Why your camera could be any camera to anyone who sees your images

We all love our photography, and we constantly upgrade and strive to the best at what we do. For many of us, both professionally and as amateurs, image quality is paramount, and we expect the best with the money we pay for our equipment. However, although you and I may want the best, the reality of the matter is that probably most of your audience will not notice, or even care about your equipment, and they certainly won’t see the image quality that you’ve strived to achieve.

Reasons (Part One)
We spend time in front of our high quality monitors on our PCs and laptops. These are nice large displays, usually tailored towards getting the most from the image quality provided by your camera. Often we calibrate our screens, edit the images in certain light conditions, and we have time and patience to look at every detail of our image.

Now take your audience into consideration, regardless if you’re posting on social media or they are visiting your website.

* The vast majority of your audience will be viewing on their mobile phone screen. A screen around 6″, where your image will take up a small part, especially if you’re showing an image taken in landscape orientation.
* They will usually be flicking through the media, so your image will be seen for a second or so. If it really stands out, they may take a couple more seconds to view it, but that is it.
* They won’t be in optimal conditions, often viewing your images in bad light while out and about, or in direct sunlight, or the screen is too light or too dark.
* Every screen is different, with people using LCD, OLED and other screens, all with different saturations, hues, contrast etc.

As you can see, and now you’ve thought about it, these people have no chance in hell of knowing if you used a 20 year old CCD camera or the latest 61MP high tech beast with all those variables on such a small screen.

Also take into consideration that the largest part of your audience have little to no interest in actual photography and just enjoy seeing photos! That makes your camera even less relevant to your audience.

Reasons (Part Two)
We have talked about a typical audience in 2024 who will view your images, however, there is another audience that is significantly less, but usually more appreciative of your images.

Images printed on photo paper (6×4, 7×5 etc) or as prints hanging on your wall or images in a book tend, buy their nature, to get a much higher viewing time than digital images for a number of reasons.

There is a number of reasons why these images are viewed longer.

* Firstly for images that are not on the wall, you have to handle those images, by picking up a photograph, or turning the page. Your eyes wander more, as you can touch, move and “smell” the images in a way that digital photography just doesn’t offer.
* When an image is hanging on the wall, it asks for you to come near it and study it. By the nature, hung photos are usually much larger than a digital screen, so your eyes wander and discover more
* Printed images just feel more authentic, with a much more analogue look to them.

Of course, with printed images, you’ll be looking at them whenever you want, for many years to come. Unlike your digital library which will probably disappear long before even you do!

Why your camera could be any camera to anyone who sees your images
Based on what we’ve learned through recapping this blog, or the fact that you already know this, there is no way that anyone will know what camera you use when they see your images online, and have the same chance of knowing what you used when viewed in print.

In this day and age, even for weddings and events, chances are your clients will want digital images and will be looking at them on devices mentioned in Reasons (Part One).

You buy and use your camera for YOU and no-one else. You have that image quality for YOU and no-one else. The chances of anyone knowing what camera your are using, is absolutely tiny, and the chances are, they’ll know what camera you are using through deduction more than anything else.

We are generally gullible idiots in the photography world when we think we’re buying our equipment to impress others with better image quality. We’re buying it for ourselves, and we need to remind ourselves that.

Your composition, your subject, and most importantly your lighting are what others see and notice. It doesn’t matter what it’s captured on, once your image has been shrunk to appease the digital audience, nothing else matters. No the sharpness of the lens, not the megapixels, not the fact you edited a raw file or jpeg file… nothing.

Conclusion
In the decades of photography that I’ve done, both paid and unpaid work, it’s only really in these recent times that cameras now are so good, that it really doesn’t matter what camera you have. But in the face of that technological leap, photographs are in people’s lives much more because of the digital age we live. There are not many people who sit and take notice of your images, and certainly not to a degree where they will study and look at your image for the things that you, as a photographer, one your editing screen, will look for.

By all means, buy the best camera you want. By all means buy the sharpest lenses you can. But, most importantly remember that in most situations, for most people, even owning all this, no-one will be able to tell if you shot an image on a 20 year old camera or the most modern camera. The majority of the people won’t even know the difference between a mobile phone camera and a modern mirrorless camera.

So just enjoy your camera for you. Make beautiful images by following the light, finding the subject and creating a composition. That will give you an amazing starting point to decide if you’re going to edit your image and then share in the knowledge that your equipment has served you well.