[URL="http://dpnow.com/forum2/blog.php?b=283"]Yesterday[/URL] I reflected on the huge advances in camera power over the last few decades but ended up implying that using a very simple camera doesn't mean you can't take great pictures with it. If you have talent and determination and your camera isn't faulty, you will sooner or later be able to produce great images no matter how simple the camera.

But we all have different levels of talent and having a powerful camera can help most of us to create better photos - I certainly believe this. For some of us the increase in camera sophistication has been an evolutionary thing over time. That's certainly been the case for me since I first started taking photos seriously in my teens back in the 1970s. For others the experience has been a bit more in your face and recent. How many have been content with family snaps taken on a simpley point and shoot camera and then a spark of interest has heralded a more serious attitude towards photography, eventually culminating in the purchase of a much more sophisticated camera?

For many young people now their first experience of photography is using a camera phone. Even the best of these are relatively limited in features and options compared to a 'real' dedicated camera. So the switch from camera phone to a decent enthusiast's compact or system camera wiill still open up an exciting new world of photographic possibilities.

And one's reliance of sophistication can go in the opposite direction, too. Naturally, I'm sure many of us here on DPNow would love to have the latest and most feature-rich camera hardware we could lay our hands on, but many of us are subconcsciously content to benefit from the convenience and immediacy of a camera phone despite its photographic limits. There is nothing wrong with that - it's hard to bring a 'proper' camera with you wherever you go, while it's easy to have your camera phone all the time. And with some talent and determination you will be able to take great photos with your camera phone as well as your dedicated camera.