Steve Losh

Yesterday my new camera, a Pentax K20D, arrived in the mail. I've been wanting it for a while and now that it's here and I've had a chance to try it out a bit I though I'd write something about it.

A lot of people seem to think that getting a fancy, expensive digital camera will automatically make you take wonderful photos. This is very far from the truth. You wouldn't expect to be able to create wonderful drawings just by picking up expensive pencils, would you? Ken Rockwell does a great job of tackling this question in his article Your Camera Doesn't Matter which sums up everything nicely.

One thing in the article that's easy to miss is where he explains why good artists do use the fancy, expensive tools if they really don't matter. I'll quote the section here:

So why do the artists whose works you admire tend to use fancy, expensive tools if the quality of the work is the same? Simple:

1.) Good tools just get out of the way and make it easier to get the results you want. Lesser tools may take more work.
2.) They add durability for people who use these tools hard all day, every day.
3.) Advanced users may find some of the minor extra features convenient. These conveniences make the photographer's life easier, but they don't make the photos any better.
4.) Hey, there's nothing wrong with the best tools, and if you have the money to blow why not? Just don't ever start thinking that the fancy tools are what created the work.

I think this is an important point. The camera does matter, just not in the way most people think it does. You don't see carpenters hammering nails into boards with rocks. Sure, a rock would work but instead they use nice hammers that are durable and comfortable to use because it lets them worry less about how to work with the tools and more about what they're creating. I think the same can be said for cameras and photographers.

So back to the K20D; why did I upgrade? Yes, the increased resolution is nice (14 megapixels instead of 6). I'll be able to print much larger photos with more detail now than I used to be able to, which is good.

Resolution isn't the only reason though. The K20D is weathersealed which means that I can take pictures in the rain now. There have been a few times in the past where I could have really used a weatherproof camera so I'm excited about finally having one. It's also much more durable in general. I'm generally pretty careful with my photo equipment but more durability never hurts.

Another big reason I upgraded is having more controls on the outside of the camera as opposed to having to dig through menus to find them. Less fiddling with the camera menus means more time actually taking photos and less missed opportunities, which are definitely good things.

If there's one area I'm not careful enough in with respect to treating my equipment gently, it's dust. I change lenses fairly often and I'm not always super careful about avoiding sensor dust. The K20D's dust reduction system means I'll have to clean the sensor a lot less which will be really nice.

To summarize: a nice camera won't magically make nice pictures but it will get out of the way and let you create great photos if you're capable of it. That's the part I'm still working on.