composition Simplicity FART Shadows Lighting

Adjustments  It'south Not Your Camera   Exposure   WBDon't Worry: Shoot

NEW, 09 September 2013: Canon 5D Mk Iii/24-70 Ii vs. SL1/xviii-55 STM Resolution and High ISO Comparing. As expected, the $699 combo looks the same as the $v,800 combo.

The shots at the elevation were shot 12 or xx years agone. Run across more examples iPhone five Sample Images, at A $150 vs. a $v,000 Camera. Encounter what not bad shots can exist made with an obsolete $200 Canon A620, and see what I shot in 2008 on a pocket camera, or in 2003 on ane of Canon's cheapest digital point-and-shoots at the time.

See Chase Jarvis' art book, The Best Camera, shot entirely on his iPhone. See the online work shot exclusively on his iPhone.

Here are some shots I made on an expired disposable camera:

Moon over Mono Lake, Oct 2008. Shot with an expired Fuji QuickSnap 400, 85C filter held over the front end.

Bodie, October 2008. Shot with expired Fuji QuickSnap 400.

If you lot tin can shoot well, all yous need is a dispensable, toy camera or a photographic camera phone to create bully piece of work. If you're not talented, it doesn't affair if y'all buy a Nikon D3X or Leica; your work will nonetheless be bromidic.

It'due south always better to spend your time and money on learning art and photography, non by spending it on more cameras.

Why is information technology that with over 60 years of improvements in cameras, lens sharpness and flick grain, resolution and dynamic range that no one has been able to equal what Ansel Adams did back in the 1940s?

Ansel didn't fifty-fifty have Photoshop! How did he do it? Most attempts fall brusque, some are as good but unlike like Jack Dykinga, simply no one is the same.

Try to tell an American he can't, and he will: Man Uses Barbie Fishing Rod for Record Catch!

Why is it that photographers loaded with the virtually extraordinary gear who use the cyberspace to go the exact GPS coordinates of Jack's or Ansel'southward photo locations and hike out there with the image in hand to ensure an verbal re-create (illegal by US copyright laws and common decency), that they get something that might look like, merely lacks all the touch and emotion of the original they idea they copied?

I'yard non kidding. A agglomeration of these turkeys used academy astronomers to predict the ane time in almost two decades that the conditions would match and had 300 of the clueless converge at simply the correct spot. They still didn't get the clouds, snow or shadows right. This makes Ansel or any other artistic artist cringe. Of class they didn't get anything similar what they wanted. Fine art is a lot more than.

Compelling photographs come from inspiration, not duplication.

Someone asked "If I got a camera with only half-dozen or 7 MP, can I make good pictures with it?"

That reminds me about the guy who breaks a wrist and asks his doctor: "Doctor, will I be able to play the piano after this heals?" The doctor replies "Admittedly, no problem!" The man laughs, and points out that that's great, because he never could play the piano before!

Ownership a Bösendorfer doesn't mean you tin can play the piano. Buying a great photographic camera doesn't mean you tin create compelling photographs. Good pianists can play on anything and a good photographer can make cracking images with a disposable photographic camera.

As we all saw in The Blues Brothers, requite Blood brother Ray a keyboard with a sticky activity and he'll play so movingly that the whole boondocks volition be up and dancing.

Cameras don't take pictures, photographers practise. Cameras are only another artist's tool.

Why is information technology that even though everyone knows that Photoshop can be used to take whatever bad image and turn information technology into a masterpiece, that even after hours of massaging these images look worse than when one started?

Maybe because it's entirely an artist's middle, patience and skill that makes an image and not his tools. Even Ansel said "The single most important component
of a photographic camera is the twelve inches behind it."

A photographic camera catches your imagination. No imagination, no photograph - simply crap. The word "image" comes from the discussion "imagination." It doesn't come up come up from "lens sharpness" or "noise levels." David LaChapelle's work is all nearly his imagination, not his camera. Setting up these crazy shots is the hard part. Once set, whatever camera could catch them. Give me David LaChapelle'southward camera and I won't get anything like he does, even if you give me the same star performers.

The simply reason I have a huge lens in my photograph on my home folio is so I don't have to say "lensman" or "photography." The lens makes information technology obvious much quicker than words. That's what visual communication is all nigh: thinking long and difficult to make your point clearly and rapidly. I haven't used that huge lens in years.

Only almost any camera, regardless of how good or bad it is, can exist used to create outstanding photographs for magazine covers, winning photograph contests and hanging in art galleries. The quality of a lens or camera has almost nothing do with the quality of images it tin can be used to produce.

Joe Holmes' limited-edition 13 ten 19" prints of his American Museum of Natural History serial sell at Manhattan's Jen Bekman Gallery for $650 each. They're made on a D70.

Another San Diego pro, Kirsten Gallon earns her living using Nikon's two very cheapest lenses, the xviii-55 and 70-300 M.

At that place are enough of shows selling shots from Holgas for a lot more money, merely that those folks don't tell me most it. Holgas sold for $14.95 in 2006, make new, here. You lot can see an honour-winning shot made with a Holga hanging in Washington, D.C.'southward Hemicycle Gallery of the Corcoran Museum of Fine art in their 2006 Eyes of History competition of the White House News Photographers Association.

Walker Evans in one case said "People always ask me what camera I apply. It's not the photographic camera, it's - - - " and he tapped his temple with his index finger.

Jesus Christ's dad Joseph built a masterpiece of a wooden staircase in a church in New Mexico in 1873, and does anyone care what tools he used? Search all you want, you'll observe plenty of scholarly discussion simply never of the tools.

Your equipment DOES Not impact the quality of your image. The less time and try yous spend worrying nearly your equipment the more than time and effort yous can spend creating not bad images. The right equipment but makes it easier, faster or more than convenient for you lot to get the results you lot need.

"Whatever proficient modern lens is corrected for maximum definition at the larger stops. Using a small stop only increases depth..." Ansel Adams, June 3, 1937, in a respond to Edward Weston asking for lens suggestions, page 244 of Ansel's autobiography. Ansel made fantastically sharp images seventy years ago without wasting fourth dimension worrying about how sharp his lenses were. With lxx years of improvement we're far better off concentrating on making stunning photos than photographing test charts. Of grade these big format lenses of the 1930s and today are deadening, near f/five.6 typically. Small format and digital lenses work best at about ii stops downwardly.

Buying new gear will Not improve your photography. For decades I idea "if I simply had that new lens" that all my photo wants would exist satisfied. Nope. I still want that "one more lens," and I've been shooting for over 30 years. There is always one more than lens. Become over it. See "The Station" by Robert J. Hastings, every bit published in "Dear Abby" in 1999, for a meliorate explanation.

The camera'south only job is to go out of the way of making photographs.

Ernst Haas commented on this in a workshop in 1985:

Two laddies from Nova Scotia had made a huge effort to be there and were great Leica fans, worked in a camera shop, saved to take them and held Ernst on high for being a Leica user (although he used Nikons on his Marlboro shoots, when the chips were downwardly).

About four days into the workshop, he finally maxxed out on the Leica adoration these kids displayed, and in the midst of a discussion, when ane of them asked 1 more question aimed at establishing the superiority of Wetzlar, Ernst said, "Leica, schmeica.  The photographic camera doesn't brand a bit of difference.  All of them can tape what you are seeing.  But, you lot have to SEE."

Nobody talked nearly Leica, Nikon, Canon or any other brand of camera equipment for the residuum of the workshop.

He also said, "Best wide-angle lens?  'Two steps backward' and 'look for the ah-ha'."

(This Haas anecdote comes from Murad Saÿen, the famous photographer from Oxford, Maine over whom people are all abuzz. Many say he emerged from the back forest as a cross between Eliot Porter and Henri Cartier Bresson. I found at to the lowest degree 3 websites claiming to be Haas' official one here and hither.)

Here's some other load of data which also confirms why owning more lenses just makes worse photos. I made these B/Due west photos here with a 50 year old $3 box camera more archaic than today's disposables.

Andreas Feininger (French, b. 1905 - d. 1999), said "Photographers — idiots, of which at that place are so many — say, "Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make keen photographs." That's the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It'south nil but a matter of seeing, thinking, and interest. That's what makes a proficient photo. And then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture. The incorrect light, the incorrect background, fourth dimension and then on. Only don't do it, not matter how beautiful the subject field is."

People know cars don't drive themselves, typewriters don't write novels by themselves and that Rembrandt's brushes didn't paint by themselves. So why do some otherwise intelligent people think cameras bulldoze around and make pictures all past themselves? The almost advanced, exotic and expensive car can't even stay in the same lane on the freeway past itself, much less bulldoze you habitation. No matter how advanced your camera y'all withal need to exist responsible for getting it to the correct identify at the right fourth dimension and pointing information technology in the right direction to become the photo you want. Every camera requires y'all to make transmission adjustments now and then likewise, regardless of how advanced information technology is. Never arraign a photographic camera for not knowing everything or making a wrong exposure or fuzzy image.

Even a good driver in a crummy car like a Geo Metro tin can escape from multi-car police chases in wide daylight. It's the driver, non the car. Read that i hither.

Hither'south how I came to discover this:

When it comes to the arts, be it music, photography, surfing or anything, in that location is a mountain to exist overcome. What happens is that for the beginning 20 years or so that you study any art you simply know that if you had a better instrument, camera or surfboard that you would be just every bit good equally the pros. You waste a lot of fourth dimension worrying about your equipment and trying to afford better. After that start 20 years you finally go every bit good as all the other world-renowned artists, and one twenty-four hour period when someone comes up to you asking for advice you have an epiphany where you realize that it'south never been the equipment at all.

You finally realize that the right gear you've spent and then much time accumulating only makes it easier to get your audio or your look or your moves, but that you lot could get them, albeit with a little more effort, on the same garbage with which you started. Y'all realize the most of import matter for the gear to exercise is just get out of your way. You then also realize that if yous had spent all the time you wasted worrying well-nigh acquiring better gear woodshedding, making photos or catching more rides that you would have gotten where you wanted to be much sooner.

I met Phil Collins at a screening in Dec 2003. It came out that people e'er recognize his sound when they hear it. Some folks decided to play his drums when he walked away during a session, and estimate what? It didn't audio similar him. Likewise, on a hired kit (or "rented pulsate set" as we say in the United states of america) Phil still sounds like Phil. So practise you still think information technology'southward his drums that give him his sound?

A fan from Michigan teaches auto racing at a big excursion. The daughter of ane of his students wanted to come up learn. She flew out and showed upwards at the track in an rented Chevy Cavalier. She outran the other students, middle aged balding guys with Corvettes and 911s. Why? Simple: she paid attention to the teacher and was polish and steady and took the correct lines, not posing while ham-fisting a lot of horsepower to try to brand up for patience and skill. The dudes were really ticked, specially that they were outrun by a GIRL, and a 16 year sometime one at that.

Certain, if yous're a pro driver you're good enough to arm-twist every ounce of performance from a car and will be express past its operation, but if you lot're like virtually people the car, camera, running shoes or whatever have piddling to nothing to do with your performance since you are always the defining cistron, not the tools.

Catch whatever virtuoso who's a complete master of their tools away from his or her sponsors and they'll share this with you.

So why do the artists whose works you lot adore tend to use fancy, expensive tools if the quality of the piece of work is the aforementioned? Simple:

i.) Good tools just get out of the fashion and make it easier to get the results you desire. Lesser tools may accept more work.
ii.) They add durability for people who use these tools hard all solar day, every day.
3.) Avant-garde users may find some of the modest extra features convenient. These conveniences make the photographer's life easier, but they don't make the photos any better.
iv.) Hey, there's nothing incorrect with the all-time tools, and if you take the money to blow why not? Just don't ever kickoff thinking that the fancy tools are what created the piece of work.

So why exercise I show snaps of myself with a huge lens on my pages? Elementary: it saves me from having to say "Ken Rockwell Photography," which sounds lame and takes up more than space. The big camera gets the bulletin across much better and faster so I can merely say "Ken Rockwell."

Here are photos made by a guy in the Philippines - with a cell phone camera!

I last example: I bought a used camera that wouldn't focus properly. It went back to the dealer a couple of times for repair, each time coming back the same way. As an creative person I knew how to recoup for this error, which was a pain because I always had to apply a transmission starting time to the focus setting. In any example, I made one of my very favorite images of all time while testing it. This image here has won me all sorts of awards and even hung in a Los Angeles gallery where an original Ansel Adams came down and this paradigm was hung. When my epitome came down Ansel went right up again. Remember, this was made with a camera that was returned to the dealer which they agreed was unrepairable.

The important role of that image is that I stayed around after my friends all blew off for dinner, while I suspected we were going to have an boggling sky consequence (the magenta sky, just like the photo shows.) I made a iv minute exposure with a normal lens. I could take made it on the same $3 box camera that fabricated the B/W images hither and it would have looked the same.

Also, I occasionally get hate mail and phone calls from guys (never women) who disagree with my personal choice of tools. They accept information technology personally simply because I adopt something different than they do. Like anyone cares? These folks mean well, they probably merely haven't made it past that mountain and still think that every tool has some absolute level of goodness, regardless of the application. They consider tools as physical extensions of their body and then of class they have it personally if I poke fun of a certain tool as non beingness good for what I'm doing. For instance, the Leica collectors here accept a existent problem with this page. All gear has different values depending on what you want to do with information technology. What's great for you may not be for me, and vice-versa.

Just virtually any camera, regardless of how good or bad information technology is, can be used to create outstanding photographs for mag covers, winning photograph contests and hanging in art galleries. The quality of a lens or camera has about nothing do with the quality of images it can be used to produce.

You probably already take all the equipment you need, if y'all'd only learn to brand the best of it. Better gear volition not make you any better photos, since the gear can't make you a better photographer.

Photographers make photos, not cameras.

It'south deplorable how few people realize any of this, and spend all their time blaming poor results on their equipment, instead of spending that time learning how to see and learning how to manipulate and interpret lite.

Buying newer cameras will ensure you get the same results y'all ever have. Education is the way to better images, not more cameras.

Don't blame anything lacking in your photos on your equipment. If you lot doubt this, get to a expert photo museum or photo history book and meet the splendid technical quality people got fifty or 100 years agone. The reward of modern equipment is convenience, NOT prototype quality. Go look at the B/Due west images in my Decease Valley Gallery. Wait sharp to you? They were fabricated on a 50 year old fixed-focus, fixed exposure box camera for which I paid $iii. This camera is more archaic than today'south disposables.

I have made technically and artistically wonderful images on a $10 camera I bought at Goodwill, and accept turned out a lot of crap with a $ten,000 lens on my motor driven Nikon.

The great Edward Steichen photographed Isadora Duncan at the Acropolis, Athens in 1921. He used a Kodak borrowed from the head waiter at his hotel. The images are, of course, vivid. Steichen had non taken his own photographic camera because the original plan had been to work but with movie equipment. This image was on display at The Whitney in 2000 - 2001.

You demand to learn to see and etch. The more time you lot waste product worrying about your equipment the less time y'all'll have to put into creating great images. Worry nearly your images, not your equipment.

Everyone knows that the brand of typewriter (or the ability to set that typewriter) has nix to exercise with the power to compose a compelling novel, although a meliorate typewriter may make typing a little more pleasant. So why do so many otherwise reasonable people think that what sort of camera one has, or the intimate knowledge of shutter speeds, lens design or camera engineering has anything do with the power to create an interesting photo other than catering to the convenience of the lensman?

"…anytime I go anywhere with a photographic camera, whether it exist my meridian-of-the-line pro trunk with 15 lenses and smart flash or a elementary point-and-shoot, I might have the best photograph of my life. If, however, I trapped myself into assertive that success of my manner would only come through in the grainless technical perfection of a cumbersome larger format or the heady fine art of a preconceptualized composition, then I would lose much of the magic that drew me to photography in the first place." Galen Rowell.

Just every bit i needs to know how to use a typewriter to compose a script, one does need to know how to operate a camera to make photos, just that'south only a tiny office of the procedure. Exercise you lot have whatsoever idea what brand of computer or software I used to create what you're reading correct at present? Of course not, unless y'all read my about page. It matters to me, but not to y'all, the viewer. As well, no ane who looks at your pictures can tell or cares well-nigh what camera you used. It merely doesn't matter.

Knowing how to do something is entirely dissimilar from existence able to do it at all, much less practice it well.

We all know how to play the piano: you merely press the keys and step on the pedals at present and then. The ability to play it, much less the ability to stir emotion in those who hear your playing, is an entirely different matter.

Don't presume the about expensive gear is the all-time. Having too much camera equipment is the best mode to get the worst photos.

The more expensive cameras and lenses don't practise much of anything meaning for the huge increases in price.

Want to see reviews of great cameras? Run across JunkStoreCameras.com for expert reviews.

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Thanks for reading!

Ken Rockwell.

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