How do you get a great photo?

[Kelly]

Luck!

Ah....yes! Luck definitely can play a role....especially with nature photos. Not sure where I'd place it in the mix tho....

[George]

[spoiler]Photographer
Lighting
Lens
Camera[/spoiler]

With the capabilities of post processing to adjust light levels, color, and even depth of field to some degree, the key elements are largely composition, focus and shutter speed, all the photographer's choices.

It's refreshing to see equipment low on most people's lists. I would be interested to see where Software/Post Processing would rank if it were on the list. For me it's after lighting.

[shutterbug]

[spoiler]lighting
photographer
lens
camera[/spoiler]

[Kelly]

[spoiler]lighting
photographer
lens
camera[/spoiler]

I like how you think! That's the order I subscribe to.....and when no one else listed them in that order, I gave it a good deal of thought. I still gotta go with lighting as #1. If I, the world's best photographer, set out to photograph a beautiful miniature horse in crappy lighting with the best camera and lens there is, the photo's gonna suck. No two ways about it. Good lighting rocks!

[Matt]

I revised mine
[spoiler]Photographer
Camera
Date/time stamp
Miniature horse
Miniature horse clothes[/spoiler]

[Kelly]

[dsauers7]

[spoiler]Lens
Photographer
Camera
Lighting[/spoiler]

[spartacusii]

my 1st answer to your question was to "buy one"

but seriously, define "great photo". i frequent a lot of photo forums/sites, & i see this term used WAAAY too much. i often see it on photos that i would personally consider anything but. tho, i will confess to being extremely critical when i look at an image - especially my own.

[spoiler]2 different photographers in the same conditions will produce different images. photographer has to be 1st - cuz that person is going to make a lot of decisions on everything else
photography is the capture of light, so clearly light has to be next
my next consideration is what lens to use - both in terms of quality, as well as speed of lens
& last on this list is camera. i have seen wonderful images taken with old polaroid cameras (the old pull-out-the-film type). the medium may have its limitations, but all of the pertinent aspects of a 'great photo' can be captured on [virtually] ANY camera. the key is to know what the limitations of your equipment are & what you need to do to adapt to them. (which, of course, takes you right back to #1)[/spoiler]

george raised the aspect of post processing, so i thought i would add a closing comment on that issue. pp is great, & many things can be done with an image in pp. however, if we are talking about photography, the 1 thing that pp CAN NOT DO, is create something in the image that wasn't captured. the data has to be there 1st. THEN, pp is a matter of maximizing the information from capture.

jp