The camera is simply an instrument.

awty said:

Likewise have seen plenty of great pictures made with homemade cameras.

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And I have seen a lot of really garbage images created with some super high end camera gear.

StepheKoontz said:

And I have seen a lot of really garbage images created with some super high end camera gear.

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Absolutely! I can do a crap photo on any camera on any given day, no worries. The trick is to use the cameras attributes good or bad to make a picture with some form of substance.

Your camera takes really good pictures.

bdial said:

Your camera takes really good pictures.

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Or "You have a really great camera!" to which I can reply "Uh, it's actually a really bad one..." lol

guangong said:

My experience in painting, stone carving, musical instruments and cameras is that a better instrument is easier to work with. On the other hand, sometimes better instruments require more skill. Carving marble incorrectly, thus chipping a carbide tipped chisel, can be very expensive.
The nature of much photography means capturing unique events, which increases the importance of reliable quality equipment, since an event may never be available again.

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This is true. Though, my experience in those things (trade stone carving for wood carving) has taught me that a tool is only as good or as bad as the hand that holds it. It can of course be very difficult to play a delicate sonata on a cello with a warped neck and tuning pegs that won't hold tune. But that same cello may excel at composing a eerie dirge. Same with painting. A brush whose bristles are worn to a nub may not be useful for a photorealistic portrait, but may prove very useful for impasto. And sometimes a screwdriver works better than a chisel for carving out wood if you're trying to create a sense of immediacy and raw emotion. That's why I have a closet full of toy instruments and drawers full of old bushes (because I never throw them out). Sometimes the perfect note shouldn't be in tune.

So it really depends on your artistic goals. Using the right tool for the job definitely makes the job easier. But a good artist makes good art regardless of what they're given to work with. To paraphrase an old saying, a bad artist blames his tools. And as any good artist knows, limitations inspire creativity. Would Monet have ever painted those water lilies like that if he didn't have cataracts? Would Pollock ever have attempted a drip painting if he wasn't suffering from alcoholism so badly that he couldn't hold his hand steady? What about Van Gogh's glaucoma? Or Frida Kahlo's sever spinal injury? And that's just the tip of the ice burg.

A slight counterpoint to the blanket statement of "a bad artist blames his tools" would be that "one should know the limitations of their tools". If the equipment you're trying to use isn't actually up to the task you're asking of it, then it is completely acceptable to acknowledge those limitations.

I've shown up to help friends build cabins over the years with the assurance that I didn't need to bring any tools as they would "have all we needed..." only to find out that they bought the cheapest dollar store hammers they could find... Trying to drive nails with a hammer made from such poor 'steel' that the nail head is actually a harder material is a fool's errand.

Some tools, whether in carpentry or photography, are simply so far gone in their functional quality as to be useless for any reasonable or sensible attempts to get quality results out of them.

I like OP's way of thinking...and this is very much why I have so many cameras. Most of the time if I am actually going on a photo walk, holiday or international trip I am happy to carry a camera bag with relatively sophisticated cameras. Other times I just feel I'd rather bring out some 1930s base model camera, for the hell of it, and wander around town shooting buildings and street scenes. If course occasionally I do something slightly insane like deciding that a Zeiss-Ikon folder is the perfect instrument for the summit of Mount Etna in winter....but then, I was right! It was!

Some years ago I watched a short documentary, probably on BBC TV, about a photographer who wished to prove that it was the skills of the practitioner and not the tools which were most important. He set himself the task to take a photograph of the Queen on an old box camera and get it published in a national newspaper. We were already in the digital age....so at the event in question he was jostled among the other pro photographers with their DSLRs, long lenses and burst shooting capability.....there he was with his 120 film and 8 exposures maximum. He reeled off his 8 shots, ran to the nearest 1 hour photo shop (there were still a few around then) and got his film developed & scanned to a CD-ROM....and then started hawking his photos to newspapers....and yes, he got one really good shot of the queen on that box camera and it was published in The Sun.

Curiously, as a musician I only have one violin. Though I certainly appreciate the difference in feel, look and tone of different instruments. Usually when I go to a gig, the guitarist will have at least 3 or 4 guitars on hand....likewise some of us will have many cameras. I'm going camping this weekend. The Zeiss folder is a no-brainer as I have an unfinished film in it....but as for a 35mm camera....Yashica Minister III? Agfa Super Silette? Konica Off-Road? Lomo Konstruktor? Ooooh choices....

Agulliver said:

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I'm going camping this weekend. The Zeiss folder is a no-brainer as I have an unfinished film in it....but as for a 35mm camera....Yashica Minister III? Agfa Super Silette? Konica Off-Road? Lomo Konstruktor? Ooooh choices....

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Never heard of the Konica Off-Road before - had to look it up. With a name like that, it seems an obvious choice for camping.

It could just be my own, personal metering habits (or faults) but when i shot two rolls of HP5, all with a Light Yellow Filter, in strong day light.....i thought the shadows were often too dark.
This was "typical" Street Photography in San Francisco.
Like some of the members in this post, i was asking about using the light yellow filter. The best advice i got was the age-old wisdom of.....you will just have to try it and see what you think.

After my experience with those two rolls, i never used the yellow filter again. Not in an indiscriminate manner anyway. I DID use it on occasion. But i never left it on the lens for every frame again.