Does Gear Matter in Photography

Yes and No...

Hey friends,

Greetings from Wayanad, India!

So, for the past few weeks, I’ve been travelling all over south India. And everywhere I went, I made sure to take my camera and three different lenses:

• 16-35 mm (Wide angle)

• 50 mm (Portrait)

• 70 - 200 mm (Portrait, sometimes wildlife that is very close)

The camera gear is heavy. Lugging around all these lenses sure is strenuous. But I’ve come to realise the power of having the right gear at the right time. As I walk around with all this glass, I’ve been thinking about whether gear matters in photography.

Many say that gear does not matter. You can create stunning photography with any camera. They say that the photographer’s eye matters, not the equipment they’re holding in their hands.

Others say that gear definitely matters. You need certain types of lenses/photographs to get specific photographs. There simply is no workaround. 

I am somewhere in the middle. I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive; both have merit.

For some photographs, gear definitely matters. I mean, you can’t try to photograph a bird up in the canopy with your iPhone (or maybe you could; I’d love to see a creative image like that). Typically, you’d need a considerable focal length (fancy words for a big zoom lens) to shoot such a creature. You’d need to be able to zoom right in. 

For this Crested Serpent Eagle, I needed a large focal length to compose this shot.

Or, for macro photography, you’ll need a macro lens to zoom right in and capture all the details of your subject. Take this shot by my friend Daimler (Check out his Instagram here. It’s worth it). He needed a macro lens and a radiant diffuser (this type of flash) to get the lighting and details of this lovely Large-eyed Bronzeback Tree Snake.

What a beautiful snake. This was shot by my friend Daimler.

In short, some kinds of photography demand specialised gear. 

But none of this should mean that for “GOOD” photography, you must have the best equipment. You can shoot some amazing photographs with just your mobile phone or a basic camera with a kit lens. It is your ability to visualise a shot that makes good photography, not the piece of kit in your hands.

This is the point people in the first camp were trying to make: you are better than the camera. 

The best example I can think of is this image by Shaaz Jung of a black panther in the forests of the Western Ghats. He is a Samsung ambassador who took this gorgeous photograph with one of their phones. This image will remain one of my all-time favourites. It was my lock screen image for the longest time. 

This is one of my favourite phone photographs. It was taken by the world famous Shaaz Jung in the forests of Karnataka. And yes, that is a black panther. This will always remain of my favourite images.

An adage goes - the best camera in the world is the one you have at the right time. To this end, I have a photograph and a story. I was deep in the forests of Himachal Pradesh when my mirrorless camera was not turning on. I think it struggles in the cold. So I only had my phone to shoot. 

As I trekked through the jungle, I came across this beautiful scene that I simply had to photograph. So I whipped out my phone, put it in landscape mode, and composed it the best I could. This is the shot. The photograph is not necessarily about me as a photographer; it’s about the fact that we need to use whatever we have, whether that is the latest Sony flagship or a phone model several years old. So go ahead and shoot with whatever gear you have. You'll get some interesting shots, I'm sure of it.

The forests of the Himalayas are something else…

Postcard

What are you looking at?

Whenever possible, I try to do something different with my bird photography. Here, I got under a pond heron to get this unique angle.

Now, let me ask you: Do you think I needed a specialised piece of photography equipment to take this shot?

Favourite Quote

Today, for this section, I’m sharing a photograph from a lovely book by Charlie Mackesy called “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”

Have a creative, wild and inspiring week!

If you’re new, welcome to The Owlet! My name is Ishan Shanavas, and I am an Artist, Photographer, Writer and Student of the Natural World.

Here I talk about my work, along with curating the most interesting ideas on the internet. I confine them to topics like Nature, Culture, Photography, and Art but often fall prey to other genres.

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