Since you posted your photos here to support your argument, I think they’re fair game for critique. IMO, your photos are objectively little better than snapshots, nothing I would consider a portrait quality work. A few of the photos are nice, but IMO they show no creativity, nor do they make a connection with the subject. They’re better than a random person with a iPhone would take, but nothing like what I’d expect from a paid photographer. And some of that is due to how you chose to use your equipment. The lack of a shallow depth of focus is a prime example, which results in a lack of separation of the subject. Fine for a snapshot, less good for a portrait.
To get back to the original point, high end cameras don’t ensure better photos. The most important piece of equipment is and will always be the photographer. But a high-end camera allows the photographer to explore more options and not be limited by hardware. Not everyone needs it, but a lot of people become better photographers by learning how to use the features of high end cameras.
That lens is a f/1.2 56mm (85mm equiv). I bought it two years ago at tax refund time and it has been on that particular body ever since. I rarely use other lenses anymore; only if the circumstances demand something different. I admit that it is a terrible lens to shoot events with, and some day when I am rich I’ll get the Fuji 50-140 f/2.8 zoom (75-210mm equiv). That’ll be about the time I’m going for those Alien Bees lights.
A lens like that costs as much as an iPhone and a good DSLR kit combined, but that is the cost of making a cluttered church basement turn into creamy non-distracting background.
ETA: It doesn’t help with horrible crappy mixed fluorescent light, but B&W came to the rescue!
On the flip side, here’s what a good photographer can do with an iPhone. Great use of light, shadow, geometry/composition. There’s even a couple nice portraits in there. Steve is a photographer for Crain’s here in Chicago and these are pics he takes in between assignments. So I certainly agree that you don’t need the latest and greatest, but I think for most enthusiasts it would be frustrating learning within such limitations. I can certainly see an argument for it, but it’s not the way I would have wanted to do it myself. (I personally started with an N90, an 85 f/1.8 and a 24mm f/2.8).
To be fair, those are all in focus, are well enough lit to see the subject, and don’t crop off any of the important bits. IMO, that’s better than the average cell phone shot I’m exposed to.
Ultimately, cameras are like golf clubs. A good photographer can make a mediocre camera work, while a super crazy high-end camera isn’t going to make poor photographers suddenly good.
At best, the automation, etc… will compensate for some mechanical problems with the photographer’s technique like focus and exposure, but they won’t do a damn thing for composition, lighting, color (or lack thereof), shadows or any of the other things that photographers really tend to concern themselves with.
This sounds quite bizarre. Is he using low-end DSLRs like a T5i or high end point and shoots or what?
Even ignoring the results of the photos, talking just about the ergonomics of the camera, that’s just… stupid. Higher end cameras have much better ergonomics. They have viewfinders that are brighter, larger, and more accurate in terms of the final result. They have at least two dials which can be used to control two elements of the exposure triad. They’ll have physical controls for things like exposure modes, iso, shooting mode, autofocus mode, AF-L/AE-L, white balance, and lots of other things. The higher end models will have much faster and accurate autofocus, better metering, etc. Pretty much every part of the shooting process gives more control, is faster, and has higher quality results with a better camera.
Using a camera without these things is slow and frustrating. Even single-dial low end DSLRs are a pain to use, let alone little compact point and shoots where you have to digging in the menus to change any settings. It’s incredibly slow and clunky. And they’re very unresponsive. It takes a long time for the lenses to zoom, for the autofocus to activate, for the time between hitting the shutter and the picture is taken, from shot to shot recovery time, frame rate, and the general responsiveness is very poor. Using an LCD instead of an optical viewfinder is generally much clunkier and much laggier.
And again, that’s just quality of life stuff for the photographer, not even the end result of the pictures, which are obviously pretty dramatic. No serious photographer would ever shoot in jpeg (excepting news and sports photographers who often have to send quick results in as-is) - the results you get from jpeg are incredibly primitive as a starting point to process images. The dynamic range and light gathering ability on this tiny sensors are terrible in comparison to even a basic APS-C DSLR. Even in ideal, well lit, unmoving situations for the smaller sensors the results are still inferior - aside from the obvious lower resolution, the dynamic range is crap and you’ll have a lot more blown highlights and a lot less shadow detail.
I had a compact camera not too different from yours when I first got my DSLR, and I never touched that camera again. You appear just not to know what you’re missing - it’s a frustrating experience trading back down from a sports car to a moped.
I would suggest you’re shortchanging your customers. You can’t even control depth of field, which a significant part of what constitutes the art of portrait photography. Without even that much, you’re mostly just making nicely-posed snapshots.
I don’t want to make this too personal, but I would suggest that you are blind to a lot of the technical limitations of the work you’ve posted.
