Sports photography is one of the most demanding genres when it comes to the gear you use. So what happens when you invite two pro sports photographers to a skate park, take away their DSLRs, and give them a couple of 0.3MP kiddy action cams instead? Let's find out!
Editor's Note: There is a bit of strong and suggestive language used in a few of the scenes.
The Pro Photog Cheap Camera Challenge is one of our favorite segments that the folks over at DigitalRev put together. Beyond just proving the point that it's the photographer, and not the camera, that makes great pictures, the episodes are fun to watch and often very educational.
In the past they've put everyone from David Hobby to Vincent Laforet to the test, but this time they decided to up the ante. The victim this time around is world-class cinematographer Phillip Bloom, who will be embarking on this challenge with a not-so-capable Barbie camera in tow.
In their most recent "Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera" challenge, DigitalRev managed to get world-renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent Laforet to participate. Known best, perhaps, for his tilt-shift work, Laforet was asked to trade in his 1D X and 45mm tilt-shift lens for a Canon A2e and Lensbaby composer.
The idea that the camera doesn't make the photographer is, most will agree, a sufficiently dead and overly beaten horse of a subject. It's nice, however, to actually see the concept in action and taken to an extreme. Of course you could give an enthusiast a several thousand dollar camera and see what effect it has, but the people over at DigitalRev take the opposite approach: they give a crappy camera to a pro photographer.