A student just emailed me this:

I currently have a Canon 40D but it has been suggested [by someone whose judgment I trust] that for event photography I need to upgrade to a Canon 80D.

OK. Interesting. Let’s tackle this one.

First, always be highly suspicious when someone says you “must” do this or that. When it’s “my way or the highway”, I usually take the highway.  Be suspicious of simple solutions and dogmatic statements, just as you should be suspicious of them in politics.

Second, why so specific? Why from a 40D to a 80D? Why not to a 6D, or a 5D Mark III, a 70D, or some other camera altogether?

What the “expert” probably meant is this:

“You want to shoot events. Events often take place in low light. That means you will need to shoot at wide apertures (i.e. need good lenses) and slow shutter speeds. But even then, and especially if you are bouncing a flash, you will inevitably need to shoot at high ISO sensitivity values. And that is the one reason why you may want to upgrade the camera every few years: the ability to shoot at high ISO values, without crazy noise, increases with every new generation of sensors. So an upgrade to a more recent camera wold be good. If the budget stretches, consider a full frame 6D. If not, consider a 70D as well.

But all that said, no-one “must” do anything, and there are other solutions too, like investing in more, better lenses. A 35mm f/1.4 prime lens is great for many types for events, for example. A more powerful flash, if you now have a lower power flash, is also an option. Or you may need nothing at all: photogs shot events a few years ago very happily with this camera. Why not now?

So now we get into the “what type of event”. What type of event do you want to shoot? This, more than anything, will decide for you what you start saving up for.

That is a much more measured statement, isn’t it? That’s how *I* would have answered this.

All this, incidentally, including the differences for different types of event, is what gets discussed in detail at my “Event Photography” workshops. Which I regularly hold: there’s one coming up in Toronto in a few months (list soon), but more importantly, I can run this privately with as few as two or three students., or solo if we do it in Brantford:

• On demand, any time (minimum one student if held in Brantford, 3 if elsewhere): Event Photography. In this workshop I teach you the secrets of successful event photography, for any type of event.

 That’s it for today, folks. Enjoy your camera and go shoot something cool!