Step Right Up, Step Right Up Folks...Get Your Fancy Camera Right Here

So I'm surfing around tonight on a few new websites I read about in the newspaper today and I ran across Far Beyond the Stars. The author, Everett Bogue, writes and promotes minimalist living. (He used to work for New York Magazine.) 

As is typical with me I was trying to do several things at once, so I didn't make it past the front page of the website tonight, but a one-liner in a recent article caught my eye:

Nikon and Canon want you to believe that you’ll be a famous photographer if you just buy one more camera lens.

How true this statement is.

But if  you buy a $1,200 camera and $600 lens from one of those companies, will it help you take photographs like Clyde Butcher, the well known Florida landscape photographer? Will you be the second coming of Ansel Adams?

I think I read somewhere that Mr. Butcher uses a camera that hasn't been popular with mainstream professional photographers since sometime around the 1930's, but would anyone argue with me when I say that there hasn't been a landscape photographer since Ansel Adams that takes comparable pictures? O.k. maybe some would argue, but hopefully I've made my point.  It's not the camera, it's the craft, artistry, skill, dedication, and perserverance of the person behind the view finder.

And just for fun, can you pick out which of the following photos was taken with a Canon and which one was taken with a Nikon?

A.

B.

Give up yet? 

Let's try one more.

C.

Was A. the Canon? Or was it B.? Was C. the Nikon?

Give up?

D. Sony - With an inexpensive $180 lens.  All of the Above.