How great gear does not make great photos

I’m a photography fan and a lover of gadgets, gear, and geek toys. With the advent of digital photography – and digital SLRs in particular – photography went being from being gadget fun to geek toy heaven. In addition to the opportunity to buy an endless array of lenses came the the need to upgrade the camera body every year or two.

Now the most anti-tech camera brand of them all – Leica – has gone tech (they actually went digital with the uninteresting M8 released a couple of years ago) and they’ve finally produced a product worth talking about if not necessarily worth the price of admission. The Leica M9 is both Leica purist and modern digital camera aficionado heaven.

Leica M9

Here’s the summary:

18MP full frame sensor with no anti aliasing filter – sensor made by Kodak in the USA
Can use any Leica lens ever made – as well other M mount lenses from the likes of Zeiss
Small and light – easy to carry all day
Looks like it was designed in a bygone era – does not attract attention to the photographer the way a large digital SLR does
Exquisite attention to detail in design and manufacturing
Built like a tank – you can break one but it won’t be esay
Outrageously expensive – like all Leica’s are
It’s a rangefinder – no autofocus
Two full reviews are here
- DPReview
- Ken Rockwell Leica M9 review

But at the end of the day, photography is not about gear. In an interesting parallel to business success – photography is about being in the right place at the right time and then getting lucky. You have to put in the effort to be in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills – and some baseline level of gear – and then also get lucky. Alone, luck and great gear don’t do anything for you.

A Leica is a truly beautiful object and I wan’t one badly but as Briana R. shows here in her photo of Hotel Hana Maui what matters more than gear is being willing to get up at the crack of dawn and wait for the right opportunity. She made her own luck and also got a little bit lucky (never turn lady luck away) when the light was just right.