Stop Buying Insane Gear
As a photographer, there is definitely an advantage to owning professional-level equipment. Sharper photos, easier to use, faster autofocus, wider aperture, more megapixels, more fps, more dynamic range, etc… This list goes on and on. But truth be told, landscape photography relies on very few of these advantages. Let’s take a look.
Sharper Lenses
In landscape photography, sharp images are king. But don’t you need an expensive lens to shoot sharp photos? Not really! Stopping your lens down to f8 or f11 is the best way to capture a sharp image. This goes for any lens and can usually level out the stark differences between a $1000 lens and a $350 lens.
Ease of Use
Look, I love my 16-35 2.8. It allows me to zoom in and out of a fairly wide range without having to switch lenses. But this doesn’t mean that the f4 version or the 17-40 are bad lenses. Those would work just as well in the field.
Faster Autofocus
Lots of big and expensive cameras have insanely fast autofocus. 250 point, eye tracking, hybrid phase detection, new and limited edition laser point blah blah. It really doesn’t matter to landscape photographers. Autofocus is for moving objects and I don’t remember the last time I saw a mountain move.
Wider Aperture
This goes back to taking sharper photos. Having an f2.8 lens makes zero difference when you stop every lens down to f8 anyways. Try not to go past f11 though since you’ll start getting diffraction/your lens quality will degrade.
More Megapixels
I can’t really argue with this one. More expensive cameras usually have more megapixels. And more megapixels means bigger prints. The only thing I can say is that unless you are printing a photo over 4 feet in width, 24 megapixels will do just fine. Especially since you can cheat a little by resampling in photoshop.
More FPS
Well, it is pretty cool to shoot 14 photos per second on the M6 II but I have never used this for landscape photography. 1 photo per second will do just fine.
More Dynamic Range
Having a camera that can capture the setting sun and the dark shadows in the foreground while maintaining perfect exposure would be great. Sadly, this camera doesn’t exist and every photographer uses bracketing to increase their dynamic range. So whether you have 14 stops or 11 stops of dynamic range built-in, bracketing can take both cameras up to an insane 20 stops.
Heavy-Duty Tripods
Honestly, there are times for really nice tripods but for the most part, a $35 tripod will do just fine. That’s what I use for all of my photos and I love it. I can get the legs wet or sandy and I can smack it on the occasional rock without being in shambles about the damage. Most expensive tripods will have metal hinges that require you to dry them off after a wet shoot. My tripod has plastic hinges that simply dry out with no damage.
Conclusion
While most of these expensive features seem pretty useless, this article really only applies to landscape photography. As soon as you step into sports photography, you will need that $1500 lens and that camera with 250 point autofocus. But for landscape photography, life is simple and you can rely on cheaper equipment to produce gorgeous shots. I’ll admit though, milky way photography is one of the few exceptions for landscape photographers. You will need a very nice lens to capture sharp images of the night sky. But try not to get caught up in the equipment race. Having a $1000 vs $5000 kit makes zero difference 95% of the time. I sound like a hypocrite considering I have a $2800 bag of equipment but this is how I know it makes zero practical difference for landscape photography. What has improved is not the sharpness of my photos but rather my composition and editing skills. So start working on skills and let the equipment follow because I’m sure what’s in your bag now is more than adequate.
If you enjoyed this blog, I post every Friday.
