What is your constraint? You or your equipment?

If you consider the quality of your photographs at present and your aspirations to improve, what is the most critical shortcoming standing in your way? Look at your favorite photographs and ask yourself what made them special. Do the same for photos taken by others.

Time - are you spending enough time, taking enough photos, experiencing enough situations that you are improving at the pace you desire? Do you review your photos to learn how you could have better composed, focused or exposed them? Do you seek input from more experienced photographers, or just family and friends?

Body - are you using your current body to its full capability with regard to your needs? Is there any one thing which your body lacks which would improve your photos? Think about it's frame size, noise, resolution, FPS, size, weight, etc.

Lenses - do you typically have the lens you require for any given situation? Long enough, wide enough, fast enough? Would a different lens really make that much difference?

Post-processing - are you happy with your software, hardware and skill level? What would help you improve? More time spent learning processing or better kit?

I have observed a whole of people spend too little time learning the craft before jumping ahead to the latest and greatest equipment. I guess this is human nature.

I had a Rebel series and was very happy with it up until I started taking astrophotos, then noise immediately became an issue. This was the primary reason for a full frame upgrade. I've been very happy with the reduced noise, but less happy with huge file size and tremendous camera bulk and weight. The 5D2 is not particularly suited for travel, IMO, as it not inconspicuous and gets pretty heavy at the end of a day. Secondary reason for the upgrade was that I do quite a few bird photos and was cropping pretty heavily and thus desired improved resolution. The 5D2 is great for this, but lens length and bird stalking ability are far more important. I currently live in a dangerous city where carrying a 5D2 around is an invitation to get mugged, so I mostly just use the iPhone, which has higher resolution than my first digital camera and more on-board processing than my last laptop. Photo quality, particularly with Instagram, is appalling, but nobody seems to care since the content/message is far more important for stuff posted to Facebook.

What about you?

I can make anything I want to photograph / film work with the equipment I have without a problem. Mind you, however, that I'm not into photographing wildlife or birds or anything of that sort, but for what I want to shoot, the equipment is surely not an issue. My biggest issue is setting aside the time to do it. I just graduated and started working a full time job so I have not yet fallen into a schedule and the fact I see my camera bag laying around is killing me. However, I have written out a few short videos I want to shoot soon and am excited about those. I just have to discipline myself to get out and shoot them!!

The minute I picked up a 70-200 2.8 II I had way more keepers when shooting rugby than I had with the f4 IS version. Nothing else had changed. I know if I had a 300 2.8 IS II my shots would be even better.

Me, always me. This will probably always be true, the equipment can only do so much, then there is creativity.

For me its time but not the time in your example just finding time to do it sometimes.

I think personally for me my limiting factor is my equipment. My body only maxes out at 1600 ISO and is relatively noisy at that level. I know if I moved up to a 5DC (which I'm considering once taxes come) that I wouldn't have to deal with some the issues around low light that I do now

I'm the problem... my cameras, lenses and software are all way better than I am.
As Mr Cartier-Bresson commented, your first 10 000 photographs are your worst. I think he was exaggerating my abilities...

I'm definitely the problem. I have decent tools to chase light with, but I think I spent too much time thinking about shooting and lighting then actually doing it.

noisejammer wrote in post #15724554
I'm the problem... my cameras, lenses and software are all way better than I am.
As Mr Cartier-Bresson commented, your first 10 000 photographs are your worst. I think he was exaggerating my abilities...

That's nice, roughly 14 minutes of shooting with 1Dx and you're the master

90% of the time it's me, the rest is the equipment.

It's me. No doubt about it. Heck, my son makes better photos than I can make using just his iPhone.

The critters that hide or won't pose for me.

Tapeman wrote in post #15725053
The critters that hide or won't pose for me.

So let me paraphrase what you are saying.

"It's not me, it's not my equipment, it is my subjects that are limiting me!" - I like it!

What he said! Or me?

Tapeman wrote in post #15725053
The critters that hide or won't pose for me.

make that my kid that keeps turning his back to me...


it's a combination - me - not able to spend the time I want to.
equipment - I really really want a macro lens because macro photography is my favorite.
editing program - I'd like something a little more updated, but I don't really have the time to learn a lot of new things at this time anyway.


I"d say my biggest constraint is time!

I have more eagle & bird butt shots than I can count.