ESFotoClix Blog

If you’ve been around photographic forum discussions you’ve probably heard lots of advice about whether to upgrade your camera. Often that advice falls into one of two bins: keep your camera and get better glass; or don’t upgrade the camera, upgrade the photographer. In broad general terms these two pieces of advice are good, but should they be held onto as timeless, inviolate principles? Let’s take them one at a time and see.

The get-better-glass advice usually comes up when someone is considering moving up to a DSLR with more responsive autofocus (AF), or with better low light capabilities at high ISO settings, or with higher resolution. No doubt, lenses featuring higher performing AF motors, or larger apertures, or better sharpness/detail will offset a DSLR body’s deficiencies. But wouldn’t it be better to have both a more capable body coupled with better performing lenses? Here’s a pop quiz: do you see a lot of pros walking around with inexpensive, aging DSLR bodies with top-of-the-line lenses? Or do you rather see them with both highly capable DSLR bodies and high quality lenses?

In dealing with this question consider also that with DSLRs, the body includes the capture medium. Back in the good ol’ film days, the advice to keep the SLR body was more relevant because one could swap film to enhance light capture sensitivity or to modify color rendition. With DLSRs the film is the camera’s sensor, and now you have to decide whether it is giving you the dynamic range and light sensitivity you need. Yes, surely “fast glass” (lenses with wider apertures) give you this as well, but combined with a better sensor, results improve even further. Pros know this, which is why the upgrade not only their lenses, but also their DSLRs when they perceive a benefit.

That brings us to the second piece of advice that you should upgrade yourself rather than constantly upgrade your camera(s) hoping that they will improve your photos. Again, this is good advice. Learning to expose and compose properly will go a long way in improving your images. Time and resources invested in growing your skill set will yield better photographs, no matter what equipment you have. Nonetheless, there will come a time when your equipment is bounding or restricting your ability to grow. I know in my case, my photography didn’t really start taking off until I took the DSLR plunge. My old SLR and my P&S cameras had taken me so far, and it was time to take my photography to another level, enabled by the added feature set of a DSLR.

It may also be true that even though your camera or equipment is not restricting your growth, you may have grown stale and are therefore not progressing. Maybe getting a new camera or adding a different lens will get you out of the funk, if nothing else because you’ll be motivated to put your investment to good use, trying out new things and growing again.