The importance of gear in landscape photography
Let’s get directly to the point: is the gear really a predominant factor in producing great photographs? Yes, it is…and no, it is not. If you want to create better images, you will need better gear, but not only that.
Besides gear, you will need good technic and you learn that by means of high amount of practice time and this condition do not depend at all on your gear. With a basic, low-price camera you can learn a lot, you can learn how to shoot and this contains thousand things: how to focus correctly, know what is important in the frame, comprehend when to shoot, why to shoot this way or the other, what to choose as the main subject, how to work with exposition, how to merge multiple images and expand the dynamic range, how to export the pictures, how to manage the files in your computer, how to use certain software, how to postprocess your images…
I really think that the best thing that someone can do is to go step by step, starting with a non-full frame camera (or a full frame if you have the necessary financial means) and learning with practice, practice, and practice. As Henri Cartier-Bresson (famous French photograph considered a master in candid photography) said once, “Your first 10 000 photographs are your worst”. In addition, reading books is always a great idea as well as learning with the help of Youtube videos and free E-books and tutorials. If you find a tutorial that you feel that can improve your skills and knowledge about certain topics, I recommend you to buy it. Nevertheless, on Youtube there are a lot of free tutorials that can teach you some new things.
In my case, related to the gear, I started with the Nikon D3300 camera that is a very nice camera if you want to start in this world. I recommend it 100%. Thanks to this camera I learned many things, I am so glad with the progress I did with the device.
In order to observe the evolution across the time, we are going to compare two images I did in the exact same location (in the “Bufadero” of La Garita, in Telde, Gran Canaria), the first one with the camera Nikon D3300 from 2019 when I just started shooting landscapes and the second one shot with Sony A7 camera. For me, at that time, three years ago, this photo (see below) was just better than the 90% of the photos I was shooting.
Camera Settings: 1/4 s, f/14, ISO 100 and aperture of 19 mm (equivalent in full frame: 28 mm)
Nowadays, I know that the standard of quality that I want in my portfolio is higher than the overall quality of this photo. Now, let see what I have learned through the years doing an improvement in the so-called “photographer eye”. The first thing that is very clear is the horizon that is not horizontal but curved. It is due to the post processing and the lens correction that I did not apply in Lightroom (that is the software I use alongside Photoshop). Also, the main subject of the photo that is the water hole or “Bufadero” that is placed in the center of the frame has no water movement on it, what it means that the viewer does not know that the water is in reality moving up and down there. As well, I think that the exposure time was too slow, maybe a higher speed was better to show the movement.
Apart from this, the sky has not much information (clear blue sky), the clarity of the rocks and the water is too high. There is no vignette and if I am a viewer I do not know where to look or focus my vision on. The highlights of the image are not strong enough, and we do not notice a big contrast with the shadows. In a first look we can appreciate all these errors and a few more that I will not comment to do not extend this critique much more.
In conclusion, this photography has plenty of mistakes that subtract quality of it. Let compare it now with the last photo I shot in the same location, in the year 2021.
We see various differences: the sky has now much more information, with some clouds and the sun rising between them (shot at dawn with a better light than in the middle of the day), the “Bufadero” is at the right side of the picture (new composition that is better because it enhances not only the Bufadero but also the sun and the light from it). The image has the sense of movement we were looking for that is very important for the viewer, we can feel that the water is moving with some violence against the rocks, in addition with a water geyser that gives extra info. The photography above is a blending of 7 images. From each image I extracted the movement of the water in different areas of the frame.
What I want to show with this comparison is that, even when we think that we do not progress or that we do not see it in a short term, in a long term if you work the harder you can you can achieve high improvement and development. In closing, the gear is an important factor in doing great photography but there are many other factors that are included in the recipe, and are still very important.
