It doesn’t take long reading through the reviews of a magazine like Practical Photography or browsing the finer images on Flickr’s Explore to realise that photography is an expensive photography. To get the best photographs you always need a bigger, better camera… the best lenses… the most technically advanced DSLR on the market. Or do you?
I recently stumbled on this article about the award-winning photojournalist, Alex Majoli. As a professional photographer who has shot for such prestigious publications as Newsweek, Vanity Fair and National Geographic, you’d expect him to be carrying around a fair amount of high-quality kit. Instead, rather surprisingly, his photographic equipment of choice are digital point and shoots. He doesn’t even carry around an external flash unit.
It’s a great article, accompanied by some excellent examples of his work. He describes how he gets the most out of his cameras, capitalising on their benefits (namely near silent operation, small size and weight, directional LCD viewscreens and their depth of field) while developing techniques to minimize their weaknesses (for a photojournalist, the real stumbling block is shutter lag).
Do I still want a DSLR? Hell, yes. Preferably one with a really decent macro lens attached. But it’s a timely reminder that I still have so much to learn with my current creative compact and that as always, it’s not the equipment – it’s what you do with it that counts.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Kaptain Kobold // 14th May 2006 at 9:30 am
As a point-and-shooter I applaud him :-) His pictures are great – I looked at them and kept thinking ‘I wonder if I can do that with *my* camera?’
A nice silent point and shoot with rapid deployment makes it easier to get those sneaky shots for the scavenger hunt as well :-)
2 Pewari // 15th May 2006 at 7:09 am
Yes, it was really impressive, wasn’t it! There’s a nice feature in Digital Photo Magazine this month, too, about getting good black and white images – so between them I’ve been inspired to try more things with my humble P&S!
3 Mrs Lifecruiser // 20th May 2006 at 12:00 am
That is so true. It has a lot to do with the photographer how the photo comes out, but the quality macros you can’t get with the point and shoot.
Or the zoom possibilities – there were a lot of shots I couldn’t even take with my point and shoot before. The subjects were too far away.
I haven’t had my new “baby”for long, so I’m really looking forward to this summers photosessions! There is a lot to learn though!
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