To Take Great Photographs, Do You Really Need A Very High-powered Camera?
September 8th, 2009 | 
Author: I’m planning on being a photographer when I grow up. The camera I am saving up to get right now is an Olympus Stylus 1030 SW. It can be seen at this site: http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1363
I am just wondering to be a professional, do I need a high-powered camera like this: http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1393
Is there really any difference in how beautiful or clear the photographs are?
Posted in digital photography | 
Tags: Camera, Great, Highpowered, Need, Photographs, Really, Take, Very
A good camera makes getting images easier. It takes a person with knowledge to make a great photograph.
what matters in photography is who’s behind the camera. you can give a $10 000 camera to an amateur, and his images would probably look half as good as ansel adams with a camera phone (if they existed then).
there is definitely a difference in how clear the photos are, but now how beautiful they are. ‘high-powered cameras’ – call them high-end cameras – produce better quality images and allow you to manually correct exposures, but you need a good photographer operating it.
i think you should go for a canon compact instead of the olympus. canon produces really good compacts (the powershot range) with reasonable prices. the olympus you mentioned is a little pricey.
The key to good photography really starts with bridging your fundamental understanding of the science of photography with art and design concepts. Photography as you know relies heavily on equiptment and most critically your knowledge of how to use it to get what you want. So a cheap camera in the hands of a professional would most likely be able to create more dynamic and interesting images than say an amateur with a top of the line professional camera like say a Hasselblad H3 with a new 60megapixel phase one back which will set one back near $50,000. So my suggestion is to first save for a good intro to photography book, learn more about photography, including what kind of equiptment suits the style of photography you wish to produce. Otherwise you may regret buying this particular camera, which by the way is fine for snapshots, but for more robust shooting consider something else.
You don’t say how old you are, but unless you are very careless and hard on things, why are you spending all that money on a camera that you can’t really learn much on? The 1030 is okay if you are planning on taking it underwater, or throwing it around, but otherwise, the other camera will give you something to grow into. It isn’t a high end camera, it just has a longer zoom. The second one has features that the 1030 doesn’t have. It has Image Stabilization, a viewfinder and you can manually set the aperture and shutter speed. It is bigger, but then it does a lot more.
You can compare the two here— http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_…
If you are stll very young, but take good care of your possessions and will always use the wrist strap when the camera is out of it’s bag, then consider the Canon Powershot A590IS. Good camera to learn on, and about half the price of these two cameras. Maybe a little less than that.
Taking great photographs is more in the lens than the camera. The better the lens the better the photo.