Indeed; not a stretch to say he could have just happened across that opportunity while borrowing a cheap point-and-shoot, applying his skill at identifying & framing a shot and using whatever equipment at hand to its full potential.

Ultimately it's supply-and-demand: get paid $X because people are willing to pay that to acquire the image, regardless of his alleged talent and costs. As it is, he's handing out small copies of that image for free, while begging people to not violate abstract notions of intellectual property. Maybe someone will like the image enough to order a hard-to-make high-quality large-size limited-quantity signed-and-numbered copy and pay a dear price for it.