Category: Photography

Going Mirrorless in 2025?

I go through phases of considering getting a new digital camera. Considering all my current digital cameras are all DSLRs of one sort or another it would be a major investment to change to mirrorless.

Looking at my local chain of retailers the options for DSLRs are slowly dwindling with some cameras listed but ‘awaiting stock’ for months at a time. The insistence by the EU on everything being able to charge via USB C could be partially to blame for this.

It’s very unlikely that any existing models will be re-engineered to accept USB-C rather than Micro-USB or similar.

OK so what options are there….

  • Go all in with a new mirrorless body and lens, I would need at least a couple of zooms (Ultra-Wide and Wide-Short Telephoto)
  • Buy a second-hand DSLR – OK if it was APSC, just the body would be enough, full frame would involve more lens
  • Stick with what I have now.

The first option whilst it is attractive, would cost quite a lot and I am not sure I could justify the expense, would my images improve that much? I have my doubts.

Second-hand has its attractions too, but some of the examples I’ve seen on MPB are not exactly in top notch condition, bumps and scrapes on a camera less than 5 years old seems a bit off to me, when I look at some of my own that have very little sign of wear and tear. Second hand mirrorless is an alternative, but the cost would be slightly lower than the new option similar I suppose to a new DSLR set up.

Which leads me to the last option…. zero cost and I have what I need for the type of photography I love to do. Plus I more or less understand all the different settings on those camera bodies fairly well. I still have to look at the manual for the Nikon D300 from time to time!

The lack of video, or high resolution video is of no concern to me, I only shoot still images anyway.

What about you? Mirrorless, DSLR, Film?

What is a Vintage Camera?

The term ‘Vintage’ is often mis-used. If you ask a number of people how old they would think a ‘Vintage’ item should be to be classed as ‘Vintage’, you will get a variety of answers.

Take these two cameras, the EOS30 film camera and EOS20D digital camera.

I bought the EOS30 in about the year 2000, so nearly 25 years old, and the EOS20D 20 years ago.

Now in film camera terms, I wouldn’t class the EOS30 as vintage, almost too modern compared to a lot of film cameras people love to use these days. A lot of people think it is a digital camera when they first see it, but there’s no rear screen.

The EOS20D is old by today’s standards but is it ‘vintage’ ?

In my opinion it still takes great photographs, yes it might not be the best performer in low light or at high ISO settings. But for every day typical photographs taken in RAW mode it is pretty good. And at 8 MPS if you are only using the images for social media then it’s more than enough.

Batteries are still available and it takes an 8GB CF Card, but no higher than that.

What do you think a Vintage Digital Camera is? Please comment below.

Using photography as part of your daily exercise routine.

Reading that title might make you think of bench pressing full camera bags!! Yes they can get heavy, but I was thinking of another way!

I try to keep as active as possible, as a 65 year old retiree, it has to not be too strenuous, but enough for me to close my activity rings on my Apple Watch each day.

Exercise for me is mainly walking, sometimes at a slow pace, sometimes at a fast pace if I’m going somewhere listening to music.

Today I took my camera with me on a photo walk, it didn’t matter that I had been around these streets in the town many times before. Looking around you often see things that have changed, or something you hadn’t noticed before.

I didn’t take many photographs, but I enjoyed the walk and looking for scenes to shoot and the walk did me good. The quality of the photos wasn’t important either.

In most cases I can go back again next time and try again, may be with a different camera out of my small collection!

Today I used my Canon EOS600D. My EOS100D with a fixed wide angle lens is perfect for these photo walks, compact and light weight.

Until next time, take care, keep fit and enjoy photography too.

Great sites and You Tube Channels for Photography

I was pleased to receive an email this morning complementing me on the coverage of Photography on my site and would I consider adding their website to the list.

When I looked at Photo Tips Galore  I was pleased to see it wasn’t full of tips for just smart phone users or Fujifilm X100 users! This site had everything including DSLR’s and film cameras as well as digital compact cameras. Take a look I hope you find something that interests you too.

Here are some other sites/channels that I enjoy looking at:

Take a look and see if there are any that interest you.

Black and White Film Photography

Firstly, I would like to give you my apologies for the recent lack of activity. The end of 2023 and beginning of this year took a turn in an unplanned direction and photography (and other things) had to take a back seat for a while. I’ve not even taken many photographs with my shiny new iPhone 15 Pro since getting it.

Hopefully though now that the weather is improving, I will start to feel inspired to take off the lens cap a bit more often and get outside with one of my many cameras.

I did film photography for several decades before changing over to digital photography about 20 years ago. At one point in the mid 1970’s I did a lot of black and white film photography and I had access to a dark room and all the equipment to process my own films and print my own negatives. I enjoyed the process. But I’ve not done any of that in the last 40 or more years.

In the last 20 years, my use of my film camera has sadly decreased to may be one or two rolls a year. However, I still enjoy using my Canon EOS30 film SLR camera, but it is quite a challenge compared to digital these days. There are times when I wish I still had some of my other film cameras such as the Olympus OM30 I used in the 1990’s.

The other major difference to digital photography is cost, the cost of film and of getting it processed etc. That has put me off doing it too often. It’s a sort of treat to do it once or twice a year.

After a bit of research I’ve found a company here in France that does film processing, scanning, printing etc. They are Nation Photo, they are based in Paris, but they do a mail order service. I did enquire locally about the cost of film processing, but it was a crazy expensive price. The Nation Photo site is available in English as well as French 😉🇫🇷

Nation Photo do quite a quick turn around. I posted a film to them last Tuesday, and I received an email back from them a week later with a link to download my images in TIFF format. They will post the negatives back to me sometime this week I guess.

For a change this time I decided to give Black and White film another go, it is many years since I shot in black and white apart from on my digital camera. I loaded up a roll of Ilford HP5, a film stock I’ve not used in ages. The grain is very evident in the resulting images but it adds to the creativeness of them I guess.

Once a month the local automotive club meet up in the town market square, naturally there are quite a lot of old French cars (2CV’s and the like), but there is also a good selection of other makes from around the world. I don’t go every month, but I was determined to ‘finish off my film’ last month.

Here are a small selection of my photographs from this recent film.

I’m reasonably pleased with the results. I have done some small adjustments to the images you see here, mainly to increase the contrast levels and some cropping.