My Frustrations
I’m frustrated today. I’ve been frustrated about this for a while actually, and I’m sure many photographers and creators are as well. There’s a big misconception about camera gear. You probably already know it. Maybe you don’t. That’s also okay. In the simplest way possible, my problem with the photography world is that somehow, you need to have expensive gear in order to be a real, professional photographer. Besides this just being a blatant example of what’s called gatekeeping, it’s just bad practice to consider.
A professional photographer is given by one pretty simple definition: Photography is the means for which you make most of your income.
In other words, photography pays the bills. It puts food on the table. It pays for the rent or mortgage. It’s what the government taxes you for. But let’s get rid of the semantics for a second.
Overall, the idea that someone needs to have the best or most expensive gear in order to be considered a professional photographer is linked to the biggest misconception of all that somehow “better” (more expensive) gear makes you a better photographer. I do agree that “better gear” can give better end products, and I’ve said this in the past. But at the end of the day, what makes you a better photographer is not really your gear. What makes you a better photographer in all reality is yourself.
I stick by the mantra in content creation and in photography that the most expensive and the most valuable asset of your camera gear is not your lenses, cameras, lights, or software but rather the one irreplaceable thing, you. Let’s delve into this concept of you so we can better understand why “better gear” is not always making you a better photographer.
The Secret is the Pit-Master
In my journey to becoming a documentary filmmaker in addition to a photographer, I watch around one hour of documentaries daily. It’s just good practice to surround yourself with exceptional pieces of work in your field in order to inspire you and inform you of what’s relevant in the profession. So today, I watched the first episode of Chef’s Table BBQ on Netflix. The opening episode centers around a Texas BBQ pit-master, Tootsie, who works for the most well renowned BBQ joint, Snow’s.
One of Tootsie’s colleagues is speaking about the eighty-five year old woman and her technique. He says something along the lines of “A pit-master will tell you everything they know. There is no secret ingredient. The secret is the pit-master.”
Cooking food, like photography, is an art. The truth about photography is that there is no one piece of gear or one item you bring on your photo shoots that makes your end product special. Some famous photographers are renowned for shooting on a certain format or using certain lenses, but the real key to what makes their photos so special is the photographer themselves and their innate ability to capture the world around them.
You see, there’s a lot of videos online about giving experienced photographers cheap, “starter”, or toy cameras. Some videos even give them a “beginner” setup and make them shoot against a beginner with a “pro” setup in order to see whose results are better. And what happens and who wins? The experienced photographer always finds a way to take amazing photos, even with some cheap disposable camera you can get at Walgreens.
And you, reader of this article, are no different. At the end of the day, no matter what you are given to shoot with and no matter what gear you have, the heart and style you put into your photographs is going to shine through no matter what you use. You are the reason your photographs are so special. Regardless of what camera and lenses and lights you use, if you have really taken the time to develop your identity as a photographer, I will know it’s your photo. And when someone says to you, “These photos are so good! You must have such a good camera,” just know that this is a lie. That camera had a good photographer.
A very early portrait I took
A very recent portrait I took
The Truth About “Beginner Camera Gear” and “Pro Camera Gear”
The plain truth is that you can do professional work with even the inexpensive camera gear you own. If you got paid for it, then regardless of what you used to do it, that was professional work. I previously wrote a few articles about inexpensive lenses, and how even those are more than capable of delivering great work to your clients. And sometimes, using gear that also happens to be inexpensive is actually preferred in some cases when you are looking for a particular feel to your photos. Some DPs on film sets will go with old, vintage, and relatively inexpensive lenses because it fits the look they’re going for.
But to the point, I think we, and myself included, have tied our beginner camera gear to our worst and earliest photos that we took. I cringe thinking about my first couple of portraits. And what did I shoot those with? My introductory Canon Rebel and its kit lenses. Because I remember taking such bad photos with that setup, I assume that the setup itself was bad. But in all reality, I was just a bad photographer at the time. As I developed my skills more and more through out the years, I began to buy, naturally, more expensive cameras and lenses. In other words, I was both becoming a better photographer and using better gear. So now, it’s natural for me to associate my best and most recent work with my best and most recent gear. But the truth is that if someone were to hand me my first camera and lens back to me, I would likely be able to create photos that are on par with the camera and lenses I have today. An experienced photographer can extract a lot more from beginner tools than they could have at the beginning of their journey. We are just never truly familiar with how much this difference is because hardly any of us go back to the first tools we had.
Remember that a truly skilled painter can make the cheapest of paint into a master piece because the value is not in the paint but in the painter. But then again, what truly skilled painter is buying the cheapest of paint to use? This analogy to painting brings to light just how unfamiliar we as artists are in extracting potential in “beginner” items because as our potential grows so does our arsenal of high quality tools.
Photos with a Canon T7i and 100mm f/2 in 2018
An Anecdote: Better Gear Creates Better Photos, not a Better Photographer
I’d like to share a story that encompasses the themes I’ve shared in this article so far.
I started shooting in high school, and what I shot very often for my fellow classmates was sports. When I started, all I had was my Canon Rebel T7i and a Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM lens. You can do a lot with that setup, but there’s also a lot you can’t do. I had a single lens with a fixed focal length. There were other photographers out there on field who shot with a Canon 5D Mark III and a 70–200mm lens. So how was I going to match their level of quality? I had to become a better photographer, naturally.
I was young, of course, and so I had the luxury of agility. I would run laps and laps around the soccer field just to get the right shot, running back and forth to get different types of framing with my single prime lens. I even made friends with the coaches so that I could get right up to the game side lines in order to get the tightest shot possible. I was becoming a better a photographer with the same camera and the same lens, and my photos were getting better too. My restrictions were actually forcing me to grow as an artist.
Flash forward to when I was a senior in high school, and now my arsenal has grown. I shot on full-frame and most importantly, I now had a 70–200mm f/2.8. My new gear made my sports photos better, and there’s not doubt about it. I had the power of a zoom. I could crop in for a tighter frame and still get a clean image. My gear allowed me to deliver a better final product. But now, I was able to apply what I had learned shooting with a single prime lenses while having the luxury of what I’d consider to be more “pro” gear. I could combine zooming with my feet around the field with actual zooming. But I extracted way more value than I ever could have with my newer setup because my older gear had forced to me to work hard to become better. If I had always had a 70–200mm lenses, I would have never learned to run around the field and use my feet. At the end of the day, the true value of my gear derived itself not from a price tag but from the effort I had put in to appreciate my gear and use it to its max potential.
Photos with an EOS RP and 70–200mm f/2.8 in 2019
Gear is Complementary not Supplementary
To my final point, my camera gear doesn’t define who I am as a photographer. Rather, I define what my camera gear can do for me as a photographer. Your gear is not meant to be some power up ability to your work. It doesn’t make you a Superman photographer, and it is not what makes you good.
The gear that you decide to own and use should be what brings out your style the most. For example, I love to emulate the film look on digital, and so I use vintage film glass. My professor is a nature photographer. He uses a 100–400mm zoom lens and a crop sensor in order to shoot far away birds. Now what he uses to shoot nature and what I use to shoot street photography are very different in size and price point, but it’s irrelevant. What we have is complementary to how we shoot, and this is how we as photographers should think about our gear. It’s not about whose setup cost them the most or who has a 1DX Mark III, but rather who has the gear that allows them to better do the one thing we’re all out here to do, take photos.
Gear is not some “clout” competition. Gear is like and literally is our tool box. A plumber and a carpenter do not have the same tools. We would not want them to have the same tools. Their tools probably don’t cost the same. It doesn’t matter. What they have in their kit is exactly what they need to get the job done. Your camera gear should get the job done. If your $500 setup can get the job done, great. If you need a $10,000 setup to get the job done, great.
And I know that I write articles about gear recommendations and gear you should consider owning, but at the end of the day, everything I write is guidelines. Buy whatever you think is best. All I can do is say x,y,z might work well for this and a,b,c might work well for this. But whether you get x,y,z or a,b,c or both is your decision. I just want to help you to be more informed in making that decision.
So in closing, your gear does not define you and your work. Your gear enhances you and your work. But at the end of it all, the person who gives that gear value is the one who has it in their hands.
I will opt for old and usually cheaper gear if that is what gets me what I’m looking for.
