WilbaW
Forum Pro
Only 2.6% say that buying better equipment contributed the most to learning their photographic skills. Does that mean it's not really about the gear? 
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- Thread starter WilbaW
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it means most people are too arrogant, even to themselves, to admit that they learn from others.
and most people are in denial when they think they didnt leanr more from getting better gear. i certainly learned a lot more when i got my LX3, then more yet again with SLR, and a step further after buying flash.
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Do you have a clown that follows you wherever you go? mine is called Fred.
and most people are in denial when they think they didnt leanr more from getting better gear. i certainly learned a lot more when i got my LX3, then more yet again with SLR, and a step further after buying flash.
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Do you have a clown that follows you wherever you go? mine is called Fred.
dsmcl77
Well-known member
And I wanted to upgrade my 70-300mm for a 70-200mmL f/2.8 mk II and the yet to come X2 extender...I might as well save my money, better sill sell the lot and go P&S.
This said, it is true that is the (wo)man behind the gears that make the most difference
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Steph.
(dsmcl77)
This said, it is true that is the (wo)man behind the gears that make the most difference
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Steph.
(dsmcl77)
Ed Yamanaka
Forum Enthusiast
I think the thing that contributes the most to learning is usually making a huge mistake. I've found that most folks try really hard to avoid making a big blunder more than once. ;-)Only 2.6% say that buying better equipment contributed the most to learning their photographic skills. Does that mean it's not really about the gear?
Ed Yamanaka
Forum Enthusiast
Sadly, my reading skills are very poor. I wish I had read the poll question carefully and noticed that it wants a response to the SINGLE thing that contributed MOST to learning photographic skills. I've learned photograhic tricks in many different ways, but since I'm old, I would say that just shooting and looking at my mistakes taught me the most. I think that would fall into the 'practice-I'm 100% self taught', since there isn't a 'practice-and I also learned things in many different ways' category. I think they really should have written the poll answers a little more carefully, but you work with what is there.
But, according to the poll question: Is it the single thing that contributed most? The process for me is usually I want to do something that I can't with my current equipment, so I look for a device that fits my needs. Or, while reading the manual for something I've bought, I find it does something that I've never tried. However, it is still practicing with that new feature that eventually produces the payoff. Simply buying better equipment is unlikely to be the single most important cause for an increase in photographic skill.
olmail
Senior Member
it is a different thing to say what improved your photography and where you learned anything about photography.new gear has certainly led to better pics for me.but i think ,more often than not, that i have bought new gear because i learned something about photography, not the other way around. for myself, i would have to be in the majority of those who say self-taught by practice. only because it asks for a single factor in learning. i have no had formal or informal lessons. all other sources of learning mentioned have benefited me. still, it is only after i have shot and seen results that i know what works.
100% self taught, in presents of possible options like Looking at other people's images and Informal training (friend, family member etc) in simply impossible. 100% self taught implies one never learns from other people's image, never learn from forums, never learn from more experienced friends. This just can not and does not happen.
Though most would deny this, but I believe people buy better gear when they think "I wish I had that gear, then I would be able to do that". this means before acquiring that gear they felt they couldnt do "that", and it is after the gear was acquired, they start experience with "that" and eventually get it. Macro, flash, BIF all very much require one to have appropriate gear before learning was possible.
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Do you have a clown that follows you wherever you go? mine is called Fred.
WilbaW
Forum Pro
Mm, I'd go further and say many try really hard to avoid making any mistakes, thus denying themselves the best learning experiences. For instance, it amazes me how many questions we get along the lines of, "what will happen if I take a photo like this?" JUST TRY IT, FFS, and you'll find out!!I think the thing that contributes the most to learning is usually making a huge mistake. I've found that most folks try really hard to avoid making a big blunder more than once. ;-)Only 2.6% say that buying better equipment contributed the most to learning their photographic skills. Does that mean it's not really about the gear?
Ed Yamanaka
Forum Enthusiast
Yeah, unfortunately some people would rather let other people do all the work for them. They completely miss the opportunity to learn by doing. In the old days you could excuse it because of film and processing costs, but now there really isn't a reason not to experiment.Mm, I'd go further and say many try really hard to avoid making any mistakes, thus denying themselves the best learning experiences. For instance, it amazes me how many questions we get along the lines of, "what will happen if I take a photo like this?" JUST TRY IT, FFS, and you'll find out!!
There are also some folks who are just very stubborn and won't learn new things because they think they know everything already. ;-)
I really think that most of us do fall into the the self-taught category because regardless of where the ideas come from, it is our endless hours of practicing that make us better. I used to be much more of an equipment junkie when I was younger. I was lucky enough to grow out of it and have since learned to make the most of what I have.
Ed Yamanaka
Forum Enthusiast
So you are saying that most people are arrogant because they didn't mark one of the other choices? I already stated that there really weren't a lot of choices the way the poll was written. Do you think that you learned more from other people than from practicing?
Wow, that really says a lot about how you think. You actually believe that you REQUIRE gear before you can learn how to do macro, flash, and BIF photography?
I imagine that you must not have much of a history with photography. People were able to actually do things before dSLRs were invented. Many of us have created perfectly good photographs without fancy equipment. Macro photographs can be done by taping an old lens onto the front of another lens. BIF is more a matter of practice than lens. Did you know that people used to actually manually focus on BIF? Flash photography can be done with outdated flashes that have no TTL. It's really all about creativity. The equipment is really not important.
I've always thought it funny that anyone would think that a piece of equipment would make them a better photographer. In one way I've noticed that modern autofocus cameras have created a tendency for a lot of people to center their subjects, which usually creates a very static composition. Look through your own photos. I bet there are more examples of this that you'd think. It happens to me too. I have to actually force myself to compose pictures properly. In the old days I didn't have that problem. Also, the tendency to just 'spray and pray' to get a good shot. So, in some ways I think that equipment is the cause of many problems that limit our learning photography.
Just wondering: Did you take the poll? If so, what did you select?
Larawanista
Veteran Member
...behind the camera, not the lens in front, that we should be most "picky" about.
My two cents.
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Noogy
"Photography is therapeutic."
http://www.pbase.com/joshcruzphotos
My two cents.
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Noogy
"Photography is therapeutic."
http://www.pbase.com/joshcruzphotos
I think they're missing an option: Intuition.
Some people are smart enough to 'just get' things like IS not helping with subject movement, or that if you leave all focus points enabled it's a bit of a lottery which one the camera decides to use, or that photographing a subject with the sun in the wrong position is going to lead to poor contrast or a silhouette, or even that when they're concentrating on getting the middle of a group of people in the middle of the frame, they're either cropping some heads/feet or would get a better composition if they moved the camera and took in more sky above the people or more grass in front of them, etc.
Some people intuitively know all this the first time they pick up a camera. Some people need to be told but still get it after they're made aware. Others...
An intuitive person will take better shots on a good P&S than someone with a top SLR and lenses who just can't get their head around composition, white balance, flash fill or how focal length/distance affects perspective leading to unflattering wide angle portrait shots.
Some people are smart enough to 'just get' things like IS not helping with subject movement, or that if you leave all focus points enabled it's a bit of a lottery which one the camera decides to use, or that photographing a subject with the sun in the wrong position is going to lead to poor contrast or a silhouette, or even that when they're concentrating on getting the middle of a group of people in the middle of the frame, they're either cropping some heads/feet or would get a better composition if they moved the camera and took in more sky above the people or more grass in front of them, etc.
Some people intuitively know all this the first time they pick up a camera. Some people need to be told but still get it after they're made aware. Others...
An intuitive person will take better shots on a good P&S than someone with a top SLR and lenses who just can't get their head around composition, white balance, flash fill or how focal length/distance affects perspective leading to unflattering wide angle portrait shots.
I would say all those that goes with 100% self taught are arrogant and in denial.
before DSLR, people had to use SLR, all above could have been done in film cameras so what is your point?
and yes is the answer to your question. i know you always insist on your skillz. very well, please tell us how did you do macro with out a macro lens (or at the least macro reverse ring), or how did you do multi flash, without buying flahses, or how did you shoot BIF, without AF and tele lens.
please dont flatter yourself, I havent actually seen any decent photos from you yet, let alone "perfect"photos.
which means you need the right gear.... regardless if it was expensive or cheap.
BIF heavily depends on gear, the better the AF motor, the longer the lens reach, the fast the AF module on camera, the better BIF photos one will get. As for people "used to manually focus on BIF", well, people used to ride horses to work, do they still? and who still uses MF to shoot BIF? how many keepers does a MF BIF shooter get in a day? can you even link us a decent MF BIF photo to prove your point?
you still need to have the flash in the first place do you not? (who said you needed TTL?) and how do you make multiple outdated flash to all go together if they have no remote or wireless trigger?
you understood my statement wrong. what I said is people improve after they got the gear. improvement happens after, not at the moment of, gear acquisition.
people do this for a very good reason, because centre AF point on xxxD class camera is the only reliable one. focus-then-recompose technique sometimes throws subject out of focus if DOF is too thin. sure some picture can do with some cropping, not every picture is perfect, I am sure that is also the case before AF.
in the old days people see 99% of their photos in 4x6 so softness or focus issue are much harder to detect, these days everyone sees their 10-18mp photos at 100% on their monitor, so strive for better focus is much more prevalent.
spray N pray happens for 3 reasons:
1, limited chance in shooting fast moving objects, to increase number of in focus shots. you should see pros shooting in olympic games, you cant find one single person with a big gun that doesnt max out the burst rate on his machine.
2, shooting unaware people, such as weddings. there is always a lag between your eyes seeing to your fingers pressing, another delay in focusing, and another delay in shutter, so "catching" every emotion is not always possible, some times you just have to shoot a few and hope you got a good one.
3, non-photographers just shoot away and be happy.
I dont think any of them can be blamed.
I think i did but i forgot which one i picked.
--
Do you have a clown that follows you wherever you go? mine is called Fred.
Ed Yamanaka
Forum Enthusiast
You really might want to check yourself on the whole arrogant issue. The poll was worded badly and I personally think that most people chose the option that represented the modality that they learn from the most. That would probably be practice.
I am going to have to adjust my writing for you. I was not aware that you are not a native speaker of English. In English the idiomatic expression 'perfectly good' does not mean perfect. It means that the results are acceptable.
Ummm...that makes no sense. You were talking about buying gear and the need for the 'right' gear. Taping an old lens that I had from a defunct camera is not by anyone's definition the 'right gear' for macrophotography. It's a kludge, a workaround. Point is that I DIDN'T BUY ANYTHING NEW. You simply will not admit when you are wrong.
Actually, I know several people who ride horses to work. If you think photography is about how many 'keepers' you get, then I am beginning to understand you better. For you I am thinking that the goalis to get as many in-focus, properly exposed shots as possible, so you can then sort through them and FIND a worthy photo. For many of us the goal is to CREATE a worthy photo.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/birds_in_flight/discuss/72157623787805067/
You made the point about the need to buy gear. Most of us have old gear lying around. Yes, you need flash triggers. But I would not consider that the kind of equipment that anyone would drool over.
No, I understood you. You keep saying that I don't understand when you don't. The poll question had 'buying better equipment' as a reason for improved skills. That means the actual purchase of the gear made you better. What you are talking about is the fact that people PRACTICE A LOT MORE with new gear.
Before AF, people used to focus on the groundglass when their subject wasn't centered. That is not as easy to do now that the fresnel screen has been optimized for light transmission. Subject centered photos are much more common now in enthusiast level photographs.
Which is another thing that is a problem, using monitors to view tiny sections of photographs instead of an entire image.
I'm not blaming anybody, but how do you learn timing and composition when you are just blasting away? So are you considering yourself a non-photographer?
Most everyone else here has a tag that's either photo-related, insightful, or humorous. Yours is the only one that is mean-spirited. Why is that?
Ed Yamanaka
Forum Enthusiast
This is very true. The best natural photographer I met was a 6th grade student of mine. I assigned the class a project and gave them those cheap disposable cameras. Somehow she managed to take some beautiful photos with a $10 POS camera. She was totally untrained, but seemed to understand lighting and composition perfectly.
Chez Wimpy
Veteran Member
Yeah, when I saw that "100%" bit I thought "Somewhat, but not in such absolutes, no way" and selected forums / discussion groups. I really don't know how to quantify it, but certainly in the early days I read a lot here I would probably have never considered on my own. I don't think I have learned much from looking at other peoples pictures (always had my own eye, myopic as it may be, and if anything it was learned from watching cinematography in movies and issues of national geographic growing up - long before I ever had a camera). Looking at the poll results though, I am a bit baffled. I am inclined to believe it has something to do with the American majority here... a kind of engendered narcissism I don't see in Japan day to day. Poll results here would be strikingly different I can assure you
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-CW
よしよし、今日も生きのいい魂が手に入ったな
I am arrogant in the sense that i believe everything i say, but not in the sense that i think i learnt it all without forums, other people's works, advices and tutorials.
what you dont seem to get (or maybe you do but still denies), is that the problem isnt just the "100%" bit, but also the self taught bit. how do one teach himself the physics behind photography? the mechanics behind AF? the inner works of functions in software? to say self taught is to refute credit to all these things. even if one is to day he is 70% self taught.
in the end of the day you may credit your gains to your practice, but everyone needs practice, so that is hardly unique. without all these other sources of learning, one simply cant even begin proper practice.
I understood perfectly what you meant, i was ridicule that notion, I dont think people in this forum (or i myself at the least) think "good enough" is goo enough. I want my pictures to be as close to perfect as possible, while you can continue, ride horse to work and play with tape joined marcro lenses.
I am wrong because YOU manage to tape 2 lenses and play macro? I wasnt aware that we were talking about you, not the majority.
excellent, let us see your worthy photos so we can learn a thing or two. especially show us the out of focus but artistic and worthy pictures, i am dying to see them since i couldnt find them among the works of any known great photographers.
great link to support your argument Ed, there is only one guy advocates for MF BIF, Orang J Goreng , and his pictures craps.
but even if they were good, you have to realise that he still uses AF system to confirm his focus, the only way to use true MF is to stick to a range finder camera, which are known to be weak at focus when lens is longer than 100mm. i.e. not suitable for BIF.
who said anything about drool? u use your gear to take pictures, not drool over them. and if you dont have the gear that does the trick, you just cant do the trick.
that is correct, and it is not the same as what you said in the other post. but now you get it so it is very good.
because most enthusiast are happy to shoot at the centre to get a picture and worry about crop later, over sticking to cameras with unreliable focus.
so you would say.
these are the people that would otherwise not have a camera and dont care about what other people think about their pictures anyways.
must be because I am mean person.
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Do you have a clown that follows you wherever you go? mine is called Fred.
Ed Yamanaka
Forum Enthusiast
I'll leave it at that.
Depends on what you consider self-taught. Self-taught does not mean that a person isn't influenced by others. It means that no formal education has taken place. The student is not assigned tasks by any mentor or overseer. A self-taught person decides the path of their own education. Most of the learning is done by trial and error. Critical self-analysis of one's work is a key element of the process.
Nonsense. It is not unique that people practice, but what is unique is what is gained from the practice. If you simply do the same things over and over, then you will never improve. It's what you learn from your mistakes that makes a difference. You can learn quite a bit just trying things out without any 'knowledge' of how things work. I get the feeling you don't learn much because you don't think you are wrong very often.
And do you really believe that buying new equipment is the way for you to improve your photography? That was the focus of this discussion. You believed that disciplines like macro, BIF, and flash photography needed purchases of better equipment to increase skill. I don't think that you've proven your point. I don't have a horse, you asked if I knew someone who rode a horse to work. I do, he's a park ranger. I will also continue to have fun using my photographic equipment.
That's the narrow minded focus again. The whole thing is that there are lots of people like me. There are people who do much more amazing things with very little equipment. You simply dismiss anyone who disagrees with you.
Don't much like showing off my photos. I don't have a huge ego that needs boosting and I don't have any problems that need solving. I would share with some folks around here, but others are just really disagreeable folks that insult instead of inspire.
Actually, I was posting that for the link to the Flickr photos of the people using the Novoflex lenses. How about Douglas Herr instead:
http://photo.net/nature-photography-forum/00LOFn
Actually, it is what I said in the other post. What's funny is that you don't see that you are agreeing that it's practice that makes them better. Which is the first word of the response that you think is showing people to be arrogant.
I really doubt that they wouldn't have a camera. And though some might not care about what other people think, the fact that they bought a camera means they probably show the pictures to someone. I'd imagine they might care what those people think.
And that makes you happy?must be because I am mean person.
Ed, I read your post and I thought, there is not a single thing you said worth further discussion. I have stated my position more than clear enough and it was never about convincing you.
So by all means continue to use taped lenses for macro, MF for BIF, and riding horse to work.
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Do you have a clown that follows you wherever you go? mine is called Fred.
So by all means continue to use taped lenses for macro, MF for BIF, and riding horse to work.
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Do you have a clown that follows you wherever you go? mine is called Fred.
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