Hi all - sell me a smaller APSC camera or tell me I should man up with my current kit and maybe a new lens.
The short story is that I have been using my full frame DSLR much less over the last 5-6 years and this year I am trying to get back into using as it is a much more satisfying way to take photos and obviously the image quality is far higher than my iphone. I think I mainly stopped carrying it around due to the size and weight of the camera and having to make choices about what can be fitted into luggage when going on holiday. I have been struggling as well as although I have a couple of prime lenses they are quite close in focal length (although I can borrow a few more from my parents) I rarely want to take the camera and more than one lens with me on general trips with the family. I did have a look at getting a walkabout zoom lens that cover a range of the normal focal lengths in but they all seem much larger than the current lenses I have plus at £900+ it seems like I could chose a different path.
Trips and walking about somewhere includes pushing a pushchair, watching out for the toddler, holding hands and chasing after them and the 1kg+ weight around my neck swinging around is unpleasant at times and dangerous, I have caught my daughter with it thankfully quite gently. On th flip side she loves playing with the buttons and the live view, looking through the viewfinder, snapping pictures she cannot see and looking through photos so I am sure she will have fun with photography in the future.
Essentially I have been using a phone as the camera to take places. They have come a long way and the 3 lens setup gives me a wide range of useful focal lengths and whatever processing apple decided makes photos sparkle which is great for snap shots. Everyone wants to take snapshots some of the time. However I struggle with the ergonomics of holding the phone steady when taking the picture, seeing the screen as we hold it and angle it away and generally having control over what the camera is doing. The phones have worked adequately well until you try to view pictures at 100% on screen or on a decently sized print then I find the pictures disappointing in terms of sharpness and clarity and regret not having used a proper camera. I have definitely missed out using the phone on several holidays. I am quite envious of my wife who seems to be able to real of great pictures on her phone, make some small adjustments and get them on social media before we leave wherever we are or as I am driving home meanwhile my photos can sit on the camera not even looked at for weeks/months. Getting her onto a proper camera some of the time would be excellent as well as when she has picked up and point and shot with my camera the results are good!
The price of lenses for my current DLSR is off-putting as well especially considering adding a large zoom lens that I am not sure will suit me anyway. I am considering the "down grade" as when I moved from an initial digicam and bought my first DLSR way back nearly 20 years ago now I had the camera and two light kit lenses that covered most scenarios and everything was straightforward. The camera wasn't as large either (Nikon D50). I do remember stepping up though from the next DSLR with 10 megapixels to my first FX camera with 12 megapixels and my pictures at the time seemed noticeably nicer on the FX camera. I have seen lots of encouraging results on mirrorless APSC cameras and probably it is all my learning and practice with taking photos and using the camera that matters more. It is a shame I do not have a standard test picture I took to look at across the digital cameras I have had as that might have been fun to see.
A lot of good photos are skill, technique and being able to look at them afterwards rather than the camera and I need to get back in practice with that. I have no excuses but this year I am re learning depth of field, focus points, adjusting exposure etc all over again. Thank goodness for digital rather than all the learning and experimenting being on film again! The same goes for editing, uploading and storing photos. I have lost my way since moving out from home where I could borrow a computer with Photoshop and Raw. I have not been as handy using GIMP and darktable (which is no longer compatible with my computer)
So I am considering options. My current camera with my heaviest lens weighs 1200g, adding the 24-120mm lens suggested to me would take that up to 1708g ish.
The Nikon z50ii I am considering at weighs 685g with the kit lens I would typically carry around. I know it is not a good comparison price wise - newlines vs new camera, lenses (kit and extra prime), different memory cards and it seems a spare battery or charger is more essential but the practicalities should be better. To me it seems a sensible extravagance as long as I am happy in the photos I take. I need to figure out a few things like if I am ok looking through an electronic view finder, how responsive the shutter is and whether it has horizon markers etc. I already know it has a handy flip around screen which was very useful back when I had a Nikon 990 as you could peer over things or frame your picture from up high, the much faster shutter response when I got the D50 was one of the best things about the upgrade.
Thanks for reading, if nothing else it is good for me to write things down. Here are some of my photos from this year as I try to relearn what I am doing. I have always tried to take a photo to be how like I see it by eye so there isn't a lot of processing. Imgur may have softened these up?
The short story is that I have been using my full frame DSLR much less over the last 5-6 years and this year I am trying to get back into using as it is a much more satisfying way to take photos and obviously the image quality is far higher than my iphone. I think I mainly stopped carrying it around due to the size and weight of the camera and having to make choices about what can be fitted into luggage when going on holiday. I have been struggling as well as although I have a couple of prime lenses they are quite close in focal length (although I can borrow a few more from my parents) I rarely want to take the camera and more than one lens with me on general trips with the family. I did have a look at getting a walkabout zoom lens that cover a range of the normal focal lengths in but they all seem much larger than the current lenses I have plus at £900+ it seems like I could chose a different path.
Trips and walking about somewhere includes pushing a pushchair, watching out for the toddler, holding hands and chasing after them and the 1kg+ weight around my neck swinging around is unpleasant at times and dangerous, I have caught my daughter with it thankfully quite gently. On th flip side she loves playing with the buttons and the live view, looking through the viewfinder, snapping pictures she cannot see and looking through photos so I am sure she will have fun with photography in the future.
Essentially I have been using a phone as the camera to take places. They have come a long way and the 3 lens setup gives me a wide range of useful focal lengths and whatever processing apple decided makes photos sparkle which is great for snap shots. Everyone wants to take snapshots some of the time. However I struggle with the ergonomics of holding the phone steady when taking the picture, seeing the screen as we hold it and angle it away and generally having control over what the camera is doing. The phones have worked adequately well until you try to view pictures at 100% on screen or on a decently sized print then I find the pictures disappointing in terms of sharpness and clarity and regret not having used a proper camera. I have definitely missed out using the phone on several holidays. I am quite envious of my wife who seems to be able to real of great pictures on her phone, make some small adjustments and get them on social media before we leave wherever we are or as I am driving home meanwhile my photos can sit on the camera not even looked at for weeks/months. Getting her onto a proper camera some of the time would be excellent as well as when she has picked up and point and shot with my camera the results are good!
The price of lenses for my current DLSR is off-putting as well especially considering adding a large zoom lens that I am not sure will suit me anyway. I am considering the "down grade" as when I moved from an initial digicam and bought my first DLSR way back nearly 20 years ago now I had the camera and two light kit lenses that covered most scenarios and everything was straightforward. The camera wasn't as large either (Nikon D50). I do remember stepping up though from the next DSLR with 10 megapixels to my first FX camera with 12 megapixels and my pictures at the time seemed noticeably nicer on the FX camera. I have seen lots of encouraging results on mirrorless APSC cameras and probably it is all my learning and practice with taking photos and using the camera that matters more. It is a shame I do not have a standard test picture I took to look at across the digital cameras I have had as that might have been fun to see.
A lot of good photos are skill, technique and being able to look at them afterwards rather than the camera and I need to get back in practice with that. I have no excuses but this year I am re learning depth of field, focus points, adjusting exposure etc all over again. Thank goodness for digital rather than all the learning and experimenting being on film again! The same goes for editing, uploading and storing photos. I have lost my way since moving out from home where I could borrow a computer with Photoshop and Raw. I have not been as handy using GIMP and darktable (which is no longer compatible with my computer)
So I am considering options. My current camera with my heaviest lens weighs 1200g, adding the 24-120mm lens suggested to me would take that up to 1708g ish.
The Nikon z50ii I am considering at weighs 685g with the kit lens I would typically carry around. I know it is not a good comparison price wise - newlines vs new camera, lenses (kit and extra prime), different memory cards and it seems a spare battery or charger is more essential but the practicalities should be better. To me it seems a sensible extravagance as long as I am happy in the photos I take. I need to figure out a few things like if I am ok looking through an electronic view finder, how responsive the shutter is and whether it has horizon markers etc. I already know it has a handy flip around screen which was very useful back when I had a Nikon 990 as you could peer over things or frame your picture from up high, the much faster shutter response when I got the D50 was one of the best things about the upgrade.
Thanks for reading, if nothing else it is good for me to write things down. Here are some of my photos from this year as I try to relearn what I am doing. I have always tried to take a photo to be how like I see it by eye so there isn't a lot of processing. Imgur may have softened these up?
