I went to an end of year assembly for a school a couple of weeks ago. I found myself talking to a lady who had seen some of my photos on Facebook. It was interesting that she commented that she really loved my photography, which of course was very nice. But, she did say something that all photographers dread – “a lot of it is just the camera though”! I hate to admit it, but that’s partially true…
Modern day professional digital cameras are made up of two parts – the camera body and the lens. The body controls how the lens works, and the lens is what allows for different lighting conditions, which part of the photo is in focus, wether you want to zoom in or out and how fast you need the shutter to fire so the image isn’t blurry. As I mentioned, it is the body that allows different lenses to behave how you need them to, depending on wether you are photographing a wedding, family portraits or even photographing for a commercial website.
Above is an example of focal length. I think it makes the photo better only having a very short distance in focus (depth of field) – it makes the photo much more interesting. It would have been very difficult, impossible even, to have taken this photo with a “domestic point and shoot” camera. So I must admit, yes, without my camera body and my 70-200mm lens, I wouldn’t have been able to take this photo the way I did.
Being a photographer is more than just owning a camera and various lenses though. I know technically how to operate the camera, which lens achieves the best effect, when to take the photo and most importantly – what to photograph. But yes, my camera is a big part of the formula…
