Commercial gear for beginners

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I know that it’s taboo to talk about gear. Focusing too much on this stuff misses the point of what making photographs is all about. Richard Avedon used to require his students make their final portraits for his class in a photo booth, which is a rather extreme way of making this point and Richard Avedon, of course, was correct. However, Avedon didn’t use a photo booth too often to make his portraits so it’s not altogether unimportant either one the substantive view is there.

I have some thought I would like to share about about digital equipment for new commercial photographers, something that’s on my mind because I’ve been thinking about how to make my commercial stuff look better now that I’m doing more of it. But if that’s not your thing, then by all means, no one is going make you read the rest of this entry.

Basically what I have to say is that I have definitively condluded that Canon makes better digital SLRs than Nikon. There are a whole list of reasons why this is the case, and if you’re interested I’d be happy to explain it. If you’re buying a low end model (IE a Nikon D50 vs a Canon Digital Rebel), it doesn’t matter that much. But, buying a Nikon D200 ($1500) over a Canon EOS 5D ($2500) is not a good idea even though there is a massive difference in price. Hold out. It’s worth it. When I was in LA the week before last, I assisted on two shoots and on both of them, the photographers were using 5Ds. On the first, Raquel Olivo also had a Hasselblad H1 with a digital back (probably $20,000 worth of equipment I would think), and we were all pretty stunned when the little Canon was cranking out images that looked much, much better than the ones coming out of the Hasselblad. And they certainly beat Nikon which, I’m sorry to say as a life-long Nikon person, sucks in comparison when it comes to digital SLRs.

There’s a whole list of reasons why, and since Canon isn’t actually paying me for this I’m not going to bother to list them. However if you want to hash it out with me in the comments, that’s fine. I’m happy to explain myself. The reason why I’m thinking about this I feel like having a decent DSLR is important to working commercially, especially when your day rate is as low as mine. Christian Patterson and a lot of other people of that caliber do their commercial and editorial stuff on film. That’s the ideal. But my day rate is $300 and I want to avoid spending half of it on film and processing since most clients aren’t willing to pay for that stuff anymore.

I have a Nikon D70 which was ok when I first got it two years ago, but I’m not almost completely unsatisfied with it. One of the main reasons I got into my anonymous party photographs was because working like that was the only way to get attractive images out of my camera. And the settings had to be so meticulous, I wouldn’t have been so prolific if I had done the project on film. But taking blown out pictures with a flash at night shouldn’t be the only use for a digital SLR. So I hope to one day be able to buy one of Canon’s gorgeous full-frame DSLRs, whether it’s the 5D or whatever comes after the 5D a couple years from now. I don’t know where the money is going to come from. Maybe I’ll rob a bank.

Posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm

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