Are you more gear or photography orientated, or a bit of both?

I like both. Once I have the gear, it’s more about photography. I love post production work equally as well.

I don't care much about the minutae of gear. But a gear site is useful when you really want to buy something new for a specific purpose to get the best value.

I have found that I need some camera equipment in order to get the pictures. Cameras are a means to an end.

I also want clean clothes, not a washer and dryer. However.......

...until it does.

I always love watching interviews with great photographers who claim the gear doesn't matter, then you see them with their flagship camera and their bazooka lens, photographing whales breaching. Yeah let's see them do it with a Canon T3 and an 18-55 kit lens.

I don't obsess over gear these days, nor do I have much GAS, but gear, in many situations does matter and so it's a photographers duty to know what gear is out there and what it can do for you. When I need to solve a problem that I don't think technique can fix, I look at the gear.

richiebee said:

...until it does.

I always love watching interviews with great photographers who claim the gear doesn't matter, then you see them with their flagship camera and their bazooka lens, photographing whales breaching. Yeah let's see them do it with a Canon T3 and an 18-55 kit lens.

I don't obsess over gear these days, nor do I have much GAS, but gear, in many situations does matter and so it's a photographers duty to know what gear is out there and what it can do for you. When I need to solve a problem that I don't think technique can fix, I look at the gear.

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I feel this to a much smaller degree. There are some shots I can't get by moving my feet (area may be unreachable, I may ruin the shot, etc), and so I use my 55-250. Which reaches to 400mm at the longest end on a crop camera. Very useful to have certain types of gear.

NixonS said:

richiebee said:

...until it does.

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+1

NixonS said:

NixonS said:

I always love watching interviews with great photographers who claim the gear doesn't matter, then you see them with their flagship camera and their bazooka lens, photographing whales breaching. Yeah let's see them do it with a Canon T3 and an 18-55 kit lens.

Click to expand...

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+1 LOL

NixonS said:

NixonS said:

I don't obsess over gear these days, nor do I have much GAS, but gear, in many situations does matter and so it's a photographers duty to know what gear is out there and what it can do for you. When I need to solve a problem that I don't think technique can fix, I look at the gear.

Click to expand...

I feel this to a much smaller degree. There are some shots I can't get by moving my feet (area may be unreachable, I may ruin the shot, etc), and so I use my 55-250. Which reaches to 400mm at the longest end on a crop camera. Very useful to have certain types of gear.

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+1

Yeah. I don't really understand the expression "gear doesn't matter".

I think its not entirely right.

I guess maybe they are trying to say something more like . . . "It's the photographer, not the gear" or . . . something like, "You can still take a nice picture with a less than ideal camera"?

For me . . . I wasn't getting the shots I wanted of my daughter at gymnastics competitions because my camera only went to ISO1600. And shooting at its max ISO setting was resulting in really noisy pictures.

The thing with gymnastics competitions, at least around here, is that they are held in poorly lit gyms.

Even with f/2.8 zooms I was struggling at ISO1600.

And it's not like I would be allowed to use flash. (Flash is prohibited as it might blind the athlete as they do a flip on the beam!) And I couldn't get them to buy new lights for the facility. And I couldn't make them hold the gymnastics meet outside! LOL.

So . . . the only way to get better / cleaner pictures was to get a newer camera.

If a new camera gets you cleaner pictures instantly . . . what's wrong with that? LOL.

Take care & Happy Shooting!

First and foremost I love shooting - and I also love the pp process.

When it comes to gear I am interested but I cannot stand brand wars and never ending nitpicking, add to that; gear hoarding is of no interest to me.

NixonS said:

Considering this is mostly a gear focused website I was curious to see how many of you either focus on photographic technology or photography itself, or if those two are very closely interlinked for you personally (for work as an example)? Of course I don't mean to exclude video shooters, feel free to share your experience too.

As a hobbyist I find myself more focused towards photography rather than gear, even though I'm not too good at it. However, gear for me definitely plays a part in my enjoyment. I like using different lenses/cameras to achieve different results. And I'm very interested in camera/lens technology itself.

Photography wise I'm more interested in the art and fun of it. I try to go out somewhere I've never been before every weekend to get some interesting shots. And I love coming home and enhancing some of my shots which I think were decent (which may be only anywhere from 2-5) by editing them in Lightroom.

Let me know which type you are

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Knew very little about photography when I decided to buy the awesome Nikon D70; learned quickly that this expensive camera didn't make me a good photographer.
Http://kristerp.wordpress.com

I spent a long time and a lot of money looking for the Goldilocks solution. Not too big, not too small, good enough quality to provide plenty of versatility and latitude, but simple enough to get out of the way and let me focus on the photography.

As the technology improved, this has become a lot easier to achieve. I hardly think about my gear at all now, only how I can achieve certain outcomes and where I should go for inspiration and the next image.

At the beginning, gear was a major obsession, mainly because it was a pain in the neck to use and I was always working around limitations. I ended up with a full-frame camera and a pile of huge lenses, because at the time, smaller formats didn't cut it. No latitude, limited print sizes, poor AF and all kinds of build quality issues.

Now, I daresay most folk that have any grasp of the basics can get a great image out of most formats, and any make of camera out there. It's just a matter of personal preference and specialisation (I don't shoot wildlife, so super-tele lenses are not a factor in my decision, for example).

For the last seven or eight years, I have focused far more on my technique and processing skills, which has produced far greater benefits than gear ever could - provided I have enough creative flexibility to do what I need.

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"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupery

For me

Gear is a tool, an exciting one that I would talk about, nevertheless a tool

Photography is the Target that I reach with a specific tool

I have had a lot of gear over the years, from 35mm film to modern DSLR's and Mirrorless. I have finally settled with my Pentax KP and a few lenses. I use to use my 16-85mm zoom all the time because it was convenient but I now have to prime lenses, a 15mm & a 35mm which make me think more about my composition but I really like post processing using Luminar 4, Photoscape X Pro and Smart Photo Editor to create my masterpieces

Love my KP. What an appealing and worthwhile camera.