Comments on: Toys or Tools? Photokina afterthoughts.

By: Jeff Binns

Jeff Binns — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:43:14 +0000

I have shot next to photographers with better gear than me and yes i suffer from “gear envy”……but i’ve never suffered from picture envy! ( well maybe once! lol!). It what you do with what you have that counts and makes the photographer.
As to collecting gear….i seam to have become a Think Tank bag collector! As we all know , there’s no perfect bag. You need a different bag for different assignments.

Jeff

By: Herbert Piel

Herbert Piel — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:23:51 +0000

that´s it! it´s the man, the brain and the emotion behind the camera. I did the fall of the wall in Berlin 20 years ago with 2 Nikon FM maybe FM2, the same equipement as James NAchtwey used in those days, I#ve met him there… and what should I say, it worked !! No, AF, AE sensors and all that stuff, and the pics were awesome… Shure, today my workhorses are build like tanks, Canon 1 DS MK III etc. But I like it to go on the streets with my old Leica M4 or M7….back to the roots

By: dougmurdoch

dougmurdoch — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:42:05 +0000

My wife and I still have a Pentax K1000, and we often look at those photos remembering days of old. Recently my friend Kurt Rogers lent me his manual Leica and commanded me to go out and shoot a roll of black and white….. it really forced me to reconsider the light and the composition in ways that I had forgotten.

By: Photo-John

Photo-John — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:32:00 +0000

Great little article, Doug. And good to discover your blog (someone posted a link on Twitter).

I’m sort of in the business of selling people more and newer cameras. But personally, I want to encourage them to consider the image more than the gear. When I first started my site, I was struck by how many creative photographers were using Pentax K1000s to make great photos. In my opinion, a good photographer will take great photos with almost any camera. Better equipment helps. But it doesn’t make the image. And sometimes working with “inferior” equipment will bring out the best in us. It’s no longer that difficult to get sharp, well-exposed images. They’re a dime a dozen. But I wonder if our super high-tech cameras are making well-conceived, creative photos more scarce.