What professional cameras does a professional photographer need. The answer is any camera that a professional shoots is a professional camera. When the professional picks up his old childhood Polaroid he is still a professional shooting a professional camera. Now I don't have mine anymore, I've owned and sold quite a few Polaroids, but I did begin on one of those a long time ago and continued it's use well into my school years, before I picked up my first 35 mm film cameras.
I should have started by telling you that I spent a lifetime lugging around heavy camera bags that injured my shoulder, sprained my neck, blistered my shoulders, made me trip and fall , scraped my knees badly, missed some of the cool venues at bike-week in Daytona because they wouldn't allow bags inside, and their suggestion for me to leave my expensive equipment in the car was clearly delusional, and pretty much made my friends stay clear away from me when I wanted to carry a bunch of cameras around because they knew they would get stuck carrying the heavy bag. They volunteered once and never went again. I lugged around 12 pound lenses, telephoto lenses , zooms, that when attached to the camera weighed 15 pounds and I insisted on the carrying around 5 cameras sometimes so that I could have all the possible varied combinations of DSLR's and lenses with me at any given time and treated my friends to the privilege of shooting my cameras because they carried my camera bags for me.
In an age of phone photos even as a professional when I was out in public lugging around my big equipment, people had said to me ,what do you need all that for ,why don't you get a smaller camera and even laughed at me.
I let them laugh and I justified my equipment, but I knew they were right because in one of those heavy bags were a couple of my favorite go-to cameras that had been with me a long time and they were compact pretty much do-it- all.
I still carry my Canon that fits in the palm of my hand. I take it on the fishing boat and I use it to shoot professional photos because sometimes I just grab it and shoot it and it gives me professional results because I am a professional using it. I downgraded all the big big cameras and lenses. I was really into Ricoh Pentax. For a large portion of my career my cameras were big and they were heavy and my lenses were big and they were heavy and when I needed to go out and do a lot of work for a whole long day I would grab my compact. I took along my other little bit bigger compact which was also a Canon that did everything and did it well.
You do know megapixels are a bunch of bull pucky because before 40 megapixel cameras existed professionals were shooting with 8 & 10 & 12 megapixels and 12 megapixels is all the mega-pixels that a professional really needs although I'm up to 24, I have been up there into the megapixel maximums and back to the 18 and 24 range and still shoot my 12 megapixel cameras often and they perform, they perform well they're Canons and they really get the work done. Of course my work doesn't encompass some things that other photographers might . I don't need 40 mega-pixels because my clients don't need it. They don't publish in major magazines and headshots never get published in magazines despite the delusion of young actors and models. Canon EOS cameras are used in shooting major motion picture films though.
I haven't seen a mountain in 18 years. I’m not a full-time fashion photographer although my clients wear fashions. I live in Florida so yeah that go outside and do stuff attitude is always part of the plan just about for everyone and it gets too hot then everyone says okay well we tried let’s go inside then, but we always tried outside first ‘cause this is Florida and that's what Floridians do. For years I justified carrying around those lenses as mega combination's of all different lenses ,three lenses for each camera ,my shoulders were broken and sore. Pretty funny now since everyone is into phone photos when I take out my Nikon do-it-all , all in one, and it does everything, it's my go to for everything because it can see inside the craters on the moon, people come up to me and they’re like wow that’s one of the new digitals that's a really cool camera. Nobody was ever wild about my big cameras and my big lenses they just kind of laughed and said it's way too big and it's too much work ,get a smaller camera. They were right. A Canon compact pretty much does it all too. As an avid birdwatcher I always need to have a camera that could find those little guys in the trees . Eventually I sold all that old Pentax and Ricoh stuff because I wanted to be proud of a brand that everyone understands , Florida being so multi cultural, the language barrier ofttimes made it difficult to explain my choice of brand, although I loved Ricoh and Pentax , the glass is great, and my results were fabulous , I got tired of people saying uh I don't know what that is, ah a Canon or Nikon Canon or Nikon Canon or Nikon Canon or Nikon so I shoot Canon and Nikon. My number one choice of professional camera now is a Canon EOS camera which is fabulous . I love it. I get unbelievable results and I'm proud to say I shoot Canon and Nikon.
I have gone through so many phases over the years with expensively priced lenses.
I shot my fisheye everywhere I went ,but the problem with that is, it only impressed other professionals and not my average everyday clients who want head shots taken ,who want nice pictures of their puppy dog & their children. They didn't give a crap about fancy expensive lenses and fancy techniques and artistic effects they just wanted really good photos taken by a really good professional. I abandoned those lenses. I don't shoot them anymore. I sold them and moved on to Canon EOS cameras. I still shoot my Nikon all-in-one. I take it everywhere on the weekend ‘cause the weekend always involves bird-watching ,telephoto photos of bridges from miles away ,sailboats in the distance, critters big and small and macros , candid people watching , and stuff I don't want to get too close to ,yikes, fire, water , high voltage, snakes , wild animals. As a professional in Florida those are my daily challenges when I'm out in the field with friends, family ,customers, friends’ customers .What they expect of me is to be able to do everything all the time and carrying every camera just doesn't work. What they want from me is to be totally mobile that's the Florida lifestyle.
I can't bring my camera bag with cameras thinking which lenses I'm going to use for which situation and justify to my customers, clients ,friends and friend's customers why I'm using them. I need to be quick and get it done so in the field quite often my go to camera has to be and will always be an all-in-one, especially on weekends. Even at a professional photo shoot where I'm shooting one of my Canon EOS cameras someone always has to say hey can you do one of those special effect things you know like that uh you know where you just like make the dress red everything's black-and-white then my go to camera is back to my all in one Canon or Nikon and Canon and Nikon all in ones cameras are amazing ,amazing cameras with amazing results, especially if an amazing professional photographer is shooting them, and they do a pretty good job for average consumers too, but the more professional you are ,the more professional your photos will look, then it will show in your work ,so as a professional my number one choice of cameras is Canon EOS and I back him up with my Canon and Nikon all in ones and Canon compacts.
Don't ask me about megapixels. I've been shooting since long before megapixels existed .So hey you know I remember shooting a one megapixel camera ,a 3 or 4 megapixel camera ,8 megapixels ,10/12/18/24/26 blah blah blah blah blah. It’s all about professional experience. With professional experience you can shoot any camera in a professional way and an amateur with a 40 mega-pixel camera will always be an amateur no matter what camera they shoot.
I get so many compliments over the professional results of my old 8 megapixel shots and my three & four megapixel shots. That happens because a professional shot them. That's the way it is.
I must say my go-to often is in the 18 megapixel range.
Too many megapixels can actually confused the viewer's eye and are more difficult to photo-shop. That's a fact.
I have to say that my advice about megapixels comes from my experience with film.
I would not advise a young amateur to abandon the latest hottest mega mega-pixel cameras because hobbyists, average consumers , amateurs and pros need the instantaneous results to capture every second of private life, precious memories and vacations too. Sometimes , ofttimes a professional eye is unnecessary , especially to catch hubby doing the dishes in his pj's and baby with food smeared all over. I don't sell cameras or instantaneous results. I love instant as much as any consumer. I chase the dog around with my camera all weekend and get a lot of bad blurry shots, the same as any consumer. A camera is better than a phone for chasing the dog around.
Although ,that's not how you learn. If you really truly want to learn ,you have to learn from shooting film because there are no instant results. You have to train your eye, your brain, your mind ,your body ,everything ,your whole being, to see ,without seeing the result ,to learn what the result will be without seeing it .That’s shooting film.
You can shoot manual and learn quite well , getting an idea of the film experience,
now ,in the digital age.
I don't recommend the expense, pain and suffering of waiting for the film to develop, unless you are in school. You can torture yourself really good with shooting in manual mode and eventually you will lean to love it. You may prefer it to instantaneous modes, because you thought it through and made it yourself.
Don't discredit auto mode,program mode and special effects, they can teach you, how to set those manual settings. Look at what the readings were and then try it on manual yourself.
When you shoot film you have to know ,instinctively know what result you're going to get from your ISO, F stop and shutter speed there's no looking at it ,there's no judging it, there is light metering and there's eyeballing it and there's knowing knowing knowing that your shot is going to be right, ‘cause you're not going to see them ‘till the film gets developed.
Hello, a professional with that kind of experience can shoot any camera professionally.
As for how phone photos go ,yeah I carry my phone and iPad (it's flat) and I often leave cameras at home because I have my phone and a phone is great for a shooting your nacho platter in a restaurant on Friday night, looks yummy, and sand & wind at the beach is bad for camera lenses mechanisms. I have to admit there have been times when I didn't have time to go and grab a camera and my phone was there and I had a vision, I saw something, I saw a shot, I saw an amazing shot that I had to have and I did shoot it with my phone camera and yes it was amazing because I was in the frame of mind of a professional and I shot it ,yes,I do shoot phone ,Samsung Android phone.
I've only seen and handled a Hasselblad once, never owned one and an amateur behind a Hasselblad is still an amateur behind the Hasselblad. A true artist and professional, a visionary behind an android phone or iPad , is still a true artist professional and visionary.
