Did your new purchase make you a better photographer ?

I would have denied this was the case until recently but new gear can make you a better photographer.

When I started photographing birds a few years ago I knew what I wanted to create, but the gear I had was the drawback. After upgrading from a 7d to a 5d3 and from a 100-400 zoom to a 150-600 zoom, I was able to produce the images that I had mind.

if the gear you have is preventing you from realising your vision, then sure, new gear can help.
 
Guilty as charged. I know my new purchase(s) won't make me a better photographer but that won't stop me. I like new tech and it's same with phones, tablets, laptops etc. For majority of my purchases it's a case of want not need.

Right now I'm trying to convince myself that a Nikon D750 would be better than my Canon 6D. Keep an eye out in the D750 owners thread, I'll be there soon. :ROFLMAO:
 
pr33tz said:
Right now I'm trying to convince myself that a Nikon D750 would be better than my Canon 6D. Keep an eye out in the D750 owners thread, I'll be there soon. :ROFLMAO:
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I don't think there's any question tbh, the D750 is better than the 6D in every way apart from cost ;)
 
The big gear issue for me has been moving from Canon DSLR's to mirrorless as I'm much more likely to take my camera out and take pictures.

I now have good modern cameras and lenses which are about the same size as the film cameras I had or in fact even smaller although they are much heavier. The quality of the pictures is much better though and I think that over the years I have got better results both technically and aesthetically.

I'm not too sure that my latest purchases (a 35mm f2.8 AF lens and a Panasonic LF1) have made me a better photographer but they both make it more likely that I'll take more and different pictures than before :D
 
As others have already said, simply making a purchase will not make you a better photographer, but may well mean you take 'better' photographs for a range of reasons.

A new camera has better dynamic range, better high ISO, new lens has longer focal length, wider aperture, less distortion etc
A new tripod is lighter and more rigid, so you use it more (and since you are doing more compositions using a tripod, you take more time over them, so think more about composition...)
A new camera has dials fro both aperture and shutter, so you experiment more with manual, gaining a greater understanding of their relationship, etc.

Or it may simply be that you feel the urge to go and use new gear, and so simply taking more shots helps you learn (practice makes perfect!)
 
I started out with a Canon TX when I was 15, developing my B&W images in the upstairs cupboard when home from a shoot (just after teatime).

Looking back at my old negs I realise I took some bloody good stuff back then.

Here I am in 2015 with a grizzled face, a grey goatee and a bag full of pro Nikon lenses and a D700 body.
My photography is no better now to be honest. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get a shot that the missus is happy with and wants framed on the wall but it's a rarety.

Personally I believe to take a good shot you need to be "in the zone" or the right mood.
For me photography is an emotional recreation, if I'm calm, relaxed and inspired by something I'm halfway to taking a good photo. Most of my best stuff this century has been taken on holiday so that bears out my thoughts (to me at least)

Compare nowadays to those carefree days of the 80's when the summers lasted forever etc. etc. and I think that's why I got some good stuff back then.

Photography is a feeling.
 
I'm 72 or 73 I'm not sure, been at this nonsense for over 50 years.

The 'very' best amateur photographer I have ever come across was an old
guy at a PS I used to belong to in Essex back in the day.

He had an old Praktica, a 50mm lens and a Weston meter, he shot everything on transparencies, slides that is......we only had 36 exposures remember, the exposure had to be right.

Ninety per cent of his shots were fabulous.

It's the 'seeing-eye' that counts, not what one puts up to it to peer through.

'NEW GEAR will make one a better photographer' is a cop-out.....'NO WAY'
 
New gear won't make 'you' a better photographer, but it can improve your shots as outlined above :)
 
Dave in Wales said:
I'm 72 or 73 I'm not sure, been at this nonsense for over 50 years.

The 'very' best amateur photographer I have ever come across was an old
guy at a PS I used to belong to in Essex back in the day.

He had an old Praktica, a 50mm lens and a Weston meter, he shot everything on transparencies, slides that is......we only had 36 exposures remember, the exposure had to be right.

Ninety per cent of his shots were fabulous.

It's the 'seeing-eye' that counts, not what one puts up to it to peer through.

'NEW GEAR will make one a better photographer' is a cop-out.....'NO WAY'
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Well it depends what you mean by "better". The seeing eye is, of course, the first thing you need. Can't see the photo then no photo. On the other hand, try shooting surfers form a beach without a long lens ... I think the term "better" is the problem. It can get you shots, new gear, that you simply couldn't get before.
 
I wouldn't say that upgrading my gear has made me a better photographer but the two major upgrades I have made in the last couple of years allowed me to take the sort of photos I had wanted to do for a long time. The first was the tokina 11-16 wide angle lens for my D90, I love landscapes and always had grand ideas of shots I wanted to take but couldn't quite get right because of the limitations of my other lenses (kit lens and 35mm f2 prime) in terms of the compositions I wanted to achieve. The fact that the lens improved image quality was definitely noticeable very quickly though compared to the kit lens especially. The other major upgrade was going from the D90 to a D750, I have had the D90 for about 6/7 years now and while it has served me incredibly well the technology leaps in terms of low light performance, contrast levels etc etc have been significant to say the least. Going to the D750 has allowed me to take shots that previously I just couldn't have managed in a practical manner with my own gear, it also allowed me to shoot my first wedding which was a huge experience. Other than that the only real upgrades I have made are to get a flashgun so have started learning that side of things, this again has allowed me to try different things I couldn't do previously, and I have upgraded to lee filters from cokins which has finally rid my shots of that bloody colour cast!
 
I'm really tempted to get a d750. Will it make me a better photographer. Probably not directly. It will make me use the camera more, try more low light shooting (which will lead me to reading/learning more). The more I learn, the more I try to simplify my approach.
 
Did your new purchase make you a better photographer ?
Perhaps - it has allowed me to explore different angles and moments, for the most part it has resulted in better technical Q, but it is very loosely coupled to the actual pictorial quality of the photo.
 
New lens didn't make me a better photographer, but made my pictures look better :) Its all in the eye so they say. New kit always boosts enthusiasm as well though
 
Like others have said a great photographer doesn't need a great camera - anything will do.

But I need all the help I can get and I think good equipment increases the chance a small amount. If it looks and feels nice than that inspires me too - my XE-2 does that soooo much more than the NEX 6 I had before it. It felt like a computer not a camera, hated the power zoom with a passion.

Also I've just looked back through Aperture and IPhoto (now use LR5) - I like to think that I've got better but it's obvious that my equipment has - especially the post processing Software !

Just looked at some photos taken by my old Pentax KX and can't how poor that are compared to the XE2..
 
I think as part of me upgrading I have been improving too with time (well I hope I have) but when you look back at older images there are always some great ones in there I think my favourites are with a D60 and tamron 70-200 2.8 up on exmoor in the snow but not sure if that was because it was of my wife and son and brings back great memories, what I think new equipment does do for me is reignite my love of photography and getting out and about looking for wildlife and birds and even if I take no pictures the getting out and walking the lovely area I live in makes it for me (must be a sign of getting old too as not that long ago I didn't appreciate the area at all having a camera and looking for wildlife really has made me appreciate it !)
 
Several reasons why I upgraded. Very first digital camera was a KODAK 2mp compact cheap camera to see what all this digital photo stuff was all about from using a film camera. Then discovered it had its limitations such as long distance shots. Next was first upgrade to a Nikon D70s wich came with an 18-70mm kit lens.
Lovely camera but only a 6 MP one and had that a few years until the Nikon D200 took its place in the camera bag. Now up to 12 MP but quickly found out it was very heavy in the battery dept so moved onto the Nikon D300 which i found was far superior to the D200 and still have as a backup camera.
Then along came this Nikon D800 with huge pixel count so I had to have it and is now my main camera. Cropping without picture lose is really handy.

Has it improved my Photography ? maybe yes and maybe no, but what it has done is given me the ability to take photos that would have been harder with earlier versions due to the features it has.

The first thing is being happy with the photos you take, and if others like them then treat it as a bonus
 
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I'm hoping my latest purchase will!

Having just sold a 5DIII, 24-70, 70-200, 135, 50, 100-400, 100, 17-40 and bought a fixed lens 'Compact', it's forcing me to focus more on the basics and less on the kit. Early days yet, but I would say it was bought with that intention - yes.
 
If you want to be a better photographer read Teaching Photography - Philip Perkis.

Anyone who takes that advice will be miles ahead of the game.
 
Hard to say... I started off my "serious" photography hobby with a bridge camera over 10 years ago. When the kids came along I realised the shutter lag was stopping me from taking the action photos of the kids that I really wanted so I upgraded to a DSLR. That made a huge difference. I've since upgraded again to full frame but I think what really makes the difference if the 10 years of experience. I take a lot more time thinking about the shot now than I did when I first set out with my original DSLR.

However, I get a lot more satisfaction out of using the 5DMk3 and the resulting image quality than the old Canon 450D. I still use the 450D when I go on holiday (just lighter and also less to worry about in terms of it getting lost/damaged/stolen) and I'm generally happy with the photos and the 10 years of experience means my photos are a lot better than when I first go the DSLR. My wife used to complain that I would spend too long faffing around with the settings when taking holiday pics and now that I know my way around my cameras a lot more and knowing what I need to do to get the shot I want, I can spend more time composing.
 
New equipment did make me a better photographer.

Better noise reduction and lower apertures, allowing me to shoot at faster speeds / wider apertures in low light. Less blurred shots due to shaky hands = better.
Lighter/smaller camera = camera out with me more often = more practice = better.
Working with high quality primes rather than zooms = better vision for different focal lengths = moving about to look at a scene from different angles. This makes me think about what I'm shooting which is a good thing.
"Latest new prime" = me concentrating on common uses for that lens (portraits, landscapes etc) and taking more of that type. Practice = better.

All of these skills don't just disappear moving back to older gear and I think that's important to note. I use my photography skills with my iPhone (for example) and my Oly Trip, and these photos have also improved due to what I've learned with the latest shiny.
 
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