OntheRez
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Rustybug
Right tool ... right job.
[snip]
I really like using my 24L TS-E II ... but I can likewise use my Oly 24/2.8 (non-T&S applications).
This question has obviously generated a lot of interest. I come from multiple disciplines (master carpenter, PhD in statistics, shade tree mechanic, writer, designer, and now a part time pro photographer).
At the heart of successful creation is skill. It is not "the eye," "the knack," "the inborn capacity," or even "the great inspiration." It is skill based upon the vast expenditure of time, experience, failure, adaptation, and, yes, success. I have built multi-million dollar hand-crafted homes. They are things of immense beauty. Over my 40 years of building, I've collected probably $50,000 in tools. I literally can do everything to build a home. On the other hand I always carry a shovel, an ax, a small bundle of 16d nails, nylon cord, and some plastic tarp in my truck. With skill and these crude tools I can create shelter that would probably allow me to survive in almost any climate (assuming I can get food, fuel, and water).
In photography I have even longer been in the quixotic search for the "true" image, whatever true might mean. I don't have near the investment in photo gear mostly because the pay back for photos remains poor.
I've gotten better. Was it just better equipment? No doubt it helped. The move to digital gave a liberation that I never felt with film. On my ancient Leica IIIc every click took something out of me cause it cost, first to take and then to develop and most important the wait between snap and pix where I had to try to remember what I did and why. In a similar vein - though I wrote well back in notebook and typewriter days - the liberation of the first word processor (in the early 80's) was incredible. It affected how I wrote and bluntly how well I wrote. The masters all say, "writing is rewriting." In a three ring binder or with an old Smith-Corona, rewriting "hurt." With a word processor, I could just get the ideas down then go back and make it good unconcerned about errors along the way. The break thru of this technology allowed me the ability to make mistakes that were instructive but not painful. I wrote more, made more mistakes, created more things, and in the end am a far better writer, both because I honed the skill and because the technology assisted me.
The digital camera was the same sort of moment. Yes, a skilled, purposeful, master photographer can find an image no matter what equipment she uses. Better tools create more opportunities and greater "efficiencies" by which I mean the ability to not get it right enough times to finally get what you see.
Until just recently I've never owned the "latest, greatest, best" photo gear of any kind. Frankly can't afford it. Still, by carefully buying used 1, 2, sometimes 3 revisions back, I have equipment so good that failure to capture a "true" image is my fault not the gear. I developed a small but respectable following as a landscape and - for want of a better word - "art" photographer.
This all changed last September when the editor of our small (very) town newspaper approached me about shooting and reporting on high school sports. I'd done quite a lot of nature photography, had a superb 1D IIn (bought used and relatively cheap), a very old 70-200 f/2.8L and an equally old 300 f/4.0L. I figured it would be something that would require learning, but not basically different than what I already knew. WRONG!
Capturing motion in the dark is a whole other world from birds in flight. The lighting on the home field has been generously described as "not too bad for a tomb." My gear pushed to its absolute limits was not able capture the action crisply. H*ll, many times it couldn't even find focus in the gloom if things were moving very fast. I only survived because (1) I did some truly creative (one might say obscene) things in post and (2) the paper prints in a black and white process (65 line screen) so old that the publisher refers to it as "having all the subtlety of smearing tar on canvas." In other words the print process destroys the detail.
There are moments out at the limits were gear does inform even a good photographer's ability to get the shot. I stumbled thru the end of the football season, but when faced with the lighting in the gym for VB and BB it was obvious my much loved IIn just wasn't going to make it nor was f/2.8 enough.
After a lot of scrambling, adapting, and spending money I didn't really have, I ended up shooting the three seasons with a 1DIII and 50, 85, and 135 primes. As you can imagine a great deal of learning took place.
This narrative boils down to what everyone already knows: gear does not make the photographer. (Back in my ski patrol days we used to say, "Ain't the skis it's the knees.) On the other hand when one pushes past his/her comfort level, one can find that better gear (read newer with greater capability and therefore more expensive) becomes necessary to survive. Am I ready for football in less than 3 months? Not really. I certainly would be better served by a 1DIV and a 200mm f/2.0L. Neither are going to happen so it will be primes, highest ISO possible, probably a monopod, and lots of weird mojo in post. I actually look forward to making my "archaic" gear do the job.
Robert
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Shoot with whatever gear makes you (or your clients) happy.