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Photography
A passion of mine for over 15 years now!
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Postponed due to Covid …
Danshari
A minimalist livestyle illustrated by three Japanese ideograms (断捨離):
“refuse,” “dispose,” and “separate”
photography
In 2001, I started to take pictures with a crappy Sony DSC-P1.
It looked more like a plastic toy than a real camera, and the image quality was clearly lower than that of a basic film camera – but hey, it was digital, and I guess that was quite a selling point at the time!
A notable feature about this camera was its memory card – no SD card, but a fancy goofy-looking purple and very low-capacity memory stick. Memorable!
A couple of years later (in 2006), I upgraded to the Canon IXUS 50.
I truly loved this camera – it was extremely compact (the size of a pack of cigarettes) and I took some of my favorite shots with it.
I remember its LCD screen being kind of poor – but it had a very convenient 35-105mm (35mm equiv.) F2.8 – 4.9 optical zoom.
Plus, its 3 cm macro mode was really impressive.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 was a superzoom bridge digital camera I bought back in 2008.
I remember this camera being really light, and thanks to a quality Leica lens, the shots were really sharp (at least on low ISO).
Its zoom was impressive: 18x!
In terms of 35 mm equivalent, it means a focal length of 28 – 504 mm.
Its very wide zoom range came in handy, as I was able to practice wide-angle and long-range photography all with a featherweight camera.
I’m so glad I used a bridge camera before switching to a digital SLR – being quite compact and light, I was carrying this camera with me almost everywhere.
At the time, heavier equipment that came with numerous lenses to adjust would probably have inhibited my enthusiasm for photography.
Never forget – one step at the time!
After a couple of years using point-and-shoot/bridge cameras, I felt a bit frustrated by some of the limitations on those cameras.
Being able to shoot in high ISO (for night photography), shooting beautiful bokeh with high lens aperture and a growing interest in trying out different lenses (e.g. fisheye) were some of the things that pushed me towards a digital SLR.
I chose the Nikon D90, which was a really popular camera in the late 2000s (also, the first digital SLR with video recording capabilities).
With a wider sensor (23.6 mm x 15.8 mm), 12.3 megapixel and 11 auto-focus points, it allowed me to be more creative.
I was still using a zoom lens for most of my shots (a 16-65 mm Tamron), though also invested in a 50mm Nikon zoom and a cheap fisheye lens for fun.
I used this camera for almost 10 years – and decided to switch to a full-frame digital SLR in 2018.
My current camera (since 2018) is the Nikon D850 – a full-frame digital SLR.
My Nikon D90 was not getting any younger, and an increasing number of dead pixels on its sensor convinced me to take a big leap in the magic of full-frame photography!
The Nikon D850 has been praised in countless reviews, and the investment was definitely worth it.
A full-frame sensor really makes a difference – it can handle shallower depth of field, delivers better quality images (due to larger pixels, but not only), can manage really high ISO without causing noise (amazing for night photography).
Also, the sensor being the same size as a 35mm film camera, you can totally use older film lenses on your new SLR with the same covering power (no crop effect).
This also opens so many opportunities on the second-hand market.
I don’t shoot with a zoom lens anymore, but only with fixed focal length (also called prime lenses) – primarily with a 35mm.
This focal length is well suited for street photography: long enough to avoid wide angle distortion, but more versatile than a 50 mm, which will deliver narrower scenes.
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