Do you need an expensive camera to do your photography? Do I need it? Many people question it for sure. Here I want to help people decide what camera to buy and decide if they need an expensive one.
It all depends on the type of photography you do.
In the post: “How To Convey Ideas Through Photography. Find Your Genre“, I described that every photographic genre is so different that these jobs are almost not connected. Like a blogger and a developer who both use a computer.
If you do sport or wildlife photography then I don’t know why are you reading this :). This is not a question for these types of photography. The gear is the most important and yes you need an expensive camera. If you do portraits, street, fine art and anything similar then it’s more questionable.
Do you need an expensive camera for fine art and street photography?
It depends on your needs. But if you decided to open this post, you have probably started doing photography quite recently and you are thinking about getting a professional or semiprofessional camera. I know that there are people who have a lot of money and start their photography journey by buying a Leica camera for some 5-7 thousand €.
But most people are not like them. You and me, for example.
The philosophical question of buying an expensive camera.
Photography brings joy and pleasure to people for sure. And as one of the Chinese philosophers taught(I’m sorry about not mentioning the name I will add the reference once I find out who exactly said that), there are two types of pleasure, one is long-term and another is short-term. Long-term pleasure for example is to explore how many things you can do with photography. The short-term pleasure is buying a new camera.
For example, if right now you go to a shop and buy a Leica M11, you will get some pleasure for sure. Imagine you’re taking a very good new camera in your hands. You explore its features. You take pictures with it and they are so vibrant and the quality is so good.
Have you imagined?
Good.
This is your new camera.
Now imagine that you have had the camera for a year or more. Now it is simply your camera. This problem of consumption arose some thousands of years ago and the philosopher described the issue a long time ago. It’s the same problem why rich people often can’t stop buying things even when they don’t need them.
Sorry that I don’t mention the philosopher, I forgot the name and tried to find it but I can’t right now. I honestly don’t want to make this post philosophical and want to focus on the process of buying a new camera.
Your experience defines if you need an expensive camera.
If you’re just starting to do photography, do not search for anything complicated.
In the post: Exposure triangle – time wasting approach that you don’t need. I tell them that it’s important to simplify things at the beginning. This is the time when it’s better to focus on the most important things: correct exposure and good composition.
So when choosing your first camera, think of if you need an expensive camera or a simple one. Photography is not about capturing high-quality images, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. A photo camera is a tool to create art, and you can achieve a lot with it. So, in the beginning, you will need to start learning how to use the tool and the tool should be quite convenient.
I would personally suggest Ricoh GRIIIx or previous models since I use this camera myself and it’s capable of many things and still really pocketable. (it’s not sponsored by them)
As a famous quote says:
The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You
Chase Jarvis
Why an expensive camera is not that vital for street and fine art photography?
If you give me a camera for 100€ I will still take good photos. Of course, it’s harder with a cheap camera but the cameras do not define the quality. Also to take a high-quality landscape photo is very easy, but it’s not easy to convey a message through photography.
It took me about a year to learn how to take pictures like the one above.
And it took me about 5 years to learn how to take fine art pictures. (I’m still learning)
The picture above is not my picture but a picture of me by Anna Ivahnenko
An expensive camera can give you more interest in doing photography
New gear is always an exciting thing and, yes, you can get it just because for the first few months you will be excited to take pictures with it. This will make you take more pictures and learn more. But this excitement will pass away quite soon, and you need to focus more on the tool that will serve its purpose for a long time. For example, I shoot with Sony A7RII and I don’t think I will even need a better camera. Maybe a better lens though. As I said before, simplicity is a good thing and the best for learning are prime lenses.
If you want to switch to full frame
The new cameras are all good. Full frame of course better but I have been using an aps-c too and it’s a very powerful camera.
The main thing is that new sensors can offer a good dynamic range even on aps-c, at the same time they are more lightweight which can be very important. Even if you shoot in the evening it’s easier to shoot from hands with a light camera, so you won’t need a slow shutter speed to capture something.
On the other hand, of course, a full frame offers a better dynamic range (in most cases) and the most important is less distortion on a wider angle. But this is quite advanced, and if you don’t feel like you really need it, don’t upgrade. I would like to shoot with a medium-format camera. But the cheapest one I can get is about 5000€ body, so I won’t even try to save money for it since it won’t make my pictures a lot better for now.
Bad photos on expensive cameras
Aside from that, I have seen many bad photos taken using good cameras. I also, unfortunately, got into an argument with a follower of a “photographer” whose skills are very low but he is shooting with a new mirrorless Nikon camera. The guy is taking pictures of half-naked women, and the main message of the pictures says: “look this is a naked woman, are you aroused now?”. The pictures are taken with many compositional mistakes and are tasteless themselves, so if you are not interested in naked women there’s nothing to see. The camera is probably 3 times more expensive than mine (nowadays you can find sony A7RII for about 900€ body)
Do you need an expensive camera at the end of the day?
Of course, you can go for it but you will one day naturally see for yourself if there’s a such necessity. I recently bought one more camera for 1000€ because my wife didn’t have a digital camera and we realised that Ricoh will be pocketable and she will be able to take it everywhere and take more pictures. And it worked, even when I’m lazy and don’t take my camera she has one with her. If it will keep you more passionate about photography – buy it.
One thing to remember is that it won’t change many things. In the long run, it’s only your skills and one tool that you use.
To learn photography faster I would recommend something that I do myself:
Top 10 Ways To Improve Photography Skills. Learn Photography Faster
P.S.
I will try to make this post short. Every time I try to make a short post, I start to dive deeper into the topic and then end up working on it for many hours. Then I see other bloggers posting every day and realise how annoying is that I can’t keep it simple.)
That’s what I said before writing the post and again… Seems like I will never be able to give less information
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