Photographers are split into two groups: those who swear by their gear and upgrade to the latest of everything all the time, and those who say that gear doesn’t matter. I used to be in the first group, I’m now in the second.
To prove my point, I got my hands on a lot of old Canon 40Ds for 8€ each. Canon released it in 2007. So these are nearly 20 years old. These have had a hard long lives (200K+ clicks, bits broken, rubber plugs broken or perished). But they allegedly worked, so I wanted to test them because I have plans for them (that will involve “deconstruction”).
Warning: big photo dump.
At the weekend, I went round a nearby town (where I was born, actually) to take some photos to test whether they worked. I knew from the start that I’d hit limitations I’m not used to anymore: limited dynamic range, noise, limited sensibility of the sensor. I used to use mostly a 350D at the time, so I just needed to remember how I operated then.
The most taxing was changing the ISO all the time. I used to hate automatic ISO and never used it before I got a 6D about 4 years ago, but I really got used to it. With the 40Ds, auto ISO was nonsense (400 by default, 800 if the sensor was really struggling, that’s it). So for each shot, you had to choose aperture, keep an eye on shutter speed (I normally shoot aperture priority on DLSRs), and then adjust ISO, remembering that the sensor was garbage above 800. But the point was to test and see if I was right in saying that gear didn’t matter.
To match my style, I switched to monochrome, cranked up the contrast to the maximum, selected the digital red filter, and disabled high ISO noise reduction. I couldn’t select square format because the camera doesn’t do it, so most of the photos will be 3:2.
Finally, I picked the Canon EF-S 24mm f/2 lens to have a fairly wide angle view (about 38mm FF), and a very small pancake lens. I wanted to be discreet. The lens isn’t good, it’s painfully soft wide open, but in the street I nearly always shoot f/16, so it doesn’t matter.
It was fairly sunny, so the contrast in the street was strong. Which I like, but I was expecting the camera to struggle a little bit in the dark areas. I remember the 350D to band badly in high contrast scenes.
Overall, it did quite well. The shadows were deep, but that was the result of red filter + high contrast setting.
You find random things in the streets.
It’s Christmas soon, so I took a couple of photos to show it.
The streets had Christmas displays. These poor reindeers have a lost a lot of their “fur”.
The town is the European capital of comic books (with Comicon cancelled next year amid allegations of sexism). So there are things to remind you of it everywhere. Even where you wouldn’t expect it like on this gas distribution cupboard.
Walking in the streets, I found a Quick. It’s a Belgian fast food place like McDonald’s. I used to have lunch there a lot when I was at engineering school in the early 90s.
Even though it’s now mid-December, it doesn’t feel like winter here. We still have temperatures in the upper teens (I was walking in a t-shirt).
I loved the texture and contrast here.
I felt weird going back to 3:2 composition. I have shot square so much in the last 6 months, I have to make an effort to see vertical frames now.
Having a picnic on a bench on top of the remparts.
To cover all the bases, I took a few indoor photos too while we were having lunch.
This one was a mistake because I went in f/16, ISO 800, and the exposure time was several seconds. I gave up before the end of the exposure and started putting the camera down before I heard the mirror come back down. But looking at it, I really like the effect.
We also went to an indoor market to test in real life dark conditions.
Again, the 40D did quite well.
It did better outdoors, of course. Oops I’m at the bottom of the frame.
Then to push it even harder, we visited the local Roman cathedral.
The red filter did wonders at the right angle to the sun. Nearly like a polariser.
Inside, the struggle with the slow sensor started. It was hard to dial down the aperture enough to have good depth in low light.
Is it optimism to have hundreds of chairs?
Walking around I decided to go for some details so that I could open the aperture a bit. But even then it was hard work.
As soon as I went wider again, keeping the camera steady without stabilisation was difficult.
In the nativity scene (minus baby Jesus who isn’t born yet), we can see some banding on the fabric and steps.
Catholic cathedral = confessional
Inside the confessional. I didn’t know they were showing the priest’s name on it.
Finally some more light on the door while going back out into the street.
Overall, the camera did pretty well for a 20 year old DSLR. It clearly had limitations compared to a modern one and I had to work around them. But it was perfectly usable. And for 8€, it’s not a great investment.
So does gear matter? Yes in that it will restrict how you can do it things. But no, you can still do everything you like, you just have to think about it a bit more than usual. I’ll still maintain that even in the DSLR world, gear doesn’t matter. Get anything you like and just take photos.
#Photography #Opinion #IMayBeWrong #Gear #Christmas