I photographed these wall flowers with a point-and-shoot camera and a DSLR. The is the best shot from the series and it came from the point-and-shoot camera.
I know that I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating. The camera does not create a photograph, you do. The camera isn’t any better than the person using it. I’m sure the camera manufacturers will disagree with me, but then they’re only interested in selling cameras. This question came up at recent seminar I was conducting, so I set out to prove my point–again.
So I borrowed a point-and-shoot camera (for the technophiles, it was a Nikon Coolpix 4300) and went after rain dappled wildflowers. I wasn’t particularly familiar with the camera that I borrowed, but then I figured that most of us aren’t as familiar with our cameras as we could be, so I was in the same boat as most amatuer photographers. Naturally, there were a few surprises. Due to the overcast and fog, the camera decided it needed a flash even though I didn’t want to shoot with a flash. So who do you think won that battle? I’m embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t me. I couldn’t figure out how to override the flash. In spite of that little hiccup, some of the results were pretty good.
But the biggest surprise was how the camera changed the way I created my images. Naturally, the point-and-shoot camera has some physical limitations when compared to my DSLR. I very quickly realized that I had to adapt to those differences. Because I had less control over the aperture and consequently the depth of field, I found that I had to become even more aware of the backgrounds in my macro shots. It meant that some shots that I might have taken with a DSLR I didn’t attempt with the point-and-shoot. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t get good shots with the point-and-shoot.
Which returns me to my opening statement—cameras don’t create photographs, photographers do. The camera is simply a tool and it isn’t any better than the person using it.
Good shooting
Frank
Tags: Equipment, wildflower