I was shooting a Babe Ruth League baseball game a few of weeks ago and a parent friend of mine came up to me with her brand new DSLR camera. She had been using an entry level DSLR for a couple of years and she thought it was time to invest in a newer more up-to-date body. I asked her how she liked her new camera and she told me that most of her photos weren’t much better than what she was getting with her old camera and that she was a little disappointed.

Over the years she had purchased several photos from me and she thought because she bought this new camera that her photos would look more like mine. I noticed that the camera was sporting a kit lens (a lower cost lens sometimes sold with new cameras). I asked her about the lens and she said she bought it because it was cheaper and allowed her to also purchase another zoom lens with longer reach. The money she spent on these two inferior lenses would have been better applied to the cost of one good lens.

To greatly increase the quality of photos, invest in good glass and not camera bodies.

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I mentioned earlier that I was going to be attending Photoshop World in Las Vegas.

Well, I went down there yesterday and it sum it up…I was a little bummed. I strolled thru the Expo and it didn’t take very long. I brought my camera, bu failed to find anything picture worthy. I was surprised at how small it was. It took up one corner of one convention hall at the Mandalay Bay. I think one of the big draws for conventions in the past were the good deals that some distributors would offer. But, with the internet, that is now obsolete. I could match any of the prices they had there online at any time.

The big names were there. Peachpit, Canon, Adobe, Epson, etc. But, the booths seemed to entail little effort. Maybe everyone is focusing on Photokina 2006.

I will say this though. They did have few theaters set up with people giving demonstrations. The man showing Portrait Tips in Photoshop was really good. Microsoft was giving a preview of Vista but there were only two people watching that demonstration. The whole place was swarming with Powerbooks and iMacs.