One of the common things you will hear from photographers is that when it comes to taking good photos, gear doesn’t matter. In other words, you don’t need the latest and greatest camera or lens in order to take a great photo. It’s the photographer, the person behind the camera, not the equipment that matters. In most regards, this is absolutely true and I couldn’t agree more. Some photographers, especially when starting out in landscape photography, are obsessed with the technical capabilities of their equipment in order to try and improve their photos when perhaps they should focus on other aspects such as composition, light etc.
However, there are some cases where gear does matter.
1. Large Prints
If you are wanting to print big, perhaps a large canvas or framed print to be the centerpiece of a room, then megapixels does matter. If you only have an image that’s 2000px wide, you might struggle to produce a 2 metre wide print without severely reduced quality. A good lens also helps to capture as much details as possible. This is one scenario where an expensive camera and lens combination can really outshine cheaper equipment.
2. Filters
Filters are accessories (usually made of glass or resin) that are placed in front of a lens to block or filter the light hitting the camera’s sensor (or film, back in the day). Most of them are now redundant as the same effect can be applied during post-processing, but there are a few that can’t be replicated with software.
– Circular Polarizing Filters
The main benefit of CPL filters is to help reduce reflections and glare from water. This can be water on foliage after it’s been raining, or water in rivers, streams, and lakes. It can also be used to enhance colours in certain conditions, especially autumn leaves and blue skies.
– Neutral Density Filters
ND filters simply reduce the amount of light entering the lens. They come in various strengths and are most commonly used to increase the exposure time for long exposure photos. An extreme example would be a 10-stop ND filter. This reduces the amount of light by about 1000 times which allows you to do, for example, exposures of several minutes during the day when the light is normally far too bright for those types of shots.
3. Dynamic Range
The dynamic range of a camera is the range of light intensity (from whites to blacks) that can be captured in an image. In short, all cameras have a limited dynamic range which means that in some scenes, the range of light intensity exceeds what the camera can capture so compromises have to be made. A typical example of a scene with a high dynamic range is when shooting into the sun. Often in the resulting image, the foreground will look very dark, or the sky completely white, even though neither was the case to our eyes (which, thanks to our brains, is capable of viewing a much higher dynamic range than cameras).
Historically the various ways to deal with dynamic range limitations included taking multiple shots of the same scene with different exposures (exposure bracketing) and then combining them in post-processing, or using graduated neutral density filters to control the brightness of the sky, but these days with the higher-end cameras, the dynamic range is so good that those methods are no longer necessary.
While a newer, more expensive camera might not be required to take a particular shot, it can definitely make it a lot easier to do.
4. Astrophotography
You’ve probably seen those Milky Way photos that are popular on social media. While it is possible to take those sorts of photos with any camera (including smartphones), the resulting quality will vary immensely. This is where a high-end camera and lens combination will excel, especially when you look at the full-sized photo rather than a small version posted online. Because these photos require the use of very high ISO’s in order to capture enough light, this can result in a lot of noise/grain in the image, and there’s only so much noise reduction software can do. Getting an image that’s clean enough for printing really does require some decent equipment when it comes to astrophotography.
Conclusion
While in general it’s possible to capture great photos without the use of expensive equipment, there are a few situations when gear does matter. It’s knowing when it’s required, rather than worrying about it all the time, that’s the key. In most cases, the best camera is the one you have with you at the time.
