Wednesday, December 12, 2012

NEW FEATURE FOR 2013: CAMERA REVIEWS

I rarely post without an image, but I thought I would just give all my followers a heads up about an upcoming feature of my blog: camera reviews! For those of you who've noticed, in every post I've always labelled which camera/lens I've used.  Why? Oh, I don't know, I guess I'm kind of a camera equipment nerd and I want to know what I shot with, and hope some other nerd cares too. I collect old cameras (Minox spy, Polaroid Land, Minolta XD-11's, Argus, Ricoh GR1) and I enjoy shooting with all types and formats. On my honeymoon, I brought 2 SLR bodies, 4 lenses and a point and shoot. On another trip, to Japan, I dragged my Polaroid Land camera with a few boxes of 667 and 669 film, and still had 2 SLR bodies, 3 lenses, point and shoot, and a medium format camera (Fuji GA645)!! My wife is very understanding...


Today is a different story. I'm older, and my back and shoulder is more tender. Although I love my Sony A700 D-SLR with my Minolta 24mm F2.8 or 35mm F1.4, I find the weight and bulk too much.  As a street shooter I want to be as discrete and unencumbered as possible. Frequently while on my shooting "field-trips" I also enjoy having lunch with friends, shopping, and sight seeing; so the lighter my camera equipment the better. I even shoot while bike riding too, as some of you older followers know, so a DSLR isn't really a convenient option. I'm willing to compromise absolute resolution and image quality for comfort and convenience. When I feel free, I'm in a better shooting frame of mind. That's why I usually walk around with my handy Panasonic Lumix LX-3 only.

I recently decided it was time to upgrade my main street-shooter camera, but which one? There are so many formats and sizes and styles today, it's mind boggling.  Do I go micro 4/3 or APS-C? Do I go inter-changeable lens system, or all-in-one super P&S? Do I go rangefinder style, DSLR style, or something in the middle? EVF, pentaprism, or optical/hybrid viewfinder? Prime lens or zoom? Did I miss anything? The best way to find out what will work (for me) is to test as many cameras I can get my hands on. 

How will I accomplish this task? I decided the most fun and blog-worthy way to test equipment was to e-mail the manufacturers and convince them to allow me to test their cameras and post a review on my blog. The first company to reply back was Fujifilm, and I was happy since they have some of the most innovative cameras out right now.  In fact, they've already sent me a really sexy camera to test.  Which camera? I won't tell...but let's just say it's an APS-C sensored camera and I'm really excited to give it a try! Thank you very much Fujifilm Canada!!

Look for my first review shortly...

BHT

2 comments:

  1. I've got so many hits the past few minutes from posting this "no image" blog, I guess there are more nerds like me out there? I promise tomorrow that I will let you know which camera I'm testing. I've had it since Monday, but I actually went shooting with it for the first time today. See you all tomorrow...

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  2. I hope that more and more people will start reading your blog.

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