A statement I found interesting on current digital photography basics and more (posted by Siegecube in the Slashdot discussion here.)

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OK, some basics about (digital) photography from a working professional photographer (not advanced amateur, not EX-professional, not wannabe professional, but a real-life I-pay-all-my-bills-by-taking-pictures professional)

1. Image quality will be determined by the combination of how many pixels you capture (megapixel count/resolution) and the size of those pixels (sensor size/photosite size), with the weight of the influence going to the photosite size. Thus, resolution being equal between two cameras, the camera with the larger sensor size will give you higher quality captures.

2. Garbage In, Garbage Out applies to cameras too. This should be obvious. Make sure your lens is able to capture all the data you want to feed to your sensor. If you have a full-frame, 24x36mm 11mp Canon 1Ds (the current professional favorite, myself included), you are wasting it's resolution by putting a cheap lens on it. I've noticed, in fact, that even the highest-quality lenses tend to be unable to deliver enough detail to this stunning sensor, so a cheapo lens is going to f*ck you.

3. For professional use, film is now dead. Game over. I've done the head-to-head comparisons. I own medium and large-format cameras. I own a high-end drumscanner. I own a large-format printer. I've compared the quality from my previous breadwinning equipment (medium format film scanned by drumscanner) to my current breadwinning equipment (full-frame digital Canon 1Ds) and the digital kicks film ass. That's why it's my current breadwinner.

Seriously, I had 4x6 foot prints made (notice I said FEET, not INCHES) from drum-scanned 6x7cm transparencies, and from 11mp Canon 1Ds captures, and my own lab couldn't tell the difference. Bye-bye film. And the $10,000 price tag was paid for in film/processing savings before I even got the credit card bill. (for more about how cost affects quality, see below, #5)

4. The best camera for you is all about what you intend to do with it. A camera is just a tool. Pick the right one for the job. Because of this, most professionals have, on average, more than 3 different camera systems. So, decide what you want the camera for, and the rest of the decisions about it's suitability get easy.

The most important factor is usually not sheer resolution and image quality. It's about usability of design and ease of handling. If it were all about resolution then most photographers would be using 8x10-inch view cameras. But we realize that a stunning, mega-high-resolution image is useless if the important moment we wanted to capture was missed due to slow camera operation.

That's why most pros use medium format or 35mm, and most ams use point'n'shoots.

So, pick a camera that feels good, is understandable to operate, and doesn't get in your way. After these criteria are satisfied THEN you look at resolution/sensor size.

5. The single most important equation for making better photographs is (forethought x volume of action). In other words, think about what you want to achieve with your images, then shoot as much as you can, and hone your results. This is really where digital capture shifts paradigms. Once you go digital, ANY digital, your visual experiments cost you nothing.

With film, every time you want to try something new, you are still paying for film and processing (even if you own your own darkroom). This means, effectively, that film and processing are an economic tax on your creative growth.

So, as long as you stay focused on what you want to achieve (rather then just shooting because you can), buying ANY decent digital camera will yield you better results then sticking with film, and it's use tax.

Class dismissed.

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