“Wow! You must have a really nice camera”. I can’t tell you how many times I have had someone say this to me after seeing our pictures. I’m sure other photographers have heard it as well. The fact is it has very little (if not nothing) to do with the camera brand, price, how many knobs or buttons there are.
It’s all about ability.
First, it’s about composition (point of view, angle, perspective), exposure and depth of field. Then it’s about post production. There’s cropping, adjusting color, contrast and sharpening just to mention a few adjustments.
The proof
To prove a point, the pictures below which were taken by my wife Debra, were taken with a point & shoot camera, processed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and posted. No Photoshop or other photo enhancing program was used.
Can you get the same results?
Yes, you can get the same results but like anything else, it takes practice. Sure, todays’ cameras are pretty capable of taking great pictures right out of the box in most situations. But when it comes to more difficult conditions (bad light, harsh sun, backlit subjects, etc.) you need to know how to override the camera settings to achieve the best results. Then in a simple editing program (most cameras come with editing software) you can fine tune.
Read the manual.
The best thing you can do it thoroughly read the manual and then practice, practice, practice. When people tell me they hate their camera and “it doesn’t take good pictures” I ask if they have tried this or that, what mode they are shooting in, etc. and they have no idea what I am talking about. That’s because they never took the time to read the manual and familiarize themselves with their camera.
Go out and shoot!
Now charge your batteries, grab your camera and get out there and shoot! Shoot anything! Shoot things that interest you! Your kids, the mountains, birds, whatever “floats your boat”. Now I’m going to take some of my own advice and get out there!