Observing nebula

I guess being a novice makes for asking the obvious. It's just that everytime I see a photograph of the California nebula and/or Pelican nebula it shows the same view. Wouldn't this be the view through a pair of binoculars and that Newtonians as well as telescopes w/ star diagonals would offer another orientation? This dosn't come up much w/ clusters and not so often w/ doubles. it doesn't seem to be mentioned much and novices like me might be looking for something that isn't what we see in print.