10 Photography Myths That Refuse to Die

Photography has been round lengthy sufficient to build up a thick layer of standard knowledge, and far of it’s mistaken. These myths get handed from discussion board to discussion board, YouTube remark to YouTube remark, and camera-store counter to camera-store counter with the arrogance of established truth. The downside is not that they are fully baseless; most comprise a grain of fact buried underneath a long time of misapplication. The downside is that they value photographers cash, waste their time, and actively forestall them from bettering. Here are ten of essentially the most persistent offenders.

1. “UV Filters Protect Your Lens”

This is the granddaddy of pictures myths, and it refuses to die as a result of it sounds so affordable. The logic goes like this: a $30 filter is cheaper to exchange than a $1,500 lens, so it’s best to at all times hold one screwed on as insurance coverage. Camera retailer staff have been pushing this line for the reason that movie period, and it has offered a unprecedented variety of mediocre filters.

Here’s what truly occurs. A UV filter provides two extra air-to-glass surfaces to your optical path. On a contemporary multicoated lens, this introduces the opportunity of ghosting and flare that the lens designer by no means accounted for. You paid for an optical system that was engineered to attenuate inside reflections throughout a selected variety of parts. Adding a flat piece of glass in entrance of it’s like placing a display protector on a tv and questioning why the image seems to be barely worse.

But what about safety? This is the place the parable will get genuinely cussed. Yes, a filter can forestall a scratch from a stray department or a little bit of sand and even take an influence, and it is true {that a} higher-quality model won’t adversely have an effect on picture high quality. But lenses are harder than most photographers suppose. Front parts are hardened and coated to withstand informal contact. A correct lens hood, which try to be utilizing anyway for distinction and flare management, supplies much better influence safety than a skinny ring of glass that may shatter on influence and grind fragments into your entrance aspect, creating the precise injury you had been making an attempt to keep away from.

2. “More Megapixels Means Better Photos”

Camera producers love this one as a result of it is the simplest spec to market. The quantity goes up, the product appears higher, and the buyer seems like they’re getting extra for his or her cash. It’s a superbly easy story, and it falls aside the second you study what megapixels truly do.

A megapixel is a million pixels. A 24-megapixel sensor captures 24 million particular person factors of sunshine. A 61-megapixel sensor captures 61 million. More factors of sunshine means extra element, so extra megapixels means higher photographs, proper? Only if element is the only real determinant of picture high quality. It is not.

Here’s what larger megapixel counts truly provide you with: extra cropping headroom and the flexibility to print bigger earlier than seeing particular person pixels. That’s it. They do not enhance dynamic vary. They do not enhance colour accuracy. They do not enhance noise efficiency; in reality, cramming extra photosites onto the identical bodily sensor space tends to make noise worse at larger ISOs, as a result of every photosite is smaller and captures fewer photons. A 61-megapixel picture at ISO 12,800 won’t look as clear as a 24-megapixel picture from the identical sensor era on the similar sensitivity.

The sensible actuality is that 24 megapixels produces a file giant sufficient to print at 300 DPI at 20 by 13 inches. That’s larger than most photographers will ever print. For net use, social media, and consumer supply, you are sometimes delivering recordsdata that show at roughly 2 megapixels on a high-resolution display.

There are photographers who genuinely want excessive decision. For the remaining overwhelming majority, megapixel counts stopped being a significant differentiator years in the past.

3. “You Need a Full Frame Camera to Be a Professional”

This fable is so deeply embedded in pictures tradition that difficult it feels nearly heretical. Full body grew to become synonymous with “serious photography” in the course of the DSLR period, when APS-C and Micro Four Thirds sensors genuinely could not match the low-light efficiency, dynamic vary, and shallow depth of subject management of their bigger counterparts. That hole has narrowed dramatically, and the parable hasn’t caught up.

Let’s speak about what full body truly provides you. A bigger sensor supplies shallower depth of subject at equal apertures, barely higher noise efficiency at excessive ISOs, and marginally extra dynamic vary. These are actual benefits. They usually are not, nevertheless, benefits that matter in each skilled context.

Wedding photographers working in dimly lit church buildings and reception halls will profit from full body’s high-ISO benefit. But sports activities photographers taking pictures outside occasions in good gentle? A Fujifilm X-H2S or Canon EOS R7 with their APS-C crop elements truly provide you with extra attain from the identical lens, which is a bonus once you’re making an attempt to fill the body with a distant topic. Wildlife photographers have identified this for years: a 400mm lens on an APS-C physique provides you the sector of view of a 600mm lens on full body, with out the dimensions, weight, or value of an precise 600mm optic.

Micro Four Thirds takes this additional. OM System’s computational pictures options (handheld high-resolution taking pictures, stay ND filters, in-body focus stacking) supply capabilities that no full body physique at the moment matches. The OM System OM-1 Mark II is a authentic skilled software that weighs roughly half of a full body equal and pairs with lenses which might be proportionally smaller and lighter.

Meanwhile, a few of the most profitable working photographers on the earth shoot on APS-C and Micro Four Thirds methods, not as a result of they cannot afford full body, however as a result of the smaller methods higher serve their precise work. The consumer does not verify your EXIF information. They verify your photographs. If you are seeking to discover what completely different digital camera methods and genres can supply, Fstoppers’ The Well-Rounded Photographer tutorial covers eight genres throughout eight instructors, demonstrating that nice work comes from talent, not sensor dimension.

4. “Shooting Raw Is Always Better Than JPEG”

Every pictures tutorial on the web will let you know to shoot uncooked. Most of them will say it with the conviction of somebody delivering an ethical crucial, as if JPEG shooters are committing some type of photographic sin. And for many conditions, uncooked is the higher selection. But “always” is doing a number of heavy lifting on this fable, and it is the “always” that makes it mistaken.

Raw recordsdata protect the complete information captured by your sensor, providing you with most latitude to regulate publicity, white steadiness, and colour in post-processing. JPEG recordsdata apply in-camera processing (sharpening, noise discount, colour curves, white steadiness) after which compress the outcome right into a smaller file. You lose enhancing flexibility in change for comfort and velocity.

The conditions the place JPEG wins aren’t uncommon or obscure. Sports and photojournalists on deadline continuously shoot JPEG as a result of their cameras produce publication-ready recordsdata straight out of the physique, and the workflow distinction between processing one uncooked file and processing 3,000 is the distinction between making deadline and lacking it. Event photographers documenting company features, the place colour accuracy and inventive enhancing latitude are far much less essential than turnaround velocity, usually shoot high-quality JPEG with customized image profiles and ship the identical day.

Then there’s the storage math. A marriage photographer taking pictures twin card slots in uncooked at 45 megapixels is producing roughly 60 MB per body. Across a 3,000-image marriage ceremony day, that is 180 GB of knowledge from one occasion. Multiply by 30 weddings a yr and also you’re taking a look at over 5 TB of uncooked recordsdata yearly, requiring backup infrastructure that has actual ongoing prices. Shooting effective JPEG for components of the day the place inventive enhancing latitude is not important can lower that storage footprint dramatically.

Raw is the fitting default for many photographers in most conditions. But treating it as an absolute rule ignores authentic skilled workflows the place JPEG is the smarter, sooner, and completely enough selection. If you need to get essentially the most out of your uncooked recordsdata, Fstoppers provides complete guides for each Mastering Adobe Lightroom and The Complete Capture One Editing Guide.

5. “You Should Never Shoot Above ISO 800”

This fable has roots within the movie period, when pushing movie velocity past 800 produced more and more seen grain that many photographers discovered unacceptable. It migrated into digital pictures in the course of the early DSLR years, when high-ISO noise genuinely seemed horrible: muddy, blotchy, color-shifted noise that might break a picture. The downside is that individuals who fashioned their opinions in 2008 are nonetheless giving recommendation in 2026, and sensor expertise has undergone a revolution within the intervening years.

Modern sensors are staggeringly good at excessive ISOs. A current-generation full body digital camera produces cleaner recordsdata at ISO 6,400 than early DSLRs produced at ISO 800. Even APS-C and Micro Four Thirds sensors have improved to the purpose the place ISO 3,200 is fully usable for skilled work in most eventualities. And software-based noise discount, notably the AI-powered instruments now constructed into Lightroom, DxO, and Topaz, can clear up high-ISO recordsdata to a level that might have appeared like science fiction a decade in the past.

The actual value of avoiding excessive ISOs is movement blur. There’s a elementary tradeoff within the publicity triangle: should you will not elevate your ISO, you need to compensate with a wider aperture (decreasing depth of subject) or a slower shutter velocity (introducing blur). In many real-world taking pictures conditions, neither of these compromises is suitable. A pointy picture with seen noise is sort of at all times extra helpful than a blurry picture that is noise-free.

This is the precept that working photographers perceive intuitively: blur is everlasting, noise is negotiable. You can scale back noise in post-processing. You can’t add sharpness that wasn’t captured. If you are at a reception, a live performance, or any indoor occasion and also you’re selecting between ISO 6,400 with a pointy topic and ISO 800 with a blurred one, there isn’t any query about which file your consumer will desire.

6. “You Need to Learn Manual Mode Before Anything Else”

New photographers are instructed this consistently, and it is one of the vital counterproductive items of recommendation in pictures training. The logic sounds bulletproof: guide mode forces you to know publicity, which is the inspiration of every part else. If you do not perceive the publicity triangle, you will by no means really management your digital camera. Learn guide first, and every part else will observe.

The downside is pedagogical, not technical. It’s completely true that understanding the connection between aperture, shutter velocity, and ISO is crucial. But beginning a newbie in full guide mode is like educating somebody to drive by handing them the keys to a stick-shift automobile on a busy freeway. The cognitive overload of concurrently managing three variables whereas additionally making an attempt to compose, focus, and time a shot produces frustration, not understanding.

Aperture precedence and shutter precedence modes exist for wonderful causes. They allow you to management the variable that issues most on your inventive intent whereas the digital camera handles the remainder. A portrait photographer studying to make use of aperture precedence rapidly understands how f/1.8 separates a topic from the background whereas f/8 retains every part sharp. A sports activities photographer utilizing shutter precedence learns how 1/1,000th of a second freezes motion whereas 1/thirtieth creates movement blur. These are intuitive, visible classes that construct real understanding.

Modern cameras are additionally far smarter than the cameras that made guide mode important. Matrix metering, evaluative metering, and AI-assisted publicity methods do a wonderful job within the overwhelming majority of lighting conditions. A photographer utilizing aperture precedence with publicity compensation understands publicity management and might override the digital camera when wanted, which is functionally what guide mode supplies anyway, simply with extra steps.

Learn publicity totally? Absolutely. But the concept you could begin in guide mode otherwise you’re in some way doing it mistaken is gatekeeping disguised as training. For inexperienced persons who need a structured introduction to digital camera fundamentals, Fstoppers’ Photography 101 covers every part from publicity fundamentals to post-processing in a method that builds actual understanding with out pointless frustration.

7. “Image Stabilization Replaces the Need for a Tripod”

In-body picture stabilization has gotten remarkably good. Five, six, even eight stops of claimed stabilization means you possibly can theoretically handhold a shot at shutter speeds that might have been laughable a decade in the past. Sony’s newest our bodies, mixed with optically stabilized lenses, promise compensation that turns a one-second publicity into one thing you are able to do handheld. It’s spectacular expertise. It additionally does not do what a tripod does.

Image stabilization compensates for digital camera shake, the small, involuntary actions of your fingers and physique that blur a picture. It does this by shifting the sensor or optical parts to counteract your movement. What it can’t do is freeze a shifting topic, as a result of the topic does not care how secure your digital camera is. A flower swaying within the wind, water flowing over rocks, folks strolling by a scene: these require both a quick shutter velocity to freeze or a protracted publicity to deliberately blur, and IS does not change that equation.

Then there’s the matter of exact composition. A tripod locks your digital camera in precisely one place, which suggests your composition does not shift between frames. This is crucial for focus stacking, publicity bracketing, panoramic stitching, and any method that requires a number of an identical frames aligned to the pixel. Handheld stabilization retains issues roughly regular, which is nice sufficient for single exposures however not for multi-frame methods.

Long exposures past just a few seconds (astrophotography, gentle trails, clean water results) are nonetheless firmly tripod territory. No quantity of stabilization enables you to handhold a 30-second publicity. And for video, whereas stabilization has decreased the necessity for gimbals in informal taking pictures, skilled video work nonetheless depends on tripods, sliders, and fluid heads for the type of locked-off, precision motion that IBIS cannot replicate.

Image stabilization is likely one of the most transformative applied sciences in trendy pictures. It has dramatically expanded what’s attainable handheld. But it hasn’t made tripods out of date any greater than autofocus made guide focus out of date. They clear up completely different issues.

8. “A Good Photographer Never Uses Auto Mode”

There’s a pervasive snobbery in pictures tradition that equates utilizing automated settings with being an novice. Real photographers shoot guide. Serious photographers not less than use aperture precedence. Auto mode is for vacationers and individuals who purchased a digital camera accidentally. This angle is nonsense.

Auto mode on a contemporary digital camera is not the crude, simply fooled system it was fifteen years in the past. Contemporary auto modes use subtle metering, scene recognition, and in some circumstances machine studying to research a scene and choose acceptable settings. They meter precisely in complicated lighting, acknowledge human topics and modify accordingly, and produce well-exposed photographs within the overwhelming majority of circumstances. They’re not good (no metering system is) however they’re remarkably competent.

The query is not whether or not auto mode can produce good photographs. It can. The query is whether or not the photographer can acknowledge the conditions the place auto mode will fail and override it. That’s a matter of information and judgment, not of which mode dial place you default to.

Many skilled photographers use auto or semi-auto modes extra usually than they will publicly admit. A documentary photographer working quick in altering gentle would possibly depend on auto ISO with aperture precedence, letting the digital camera deal with publicity whereas they concentrate on timing and composition. A avenue photographer would possibly shoot in program mode as a result of the decisive second does not wait so that you can dial in settings. Even some marriage ceremony photographers use auto modes throughout fast-paced reception protection when the lighting modifications unpredictably from second to second.

The digital camera is a software. Using its automated options once they serve your work just isn’t a personality flaw. It’s effectivity.

9. “Golden Hour Is the Only Good Time to Shoot”

Golden hour, the interval shortly after dawn and earlier than sundown when daylight is heat, tender, and directional, produces stunning gentle. Nobody disputes that. The fable is not that golden hour is nice. The fable is that different occasions of day are in some way dangerous, and that it’s best to keep away from taking pictures throughout noon, overcast skies, or harsh gentle.

Midday gentle is contrasty and creates exhausting shadows, which is precisely what you need should you’re taking pictures architectural particulars, geometric compositions, or high-contrast black-and-white work. The solar instantly overhead eliminates lengthy shadows and illuminates the inside of dense forests with even, directionless gentle that golden hour’s low angle cannot penetrate. Underwater photographers particularly desire noon as a result of it supplies most gentle penetration.

Overcast skies create an enormous pure softbox. Portrait photographers pay lots of of {dollars} for studio modifiers that replicate what cloud cowl does without cost: tender, even, wrap-around gentle with minimal shadows and no squinting topics. Fashion and editorial photographers routinely desire overcast circumstances as a result of the sunshine is constant and flattering throughout the whole scene, with no harsh transitions.

Blue hour, the interval after sundown and earlier than dawn when the sky turns deep blue, produces a colour palette that golden hour cannot match. Night pictures introduces its personal vocabulary of streetlights, neon, headlight trails, and starlight. Fog, rain, and storm gentle create moody, atmospheric photographs that sunny golden-hour circumstances by no means will.

The “golden hour or nothing” mentality retains photographers from taking pictures 90% of the day, and it is self-defeating. The finest photographers do not look forward to good gentle. They study to see and use the sunshine they’re given. Elia Locardi’s Photographing the World collection demonstrates precisely this precept, exhibiting how one can work with each type of pure gentle throughout numerous environments.

10. “Higher Frame Rates Mean You’ll Get More Keepers”

Modern cameras can hearth at 20, 30, even 120 frames per second. The logic appears irrefutable: should you shoot extra frames, you will seize extra decisive moments, and your keeper fee will go up. In follow, the other usually occurs.

Higher body charges produce extra information. A ten-second burst at 30 frames per second generates 300 photographs. Multiply that throughout a day of taking pictures (a sporting occasion, a marriage, a wildlife outing) and also you’re taking a look at 1000’s of almost an identical frames that every one should be culled, reviewed, and chosen. The time you saved by spraying and praying is spent tenfold in post-processing, scrolling by limitless sequences of near-duplicates making an attempt to determine the one body the place every part aligned.

More importantly, excessive body charges can turn into a crutch that replaces anticipation. The talent that produces genuinely nice motion pictures is not the flexibility to press a button and maintain it down. It’s the flexibility to learn a state of affairs, predict the height second, and time the shot. A photographer who understands a sport, is aware of when the important play is growing, and fires a deliberate three-frame burst on the proper instantaneous will persistently produce higher photographs than somebody who holds the shutter and hopes the digital camera captures one thing usable.

There’s additionally a mechanical and sensible actuality: buffer limits, card write speeds, and battery drain all turn into constraints at sustained excessive body charges. A digital camera that advertises 40 frames per second usually can solely maintain that for just a few seconds earlier than the buffer fills and the body fee drops dramatically or stops fully. If you had been relying on these 40 frames per second for an important second and the buffer was nonetheless clearing out of your earlier burst, you’ve got missed the shot fully.

High body charges are priceless when used intentionally: capturing a selected fast-moving motion the place timing is unpredictable, like the precise second a hen takes flight or a basketball participant reaches the apex of a dunk. But as a default taking pictures technique, “more frames” doesn’t equal “more keepers.” It equals extra work and fewer intentionality.

The Common Thread

Every one in every of these myths shares a typical construction: they take a authentic technical commentary, strip away all context and nuance, and current the outcome as an absolute rule. UV filters will be helpful in particular environments, however not as a everlasting fixture. Raw is the higher format for many work, however not all work. Full body sensors have actual benefits, however not benefits each photographer wants. Golden hour gentle is attractive, however it’s not the one attractive gentle.

The finest photographers do not observe guidelines. They perceive ideas and apply them with judgment. The distinction issues, and it is the distinction these myths persistently obscure.