Best Photo= Best Camera?

[cguaimare]

Hi friends! You hear every now and then that the camera is not directly related with the quality of the picture. But I would like to know:

Those great and famous pictures of Ansel Adams, Cartier Bresson, and so on were taken with the best cameras of that time? Or were

taken with cameras that were not the best for that moment? I know that a BAD photographer wil not get a masterpiece just by using the

best Nikon or the best Cannon, but the best photographers look for the best cameras and with them they créate their masterpieces?

[MichaelChang]

<p>Carlos, using an old analogy, a professional chef in a professional restaurant kitchen will produce gourmet meals, but the same chef in a home kitchen will also be able to produce similar meals limited only by the appliances available to him. </p>

[johne37179]

<p>I had the great pleasure of knowing Ansel Adams and spending time with him in Yosemite in the field. Ansel had good gear, but in my view he was more concerned about what went on in the darkroom. Ansel had designed and built a modified lamp house for his enlarger that greatly contributed to the spectacular quality of his prints. I never met anyone who was as intimately familiar with every aspect of producing a final image from conception through the final print. I remember talking to him about my gear and asking recommendations. At that time I believe the camera he took into the field most often was a Linhof, but I could be mistaken. He did recommend the Arca Swiss to me. Back then, everything you bought was pretty much ala carte, with no bundles being sold. I think Ansel may have been more concerned about film, developer and printing paper than he was about the gear.</p>

[billangel]

Last week I bought in a thrift shop a Pentax K1000 film camera with 50 mm f2 lens in excellent condition for $8. If the pictures I take with it turn out mediocre, it will because of my limitations as a street photographer, and not the fault of the equipment.

[Damon DAmato]

<p>Of all the people you could have picked, Cartier-Bresson is probably one of the least equipment oriented photographers of his stature. He seems to have preferred a straitforward camera that would not get in his way. <br /><br />At any given time in his journalist career, any contemporary 35mm camera with a ~50mm lens, in my opinion, would likely have been just fine. </p>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>Just those two examples of photographers illustrate the flaws of the question: while their lives covered pretty much the same timespan, much of the time Adams and Cartier Bresson used completely different cameras and shot for very different reasons with very different criteria of what constituted the "best" photographs in their work. And like E.J. writes, Adams was at least as much into the whole developing and printing process as he was into the taking of the photographs, while CB wasn't interested in those steps at all, and <a href="http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/cartier-bresson-there-are-no-maybes/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0">generally considered technological advances</a> (light meters, color film etc) more of a nuisance than a benefit.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Ansel wrote in one of his books that he shot some of his early work with a Korona view camera. I have one in the basement and it's a pretty run of the mill wooden field camera. Definitely not the quality of a Linhof or Arca Swiss that he used later. But in his hands it was a Steinway.</p>

[Rick Helmke]

<p>A great camera, and they exist, does not make a great photographer. A bad camera and they also exist, can certainly keep a great photographer from doing his best work. The one design requirement I have for a camera is that it not get in my way and I've found at least two that fulfill that. So I just have to work on me.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

[vrankin]

<p>Photos rated as the best by people whose opinions I've valued, haven't necessarily been from my best cameras. More important were choice of subject, timing, lighting, placing of exposure and composition. Ironically, having a "camera that doesn't get in the way" has in later life meant a simpler camera with more reliable automation. It allows for being more intuitive, rather than so intellectual with the camera.</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Most artists who also think of themselves as craftsmen (and women) generally do try to get the best gear for the job at

hand, in the belief that it will make their work easier to accomplish. But greatness in a photograph isn't about the names,

including that of the photographer, but the emotional, aesthetic and intellectual connections viewers make with the

image.

 

Do that often enough, win enough contests (yes these are important to working professionals , well certain ones are at least.) and catch the attention of art directors and photo editors and you start to authenticately and organically make your name and reputation as a photographer -and then people want to start making photos like yours start paying attention to the equipment you are using at the time when they started paying attention to you, and then camera and equipment manufacturers start courting you and the cycle gets amplified.

 

Back n the 1980s/1990s that mutually beneficial between photographer as a brandname and manufacturers, played out with Annie Leibovitz and three pieces of equipment The Mamiya RZ67, Profoto electronic flash, and the large indirect Elinchrom Octalight diffuser. I'm not sure how much she helped Mamiya but the association efinitely positioned Profoto and Elinchrom as "must haves" in the eyes of many, many photographersso they could tell their clients that they could make photos that at superficially looked like hers.

[rick_m.]

<p>Many if not most of the best photographers today have achieved artistic and technical excellence but have yet to enjoy the commercial success that would allow them the very best equipment. In that is the answer to your question. </p>

<p> IF these stars ever achieve commercial success in their lifetime they well might indulge in the best equipment. Alternately if they gain enough notoriety I suspect either Nikon or Canon would kit them up. </p>

<p>Most of the professional photojournalists I know use good cameras but are less likely to be gearheads than many amateur photographers. Many of the photographers on this site whose work I admire greatly use modest cameras. </p>

[spanky]

<p>If you are asking from a purely theoretical standpoint then no, the camera has very little to do with artistic achievement. If you are in the market for a camera...say, a Nikon F2 with intermittent shutter failure, then yes, the camera one uses is everything. See me about the F2.</p>

[spanky]

<p>By the way, I often get people asking me what kind of camera they should buy. I tell them I have no idea. "I can tell you everything about the cameras I use and nothing about all the other cameras that are available out there." Most people probably wouldn't want to use film cameras anyways.</p>

[glen_berry1]

<p>As Lee Trevino was wont to say: "It ain't the arrow, boys - it's the Indian".</p>

[david_carroll4]

<p>Eugene Smith photographed his '71-'73 Minamata series with a Minolta SRT - a decent camera, but not on the same level, cost-wise or "rep"-wise, of the Nikons, Canons or Leicas available at the time. Great photographers don't need the "best" camera, they just need a sufficient camera - talent does the rest.</p>

[cguaimare]

Thanks a lot dear friends. Very interesting and useful answers

[anthony_brookes5]

<p>Whenever I see this often asked question I always refer to Bert Hardy's picture of two girls sitting on the railings on Blackpool seafront. A marvelous picture. The camera? A Kodak Box Brownie.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>Back in the day of film the lens was of utmost importance. You can't make a good picture with a bad lens. These days the lens is still important, but so is the camera. Let's face it a 20MG pixel camera will probably out perform a 6MG pixel camera. All things being equal it's not the camera but the photographer. </p>

[rick_m.]

<p>Adding to what Harry said...Today product variation is not so great. The inexpensive lens today will perform wonderfully. In the finished product it would be hard to tell the difference between a photo taken with the D3200 and the 50mm F/1.8 at the bottom of Nikons price range and the same one taken with an D4s and the 24-70 F/2.8 at the top. There would be virtually no difference even before processing.</p>

<p>Another comment. I remember 'back in the day' when we took a good film shot, the work was, as today, only 'half' done. There was still the darkroom and all of the variables that introduced into the mix. The user viewed a shot in a very different way. He/she held it in his hand and looked at it. </p>

<p>When we shot film for a newspaper we knew that the shot was to illustrate a story. This adds a dimension to the thought behind the shot that is not there with a fine art or landscape piece meant to be framed. If the shot was an illustration for a magazine story still another dimension is added as some of the strict journalistic rules might not be necessary. You can't "chimp" film so exposure conventions tended to favor accuracy of exposure. You had to 'get the shot' before you could get too creative. </p>

[bob_bill]

<p>Rick nailed it. I want a camera that does what I need. Other bells and whistles aren't important to me if it lets me accomplish my vision. Remember pros look at a camera as a tool, not a toy, so cost comes off the bottom line. Take a look at Ken Rockwells 7 levels of a photographer that came up on another post. Rich amateurs often have better gear than pros. You know, my carpenters friends don't carry on about their tools. </p>

[SCL]

<p>Carlos - I see you're a physician, so I'll use an analogy to the medical line of business. The scalpel doesn't make the surgeon. A specially designed one may facilitate aspects of his/her job, but the knowledge,skill, and insight are what distinguish the practitioner. Years ago I remember reading of a crew aboard a US submarine in WWII which conducted a successful appendectomy using bent spoons as retractors and other "kitchenware", saving the man's life. Yes, top notch gear in the right hands may facilitate technically outstanding results. Most of the masters in their crafts didn't jump to acquire what may have been declared the "best" at the time, but used gear with which they were familiar, predictable, and could generate repetitive technical results...then they applied the skill portion.</p>

[rick_m.]

<blockquote>

<p>“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson -</p>

<p>“This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography; composition should be a constant of preoccupation, being a simultaneous coalition – an organic coordination of visual elements.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson -</p>

<p>“Of course it’s all luck.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>And here is the best answer of all:</p>

 

 

<blockquote>

<p>"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."<br>

Ansel Adams</p>

</blockquote>

<p ><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ansel_adams.html"> </a></p>

<br />

[luigicaz_zato]

<p>Of all the people you could have picked, Cartier-Bresson is probably one of the least equipment oriented photographers of his stature. He seems to have preferred a straitforward camera that would not get in his way. <br /><br />At any given time in his journalist career, any contemporary 35mm camera with a ~50mm lens, in my opinion, would likely have been just fine.</p>