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It has been seven years since I bought my first serious camera and five years since I started writing about my experiences for posting to the Internet, a good a time as any to look back and reflect upon what has happened, and perhaps look to the future.
June 1997 – I bought a Nikon F50 and tried it for ten-days before returning it in favor of the Nikon F70, with an eye towards the F90x that the store clerk mentioned in reverential terms. I did trips to Victoria to visit some friends with the F50 and a trip to Montreal with the F70, the real reason why I decided a camera would be a good thing to own at that point in my life.
Life seemed so good and so simple with the F70 and two lenses until that fateful day when I walked into Broadway Camera and walked out with a Nikon 24mm lens. I walked in as a consumer and walked out as a committed photographer. This is also the time that I discovered the photography and writings of Galen Rowell, still the largest influence in my personal development as a photographer. Later on I would also dive into the works and writings of Ansel Adams and though both masters have such unique styles, I have found both to be profound, as cliched as that sounds. Various purchases ensued obviously (including that F90x), as this web site offers various reports and reviews of those cameras and lenses, but the next most significant occurrence was in… February 1999 – when I purchased the Bronica SQ-Ai medium format camera and a couple of lenses, film backs and other related accessories, including the Multiblitz monolights for studio-style photos. Dreams of becoming a professional danced in my head, but those dreams never materialized because of my procrastination and sometimes fear of exposing myself to the dog-eat-dog world of professional wedding photography (not a good thing when you believe yourself to be wearing Milkbone underwear). I used the medium format system to pursue my own muse for most of the first few years of ownership. A wonderful system and yes, I still own it and even use it now and then when weddings pop up, but would I still have bought it if I had had a crystal ball?
June 1999 – I dip my toes into the waters of self-publishing on the Internet. Following the advice of Internet and photographic guru, Philip Greenspun of Photo.net fame, I know that the only way I would ever see my experiences in words, would be to publish them on the Internet myself. At first, my beginnings were extremely humble and crude with an 11 MB free site hosted by Netscape. Using the Netscape editor was an exercise in frustration as my next to nothing knowledge of HTML coupled with the limited options in the editor caused me many headaches. I don’t think anyone other than myself and my friends ever read anything from that original Netscape-based site, as it was not known as CameraHobby. On the recommendation of a friend, I moved my web files to another free server at 50megs.com for a time and although I had plenty of space to expand, I come to despise banner ads that disrupt the flow of information presented. It is time to upgrade to a real web site experience.
August 2000 – CameraHobby.com is born with a collection of reviews and articles produced for the two previous freebie sites. It starts off with a whopping 10 MB capacity for the account that later got expanded to 20 MB before eventually being moved to a server without a hard, specified limit. Since the birth of the web site, it has resided on three servers and has gone from page hits numbering a few dozen per day to thousands of page views per day. The site is holding steady at around the 1 million page views per year range and although it expanded greatly through the first three years of life, had to go on a major slim-fast diet to shed some weight due to crushing bandwidth charges.
The diet hasn’t helped as the majority of the traffic is for the reviews and articles and never really was significant for any of the jettisoned pages, such as my own photo galleries (sniff, sniff). That means the web site is still pumping out just as much bandwidth as prior to the current redesign and restructuring. Fortunately, the web site is now self-sufficient thanks to the Google ads placed on most of the pages to generate operating income. I’ve not had to solicit donations from the readers (although some have generously offered), or heaven forbid, move to a subscription-based web site, i.e. a fee per view. Knock on wood that I’ll never have to consider such a business model. Although I am somewhat dismayed that I had to lose my commercial-free status, being a business friendly sort of fellow, I cannot suggest that I am against commercialism, especially since the current ads have no bearing on what I have to say about matters photographic. Readers may be able to discern my political views subtly in the various pages, but this web site is about photography not politics and the two shall not mix. Over the years, the web site has created opportunities to meet, talk to and converse electronically with people all around the world. Whatever the web site has cost me in time and money, I feel it has repaid itself back to me many times over. My accountant wife doesn’t quite see the cost/benefit analysis in such romantic and altruistic terms though. Over the years, one common description of me by some of the readers has been that I am opinionated. I can agree with that, but one side affect of being opinionated is that I’ve put my foot in my mouth a few times and that has led to me making some irresponsible comments now and then. The last happening very recently and one that I’m still smarting about because I was truly at fault with the comments I had made and I regret it mightily. The only good thing arising from it is that I’ve committed myself to just dealing with equipment and not personalities. It has otherwise been a very pleasant journey and I continue to enjoy receiving e-mails from all over commenting about something I’ve written about or to ask a question. I can’t answer everything, but I try my best. July 2002 – Can the purchase of a single camera create a paradigm shift? For me yes and I’m talking about the Nikon D100 I bought at this time. The Nikon D100 in itself was not a camera I “really” desired given its F80 origins, because the digital camera I would have really wanted would have been an F100 derived unit. I couldn’t afford the real F100 derived camera in the form of the D1 series of cameras – yes, I know many people describe the D1 series as being F5 derived, but look at the controls and the materials used to build it, more F100 like than F5 like; however, the F100 is certainly derived from the F5 and it takes nothing away from the superb build quality of the D1/D2 series cameras. The D100 has grown on me though, as it has become the go to camera of choice. I accept the digital process and means of taking photographs and I’m enjoying it. The advantages and disadvantages of digital have been discussed at this web site and elsewhere and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. This is fine since it generates debate and provokes thought (amongst other negative attributes when people debate on the Internet), but the fact that people need to debate whether digital is good enough now would seem to indicate that it in fact is.
The digital process requires a whole slew of ancillary equipment to support this manner in taking photos and sometimes, new digital photographers have not considered all of the ramifications of this added expense. Most people already own computers, which I suspect would be fine for those using compact digital cameras and some basic image editing software, but for those who wish to dive headlong into the high end digital process, they may have to purchase a state of the art computer to edit those image files. That means fast hard drives, as much RAM as affordable and a fast processor no matter whether you belong in the PC or Mac world. Consider that the popular Photokit sharpening filters (actually Automations) can turn a 35 MB digital file from a 6 MP camera into an over 200 MB monstrosity from just one round of sharpening, out of a possible three. Ouch! That’s why even a gig of RAM today can be considered deficient for power users. Or how about Capture One’s RAW conversion that is lauded greatly for its workflow, but the cost of that workflow can be a lot of hard drive space taken up by Capture One to create the thumbnails and editing image views that facilitate the instant access to those files. If you’re not aware or careful about this and regularly clear out the Capture One folders, you may find yourself lacking hard drive space very quickly. Add to that a printer, color management devices and software, and it all combines to make for a potentially large investment for digital photography, but I think it’s analogous to a film photographer with a large investment in a darkroom. Both processes take up room, time and money to practice the art. And as for the crystal ball, if I knew how far digital was going to come back in 1999, I likely would have saved my money instead of buying a Bronica medium format kit, but then, I would have probably pissed away my money playing the tech stocks, for which I am still in the hole thanks to Nortel’s meltdown, then and current. April 2003 – I purchased the most expensive lens I own to date, the Nikon 70-200 AF-S VR lens. Chump change for the likes of Moose, Bjorn, Art and Arthur, but a small fortune for me. However, the lens was an object of desire since it was first announced and wished for since Canon introduced their version the year before.
The lens seemed like the perfect dream and for the most part it is and lives up to its high expectations except for some nasty flare when shooting into the sun, which I generally don’t do. But…you knew that there had to be a but, since its purchase I have learned that IS or VR is fantastic for static subjects in low light, but useless for moving subjects in the same light. How many times have I gotten a sharp static shot but had my primary subject comes out soft or blurred because of movement? This is no knock against the lens itself, which I still love and caress like the day I bought it, but a rant against the dimly lit caverns and rooms that events are often held in. There is no substitute for pure shutter speed to freeze a subject and I’ve developed a desire for some fast lenses, faster even than f2.8 constant aperture zooms for f2 and faster primes. The downside is that while there are options available to cover the moderate wide to telephoto range for a digital photographer, the wide side has nothing available. Sure one could use flash, but at certain types of events flash are verboten or frowned upon and really, using flash results in the same sterile look as paparazzi. Not to my taste and although one could balance the flash with the ambient light, the same issue will not have disappeared with annoying use of flash and moving subjects that can create ghosting at slow speeds. I’ve been intrigued by Sigma’s offerings of fast 20, 24, and 28 mm f1.8 primes along with Nikon’s fast 50, 85, 105 and 135 mm f1.4 to f2 lenses. A few of these lenses in my kit would go a long way to alleviating some recent problems I’ve encountered and will continue to encounter in the course of some new photographic work I’m pursuing. The obvious limitation is that the widest fast lens is the Sigma 20mm f1.8 lens that provides the same field of view as a 30mm lens when mounted to a 1.5x factor D-SLR. Not very wide and the widest lenses available are zooms that max out at f4 with the Nikon 12-24mm DX lens. Other Sigma offerings go just as wide, or almost as wide (12-24mm and 15-30mm) but are even slower than the f4 Nikon lens. Definitely flash use lenses, something that appears unavoidable while we are at the current limits of CCD/CMOS technology that generates noise at high ISO settings. January 2004 – I take delivery of some new computers, a custom built desktop with the best parts I could afford (or given to me as a Christmas present) and a top-notch notebook computer. The notebook is another object of desire and while I do like it (love it even); the overall performance seems lacking for something that has such a fast CPU (P4 3.2 HT). The new desktop has a moderately slower CPU (P4 3.06 HT) but with fast hard drives, RAM and video card, it runs circles around the notebook for most image editing jobs. As the current McDonald’s promotion goes, “I’m lovin’ it.”
April 2004 – As I write this, the hot new consumer D-SLR is the Nikon D70 that even had one friend suggesting it as a strong purchase consideration, this from a person who desired the same digital F100 for a reasonable cost, as I did. I must admit the CAN $1400 or so purchase price makes it strong consideration for a second camera, but my finances aren’t there yet that I can seriously think about it and by the time I do have the funds, I’m hoping Nikon will have something better to consider, either a D2X or D200 replacement for the D100.
The hot new pro camera is the Canon 1D Mk II and it’s hard to argue with the 8 MP and 8 fps specs. Yah, there’s more to a camera than specs and I’ll be first to state that I see no magic in Canon ergonomics, but when resolution matters and the action is fast and furious, the Canon has no equal...yet J Before doing anything about the camera, either as replacement for or adjunct to the D100, I’ll have to rectify the need for fast prime lenses. My printer, the Epson 1270 that has been slagged by a color management vendor, still chugs along nicely, producing very nice looking photographs with some custom GretagMacbeth profiles. The desire to upgrade to one of Epson’s Ultrachrome printers has been abated until Epson produces a larger version of the new R800 that has dual black ink cartridges and the gloss optimizer to eliminate bronzing caused by using pigmented inks on glossy papers. I thought the Epson 4000 was going to be the printer that I would eventually replace the 1270 with, but now that Epson has introduced a fix to the bronzing issue, I’m going to wait for Epson to introduce the gloss optimizer in the replacement to the 4000, or the 1280, or for the 1270 to give up the ghost, whichever comes first. Dye-sub printers like the Kodak 8500 or Olympus 440 still interest me but given their relative expense and small, 8x10 only print size, not a likely purchase, but a report on one of the compact 4x6 units might appear on this web site in the future. But…listening to an audio blog by Brooks Jensen, editor of LensWork magazine has me thinking about his concept of making the collection of photographs more egalitarian. That is to produce photographs that could be collected, but at reasonable prices that the typical consumer could consider as being a good buy for a reasonable sized print rather than spending hundreds or thousands for a museum quality print made by one of the greats. An Epson R800 would seem like just the ticket to produce nice little 8x10 prints with archival quality and no bronzing issues with glossy paper. Then sell the prints for a very low cost to distribute the images to a wide audience. D100 image files with the R800…it just might work and…well, what you think? Other things learned along the way: Nikon versus Canon At times I regret posting my piece dated from June 1999 that has now become one of the highest hit pages at the web site. So popular that it might even be number one in Google when you search “Nikon versus Canon”, but merely top ten when searched the other way around. This is not what I’d like this web site to be known for. Tossing in some words of support for your chosen brand is normal and isn’t much harm, but writing a damn essay about the brand wars is now seen as foolish and a waste of time to continue harping on. However, this group seems somewhat tame compared to some of the postings about…
PC versus Mac I’ve not commented much on this myself, but suffice to say I’ve seen petty comments from both sides that consider themselves wholly superior to the other. Not worth anymore energy to discuss since I am a PC guy and will remain so for a longtime to come, but frankly, I don’t care what anyone uses to edit their image files. Evangelizing about computers is just so…geeky. Money can’t buy happiness The uttering of an obviously poor person, because for photographers, money can indeed buy technophilic happiness, but true enough that money cannot buy talent or intelligence to turn a person with a state of the art digital capture machine into the next Ansel Adams or Galen Rowell. This leads nicely into... It's the photographer, not the camera or lens Gear is nice. Gear is sexy. Gear is subjective. Buy what you want and be happy. Who cares if some dipshit on the Internet says your camera or lens isn't good enough. If it produces the quality you desire then it's doing the job. If for whatever reason it isn't doing the job then that is the time that you could legitimately look to upgrade or even switching brands, but the majority of photographers will not outdo the capabilities of their present gear. Think about your photography more than your gear and you'll be on the right track and certainly far ahead of me J
Practice makes perfect You’ve heard it from such writers as Michael Johnston amongst others and nothing could be truer. I dread the results from the first wedding of the season if I have been particularly lazy with my photography over the winter. You’re not fresh, the equipment requires some reorientation and damn it all, there are always shots that you recall that you should have done after the fact. You really must keep at photography constantly and alas for me, writing about it does not count for much because your thinking process and reflexes are still not honed. This is where I think a compact digicam is just the ticket to allow one to practice, practice and yet more practice at minimal cost. You don’t have to print every single image because just viewing it on a computer screen would provide guidance as to how you’ve taken the photo and what you could do to improve it. A relatively high cost if you’re looking for a high resolution, recent vintage model, but more than affordable once all the film and development costs have been factored in.
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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Edwin's
Vignettes -
Retrospective
