Do you suffer with GAS?

[postcardcv]

Originally Posted by plugsnpixels

Normally you hear about GAS with guitar players (who suffer in exactly the same way as photographers and even computer users).

It's always tempting to seek out something new, and this might be a legit approach if you're doing photography (or music or computer work) professionally and need to keep up for the sake of delivering results to the client in a competitive manner.

But if you're shooting for fun, I suspect there is no need to chase the wind with your wallet open.

For example, here is an image upon which I added some artsy effects. What gear did I take it with, and when? If you can't tell, it proves my point.

I think that all that photo shows is how you can use digital effects to give an image a particular look, it is not about the photography but about the processing. That said it is amazing just how good some compacts and mobile phone cameras have become, what they do lack is the control of DoF that you can get with a DSLR and a fast lens. That is probably why I always find some new toy to buy!

[plugsnpixels]

postcardcv, true, the effects are obvious. I was having fun with a 1999 1-megapixel image ;-)

The point being, even a "crappy" source can serve as the basis for further work.

As for DoF, that too can be effectively added in post to a flat image, as you probably know.

[sassan]

Yes and I am no stranger to those days myself. In fact I still very well remember my very first digital camera, an Olympus PnS with a dedicated Olympus funny memory card, called "Smart memory" and had the capacity of 8 MegaByte, still I could and did make a lot of nice images with it. The only wish of the day was to have one of those dream 32 Mb or at least 16Mb memory cards!
Having said that, two important points:
1- The availability of capable post processing softwares and Apps, when mostly are readily available on line and are provided free. No wonder you can see tones of art work in sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Instagram etc that are mostly made by photographers that their photography knowledge is limited to knowing which bottom to push, to make the image and not to forget to ask for "Cheers"...
2- Low rez images before or after post processing will look nice on web (When the longest axis of picture is generally less than a 1000 pixel), however print them, even at post card size & you will see the difference.

The bottom line, Pictures are made by man or woman behind the camera, not the tools itself that though can facilitate the process, are not the final words, even at the highest price tag.

[Peter Waites]

Now all I've got to do is learn to use it. And then learn photography . Job for life.