Steve Perry Loc: Sylvania, Ohio

The technical and artistic side of photography are two halves that come together to create a successful image. If I had a dime for every beautifully composed image I've seen that was ruined by not understanding a technical aspect of the camera (how your meter works, how your AF system works, etc), I could retire to a multimillion dollar mansion in the Bahamas. At the same time, a photographer who understands how everything works and can leverage the technical aspects, but lacks vision, will only produce snapshots.

Having an understanding of both gives the best results. In the end, you don't want a lack of technical understanding to make you lose a once-in-a-lifetime image.

IBM

Not so. Composition content can be the most pile of crap you ever want to see , then in another shape and form it can be a winning photograph, I have seen them , pavement water sunlight pebbles fog sky , the content is nothing ,tell it gets to be a
Composition

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

LOL... If you compose well and correctly expose with good lighting I don't think that tech is needed beyond that, the problem for many of us is that we rarely get it all perfect. An image can be a technical mess but if it conveys feeling and emotion it will probably rank among your top pics of the year.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Not much is needed beyond that if you are shooting stationary subjects. If you want to shoot moving subjects, there is a whole other world of focus tech to figure out.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

How do you define "Tech"?

One could make outstanding photographs using nothing other than Mathew Brady style wet-plate photography. It would be a lot of work, and require olde-tyme tech technique, but no new tech.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Yes, maybe we need to define that.
The difference between old fashioned photography knowledge as it has always existed like sunny 16 as opposed to the Tech we have to day, like focus systems or Ai-servo vs something else!
SS

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Well that is different, I shoot a lot of macro and BIF also, personally for macro I go old school, a fifty year old lens reversed on a set of M42 tubes with manual flash, and manual exposure in the camera. I guess that were I not shooting with a new DSLR then I could not review my first images for exposure and that would be a problem but beyond that it is pretty much old school. As far as BIF? Most of us would not even attempt it without a good AI-servo system in our cameras and the ability to shoot at a high ISO setting. ISO performance is a big reason that I got rid of my crop cameras, I would rather have to crop tighter than to fight all the noise that occurs when pushing a crop camera to its limit. Instant review is one thing that the DSLR's have changed for us and I think that it helps photographers at all levels. Not having to keep a note book of settings used for each exposure is another plus of the digital age, now we just do a quick review of our images as we are taking them and later if need be we can look up exif data if we care to review the details of a shot.

pmorin Loc: Huntington Beach, Palm Springs

(Feel free to post some pics to show your position. How you feel knowledge of tech helped your image!
SS)

I do not have any photos from shooting in auto, but perhaps this one will make my point. I could not have gotten this shot without knowing at least the basics of exposure, light and composition. And even then I was limited because of where the subject was. I also could have shot it in auto and the camera probably would have rendered a decent photo. But I had to adjust for contrast between the dark and the white just a bit so I could get some detail from the white feathers.
So after getting what appears on the lcd in hard sunlight to be a great shot, when you put it up on the big screen you see all the problems. I did a simple light and color adjustment to fix the white feather areas and this is what came out. Basic tech work, but tech nonetheless. Could it be better? Well hell yeah, that’s why I shoot RAW/JPG. And someday when I quit dawdling and get around to learning a pp program, ( affinity) the shot will be good enough to hang in my bathroom.
First one is SOOC. 2nd is with adjustments.

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martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

I Understand the exposure triangle, my camera functions, and shoot in JPEG.. Oh, less talk and more practice, practice, practice........Is that technical enough??

LarryFB Loc: Depends where our RV is parked

My experience in photography started close to 60 years ago with a Petri F/1.9 rangefinder camera, it progressed in the early 70's to a Minolta SRT-101, after several other Minoltas and my retirement to be a full time RVer, I digressed to a bridge camera. In 2013 we were work camping at the Salton Sea in California at the State Recreation Area. I discovered that my bridge camera was not giving me what I wanted. So I purchased a Nikon D5100 kit from Costco. WOW, what a huge difference.

My knowledge of photography with film and SLRs was certainly worthwhile. BUT, I find many of the features of my D5100 are not used. I've experimented with some of the "scene modes" and found them useless. It seems like I always go back to what i learned with film and I am more successful with that approach. BUT, now I dont need a motor drive, it's built into the camera. I am not bound to whatever ISO (ASA if you prefer) of the film I loaded in the camera. I am no longer restricted by the number of shots I take.

I usually ignore the threads that talk about jpeg vs. raw, auto vs. semi auto, verses manual, the all have their place, it just depends on the circumstances.

The bottom line is, use the technology for your advantage, don't use it as a crutch. Learn the basics (which have not changed in at least 60 years)! Learn what technology can do for you (both your camera and post processing) but don't let it create issues. I believe that you should do your best to get the shot (composition, exposure, etc. the best possible STRAIGHT OUT OF THE DAMN CAMERA and that's shooting RAW or JPEG, and there is a difference between the two.

In short, technology has given us many new options; however, the basics have not changed!

Haydon

Funny when Art Wolfe holds his lectures/workshops he specifically avoids technical questions/settings and openly admits that it's his eye that makes images and not the guts inside the camera with the latest features/gimmicks.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

Agree!!!

tdekany Loc: Oregon

Unless you are the pilot. You better know the airplane inside and out. Now if you hire a photographer to take pictures for you, you are correct. You don’t need to know the technical stuff. But if you are the operator, you should know at least the basics. Aperture, iso, shutter speed.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Quote
"Feel free to post some pics to show your position. How you feel knowledge of tech helped your image!"
End quote

Tech knowledge definately helps.

Example #1 (dawn shoot)
Shooting straight into a dawn sunrise.
3 stop hard ND grad filter to control the contrast.
1 second exposure to give me the desired water motion caption.
Know how to read a histogram (I do lots of chimping on these shoots)
The raw file looked pretty good and only neeeded tweaking.

Example #2 (close racing)
Know how to set the camera up for focus tracking rapidly moving objects.
Dial in some exposure compensation to take care of those headlights shooting straight into the lens (or shoot full manual).
Chimping is kept to a minimum on these shoots.
Shutter speed kept low enough to just get a hint of motion in the wheels.

Example #3 (birds)
Know how to set up the camera for focus tracking
Relative wide aperture (wide open) to try and isolate the subject (a bit faster lens would have been nicer).
High shutter speed to freeze the birds.

Feel free to ask any questions.

#1 Dawn shoot

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#2 Close racing

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#3 in a suburban park

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SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Art sounds like a pretty smart guy!!! LoL
I'm tending to agree with him.
It seems he's putting more importance on the art than on the tech? Dare we call that Composition?? LoL
Much of the tech we've describe so far is really just knowledge. If it doesn't end in 1's and 0's, is it really even tech??
Early man made projectile points but did he even understand the physics of a percussion cone??? Did he need to, to make an arrow head?
As photographers we have knowledge that we apply to every shot and have done so since film but is that "TECH" in the same vein as duel pixel technology or how far apart the pixel wells are in a sensor for optimum signal to noise ratio? THAT'S tech!!!
Do we need to understand that to make better images???
SS