The most important component

Like many photographers I get caught up in the "equipment race". With the power of modern advertising it is easy to think that if I just get that next piece of equipment it will take my photography to a whole new level.

In some rare cases that may be right. However, the vast majority of the time, I would suggest that we are the equipment that needs upgrading.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Since it had been many years since I was active in photography, I had two cameras when my interest was rekindled. A decent point and shoot Fuji and an older Canon EOS 10. This is a film camera, not a digital one. I got caught up in the equipment race and went out and bought the nicest, newest Canon digital I could barely afford. Since this was Canons latest and greatest camera I was sure that it would take breathtakingly beautiful pictures. All I had to do was walk through the forest, making sure the lens cap was off, and by the time I got home I would have some real money-shots waiting for me to print.

Ha!

Now I'm not so naive as to think I wouldn't have to compose my pictures well. And to ensure the correct exposure for each picture. One thing I did expect was that the auto-focus would take care of the focusing chores if I ensured that the right focus icon was on the subject when I pressed the shutter release half way down.

Even when I did all those things to the best of my ability, I was sorely disappointed in the sharpness of the pictures I was getting. It seemed that everything was just a little "soft" or fuzzy. This was a cause of great frustration. I mean I just bought the latest and greatest, but now all of my pictures look slightly out of focus. There is no way I'm going to be able to sell any of these. This was especially frustrating on my recent excursion with the World Wide Photo Walk event. One of my favorite pictures of that day was a macro shot of some beautiful purple flowers. I set the depth of field as narrow as I could so that just the blossoms would be in focus. Guess what. They weren't. Now at best I have something between a nice shot of flowers and an abstract, that isn't really either one.

I was sure that the 15 megapixel sensor was highlighting the shortcomings of the "kit" lens that came with my camera. Great. Now I'm going to have to save my pennies, sell a lot of my stuff and eat a lot of ramen so I could somehow save up enough to afford an "L" series lens for my camera. However at my current budget, that would happen some time around 2012.

Well, as it usually works in my life, frustration got the better of me and I went a' google'n. A quick search on "increase sharpness in canon 50d" lead me to a plethora of information on a new-to-me feature of my camera. There is something called the Auto Focus Micro Adjustment. This helps ensure that the lens is focusing its image correctly on the sensor. About an hour of reading and adjusting my camera now allows me to take pictures that are as sharp as I was hoping for from a camera of this quality.

This helped me remember one of Ansel Adams' quotes: "The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it."

This is my new mantra. As I'm trying to make a go of this on a shoestring budget, I don't have a lot of money for additional equipment. Fortunately, upgrading the brain behind the camera is probably the least expensive upgrade a photographer has available to them. With all of the information out there on the internet, and with the cost of books (compared to lenses or camera bodies) brain upgrades are fairly cheap.

Ken Rockwell, a long time photography blogger, does much greater service to this idea that I can. I hope you wander over to his place and read his blog on why your camera doesn't matter.

While I do agree with Ken, I also want to encourage all of us that are utilizing these digital contraptions we call cameras to learn as much as we can about them and what they can do to help us capture great images. In addition to the little manuals that come with our cameras, there are much larger, more in-depth books about them as well. A trip to the book store or a stroll through an online bookseller will show just how much information is available to us about these techno-wonders. Not to mention the many other aspects of photography that go into making great images.

Happy snapping.