JDueckPhoto
New Member
I've written about this topic a few times but I noticed a rant from another commentator this morning and I wanted to touch on this from a different angle. This other reviewer said it doesn't matter what gear you use to take photos, the photographer makes the difference.
Which is true.
However, if this is true, why do professionals use professional gear like the 1Dx from Canon or the D4/D5 from Nikon. Why spend $6,000 dollars on a camera if you can spend $1,500 and take "the same quality photos."
The truth is that professional gear offers some advantages and differences that are sometimes beneficial, and when it comes down to delivering paid photos, you want every advantage you can get. The above photo is a snapshot of a new 2016 Corvette Stingray I photographed for an online ad. I take usually about 10 minutes to snap photos of cars like this for the web and sometimes the sun is out, or its dark/raining and conditions are not great. I used the Nikon D750 which for my use is the best value full frame camera which in my experience has better color, better color gradients, and better (more isolating) depth of field.
I don't like the look of the crop sensor (like the Nikon D7100) photos as much but there is a place where the crop sensor cameras excel--sports and wildlife. I can put my 70-200 f/2.8 lens on the D7100 and shoot with much more range, useful f/2.8 aperture and very good image quality. To make the D750 an equal in the zoom range I'd have to either buy a different lens or put on a teleconverter TC1.4 which would create a similar zoom range but cut out my available light (f4 vs f2.8). The TC1.4 also decreases some of the image quality. So to provide a reach of 300mm at f2.8 I would have to buy a different lens for the D750 which is much more expensive.
Each camera has some benefits and I'm always surprised when a pro photographer says that phrase "gear doesn't matter" and then pulls out a $6,000 camera body.
Cheer to all you photographers who just use what works best for you!
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