It is true what they say, "Your first 10,000 pictures are your worst ones".
I learned this the hard way. As many new photographers, we like to try new ways to make our pictures better. We think that because somebody else has a more expensive camera body then that is the reason why their pictures are better. That is not entirely true.
A camera body is merely but a tool for your creativity.
As many starting photographers, I didn't believe this as well when I kept seeing different results from my camera than from other people with different cameras, therefore I started asking questions.
I quickly came to realize how lost I was in the technicality part of photography.
I knew nothing of the following:
-Rule of thirds
-Composition
-Inverse square law..and so on
I knew the basics like the relation of ISO, Shutter Speed, and F-Stop. That wasn't enough for me to call myself a photographer yet. I started practicing more and more as my closest friends agreed to let me practice on them. With practice came progress. I had improved dramatically and began to pretend it was the film days and act like I only had 24-36 exposures, doing that made me more cautious if the composition was right and if there was no distractions in the frame that would take away from the subject.
I had improved to a point in which I decided to really invest in myself. Aside from my kit lens that came with my dsrl body and I had also bought a 75-300mm lens I had bought from my dad.
My first huge investment was a 50mm f/1.8 lens that only cost about $120 lol
Yes, I know that is the less costliest lens Canon has to offer but man does it deliver. Optically it is awesome. The image quality is just as good as those Canon luxury lenses that cost $1,000 or more. That is why I consider it a huge investment, it brought a new world of creativity and allowed me to play with such wide open apertures which made the depth of field just look exquisite especially with the sexy bokeh that it created.
After my purchase of the 50mm F/1.8 lens I began to realize even more that cameras, lenses, and speedlites were really all tools for a photographer.
Through experience I now knew or had a very good idea of how other photographers got the results they accomplished on their pics.
Light was the most major component. Photography would be useless without light. How can one capture a moment if there is no light. It is not about the camera, it is not about the lens, it is all about light.
The best light source of all is our own SUN!!! One of the most important things I ever bought was a reflector. It was a 5in1 reflector and it did many great things. It blocked the sun from the subject when the Sun was too bright. It reflected light from the Sun into the subject when there wasn't enough light.
A lens is like an iris in your eye, if it is too bright, you slightly close the aperture to let less light in just as you would close your eyes if you wake up in the middle of the night and then head over to your computer and find that your computer is in sleep mode, you move the mouse and since previously the brightness was on the brightest setting before, you are blinded by light and you begin to feel like a cat and close your eyes and hiss at the screen lol Personally I feel like a boxer in a fight with a black shut eye just swinging my arms in the air =)
Where was I??? oh yes, a pupil also opens when there is not enough light as you would open up the aperture to a lens.
Shutter speed is also a manipulation of light as well as is ISO. They all affect each other. You adjust the right settings to get a proper exposure in your camera to capture the moment.
I began to invest in more expensive lenses and acquired my most lens, the Canon 24-70 f/2.8 lens.
I began getting more clients and ended up doing weddings.
Yes my camera was more than enough for most environments but weddings are a huge moment in a persons life where they rely on you to capture them.
My camera had limits and weddings have a lot of low light moments where my dslr would have regularly struggled so I decided to invest on a more expensive dslr and went for a full frame dslr that allowed me to go to higher ISO's and maintain a clean image from digital noise.
I saw how my new dslr was also a tool, an awesome tool that let my creativity be pushed further than ever before.
To this day I keep investing in myself and acquired more lighting equipment. But I'm slowly seeing ever since my full frame sensor dslr (5dmarkii) first came out in 2008, technology has improved.. Kind of a no brainier thing to realize right? lol
Entry level and mid level pro dslr's have come a long way and now some capture just as good quality or even better compared to those $6,000 pro level dslr's that are from the year 2007 or older.
So if you are a starting photographer, don't compare your dslr with the next photographer's dslr because in a few years both your cameras will be a thing of the past wild old technology. Instead push yourself in how to work with light and manipulate light. It is really important to get to know what your camera is capable of in order to fully achieve to get what you have in your imagination into reality.
