(From time to time I re-post stuff that I wrote elsewhere, including things from various photography forums. This is one of those posts. While I do believe it using good and appropriate photographic equipment, I do not believe in “magical gear,” whether lenses or cameras or whatever. Gear is important, but only insofar as it actually affects your ability to produce the photographs that you are working on. This particular – and lengthy! – comment was a response to a common response to those of us who don’t believe in magical gear, namely to suggest that because we don’t use it we must not understand. Enjoy!)

G Dan – just one question Have you ever shot a Leica or Contax lens on your Canon Body?”

That dismissive come-back doesn’t work, despite the fact that such a reply is often offered as if it should stop discussion in its tracks.

So, no, I have not. There are many things I have not done, however, that I don’t do because facts don’t support the wisdom of doing them, or because facts do support the wisdom of doing something else. Let me give you a photographic example. I have chosen certain specific lenses for my photography. In the process of making those decisions I investigated and considered many other lens options, almost all without actually trying them, and came to logical and intelligent decisions that led me to choose something else.

The argument that people can only have opinions about things they have actually “used” is, on its face, simply nonsense. It also is an absurdly impractical concept. I’d be willing to bet that those who offer up this gem of an argument do not follow it in the rest of your lives. For example, you might be able to offer an opinion about various political systems or countries and whether you would prefer to live in them or not, but you would be a very unusual person if you had actually lived in all of them about which you have an opinion. I’ll bet that when you purchase a car, you do not try all of the options that you dismiss before deciding that you are uninterested in them. You might admit to knowing things about places you have never visited or about which you have not made direct observations yourself. (It is cold in Antarctica. There is no oxygen on the moon. When it is night where you are, it is day on the opposite side of the planet.)

While this writing about cars and political systems and far-off places may seem like an irrelevant digression in a photography forum, it really is not. There are those who will claim certain “magical” attributes for unusual, expensive, or hard to obtain photographic equipment, often waxing poetically about the ineffable qualities of such gear. The very fact that this gear is so expensive or unusual (or sometimes simply harder to use) let’s the user persist in the claims of its wonderfulness… and dismiss any questioning of these claims as being ignorant (which is, of course, the underlying claim of your protest that I haven’t used the gear) and uninformed.

However, there are a few facts worth considering by those who would persist in this approach. First, it is well-known that those who believe that a thing should have increased value and who invest in such things quite often attribute special qualities to those things that are not objectively there, perhaps in an attempt to buttress their belief that a) they made a smart choice, b) they possess special sensitivity, and c) that they are therefore superior. In endeavors in which gear plays a role (photography, cars, audio, etc.) such people may build up their sense of personal value and importance by focusing on the perception that the tools prove their superiority: the $20,000 sound system produces ephemeral music, the $100,000 car makes one a better driver, the expensive and rare lens makes them better photographers. However, in none of these cases is there any connection between the expense and the quality of the work. No stereo system will even sound as good a symphony orchestra; BWM drivers are no more skillful than Ford drivers, and those who shoot with very old and odd lenses do not produce better photographs than those who use more prosaic gear.

Second, perhaps like me, you actually know and occasionally work with some of the folks who are among those acknowledged to be the “best” and most admired and successful photographers in various genres. And perhaps you have noticed that quite a few of them – most, actually – do not use the so-called classic and unusual sorts of gear that some here want to promote. In fact, most of them regard lenses and cameras as basic tools rather than as objects of art or things that impart magic to their work. Yes, they use good quality gear. No, it often is not the most expensive stuff. And, no, it is very, very rarely the stuff that some gear heads dream about. It is almost always relatively everyday examples of good gear from mainline manufacturers. Truth be told, when such people get together they may talk about gear – a bit – but it is usually not the main topic. (Want to irritate a photographer? Walk up to him/her and start asking gear questions or, worse yet, pontificating about this or that lens or camera. Yuck!) When the topic does come up, it usually leads to some simple and objective discussion about some aspects of the functionality of the equipment. Or, not infrequently, it leads to a bit of head-shaking and laughing about those who focus on gear a lot and photography itself very little or, to put it more bluntly, obsess about gear rather than photographs. (If you haven’t already see this, you should.)

I am utterly confident that we could hang work done with Leica, Canon, Nikon, and a range of other gear in an exhibit and no one would be able to categorize the work based on the brand or model of lens used. Of all the things that have relevance to photography and the power of photographs, this business is close to the very least important.