My Gear
Camera Gear and Photography obviously go hand in hand. You can’t take a photograph without a camera. I’ve got to admit that I love cameras, gadgets and technology a lot and I've had far too many cameras over the years. I am old enough to remember the transition from film to digital although I have only been a serious photographer since the early 2000’s and so nearly all my serious work has been on digital cameras.
My first DSLR, an upgrade on the Sony P200 point and shoot camera I had been using, was an Olympus E-500 which I purchased in early 2006 with some money that I had inherited from my Grandfather. My Grandfather had enjoyed photography as a hobby and so it seemed a fitting thing to do. I think I chose Olympus because there was a good offer on the camera, which I got with 14-45mm and 40-150mm lens and a small photo printer. The new 4/3rds system was getting good reviews at the time and the camera had a “supersonic wave filter” to shake dust from the sensor so it didn’t need cleaning.
It was an 8 Megapixel camera with a 3-point AF system which seems incredibly basic these days but the camera was great.
Edinburgh Castle 15/02/2006 - Olympus E500 40-150mm. 150mm. Iso: 100 f4.5 0.6sec
This Olympus camera allowed me to start exploring photography as an art form and although many of my images from this period are generic and ordinary I still like looking through them and enjoy my photographic naivety of this time. I can still remember the walks through the North Somerset landscapes and the time spent with my housemate and friend Alex who was a vastly more skilled photographer than I was at this time.
I’m pleased that these images still hold up well today and it shows that good light and composition is what it important to take a good photograph and not the equipment that is used. What is also interesting is how many of these images are straight out of camera with very little editing. There was no Lightroom but I did use a little bit of Photoshop Elements to make a few basic adjustments.
After using the E-500 for a couple of years I upgraded in 2008 to the Olympus E-3 which was what was considered a professional grade camera at the time. This gave me some good new features. Live-view was perhaps the most useful and ground-breaking new feature but the weather sealing, improved auto-focus and better quality sensor were all significant upgrades. I also got my first macro lens which was a 50mm f2.0, which on the 4/3rd’s system worked out as a 100mm full frame equivalent. The E-3 was a great camera, but due to the stage of life I was in, I didn’t take as many pictures with it as I should have. Photography was taking a bit more of a backseat in my life.
In 2011 I wanted something smaller and so purchased a Panasonic Lumix LX5. This was another very good compact camera that produced lovely images. However it I mainly used it as a snapshot camera and in 2012 I became a Father and opened a new business so photography as a passion and a hobby really stopped. I sold my Olympus E-3 and the Panasonic Lumix and purchased a Sony RX10 Mk1 which as a bridge camera offered manual control and a good quality zoom lens with a constant aperture that also recorded decent 1080p video. This was perfect for recording my young family and phone cameras had also improved to the point that they could replace a point and shoot cameras.
It wasn’t until 2021 that I rediscovered my love of photography and my quest for a new camera began but I think that needs to be saved for another blog post……to be continued.