The photographer makes the photograph, not the camera or the lens. This is certainly true for landscape photography, for which autofocus speed, number of frames per second, or the best matrix metering are totally irrelevant. Some photographers make very beautiful images with a simple, often self-made, pinhole camera, whereas others swear by the sharpness and detail of large-format. These days, however, we all need fast digital SLR cameras with as many megapixels as possible, at least according to the photo magazines and the manufacturers, who produce better models every other month. Cameras of 1500 euros are called "a bargain", which must be true as they are indeed sold by the thousands. Still, I don't see better landscape images appearing in books, on websites or in magazines.

After my Pentax 67 body gave up on me, and Nikon started to make full-frame digital cameras, I decided that the time had also come for me to switch from semi-film based to digital photography. So, I bought a Nikon D700 body, and am very satisfied with it. Except perhaps for its relatively modest resolution, the D700 is a perfect camera that delivers a perfect image quality. The Nikkor lenses I currently use are the AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8, the AF 80-200mm f/2.8, the AF-S 300mm f/4, the PC 85 f/2.8 tilt-shift macro, the lightweight AF 50mm f/1.8 and the TC14B and TC14E II teleconverters. The Sigma AF 105 f/2.8 EX macro completes the list. Hence, I've got all (and probably more than) I need.

The transition from film to digital went very smoothly, because I had already regularly worked with a Nikon D70 at work, and of course I was already routinely processing 'digital negatives' in the form of 'raw' scanned 6x7 negs. I sometimes miss the 'character' that the film-based negatives had, but in general the quality of the digital files leaves little to be desired.

My RAW-files are processed with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and the colour-files are converted to monochrome with Nik software's great Silver Efex Pro. The conversion can also be done excellently with Lightroom, but SEP does the job much quicker (not necessarily better!).

Nevertheless: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Translated to photography: it is the final image that matters, not how you made it. Many seem to think that you can only be a good photographer with the latest model digital camera and the best lenses, but this is far from the truth. Fortunately, the skills of the person behind the camera still determine to the largest extent whether meaningful and powerful images are produced.