The Specs Photographers Used to Sweat Don’t Matter Anymore

Whenever I've photographed weddings, world events, landscapes, or anything else, it's not been uncommon for other photographers to come up and start a chat about gear. And as someone who's worked for a major camera company and taught photography for almost two decades, I've always been happy to engage in talks about megapixels, autofocus, and dynamic range.

But then the other day, when photographing the 9/11 Tribute in Light in New York City, it happened, and it hit me: I don't really think about this stuff anymore. I haven't for a long time.

The photo above from just this past Sept. 11 (well, 12th by the time this frame was made) was shot with a Canon EOS R5 and the RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS USM Lens, a camera body that was released in 2020 and a lens that was released in 2019. Not old by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly, in digital camera years, six or seven years can be considered long in the tooth.

While I had the camera on a tripod, taking in the gravity of the tribute and the 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the city, a man with a Sony a7R V walked up to me and started asking me what I was shooting with. When I answered with Canon, he started talking to me about how much better Sony is at most things. There was some talk of sensors, global shutters, autofocus, etc. in there. All the while, I really wanted to get back to my photography, as there were several times in the night when the lights would go out for 20 minutes and I'd have to wait for my next chance to come back. I was relieved when he walked to another section of Brooklyn Bridge Park that he hoped would be better than where we were.

It got me thinking, though. I've used every Canon R-system camera from the EOS R50 all the way through the R3, and while of course there are differences in controls, weather sealing, etc., ultimately, the two most fundamentally important things, autofocus and image quality, are fundamentally the same. Sure, the R3 definitely focuses faster, as its $4,400 price would suggest, but I haven't exactly been missing when I shoot fast action with my R5/R6 II either. I couldn't recall the megapixels on each of these cameras either, but I know that all of them are enough.

Ten years ago, I made pictures of the same Tribute with much "lesser" gear:

I can't say that, to my eye, this picture is better or worse than what I got this year. And while autofocus is certainly better in the mirrorless age, the D750 and other cameras of the day ("the day" being 2014, when the D750 was released) were certainly better than even the high-end professional cameras of a decade before.

But for the sake of argument, here's another Tribute in Light, photographed five years earlier in 2011 with a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, a 2009 release with an APS-H (1.3x crop) sensor and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens:

While I can certainly see that over the years my skill level increased, the quality of the camera has more or less stayed about the same, give or take some megapixels.

Which brings me back to my original point. While specialized photographers may need the most cutting-edge, boundary-pushing gear, most generalist photographers, myself included, could do a lot better shooting with what they've got rather than chasing megapixels. There hasn't been a bad camera made in the better part of a decade, and more important than debating gear is to shoot with it.

Is that a hot take? Maybe, but if you think so, or don't, leave your thoughts in the comments below.