As I have mentioned before I used to run a small B2B agency. Back then things were very different, these days I could live for a year happily on what we sometimes spent on gear!
Or even longer, since these days I'm way happier living in as simple ways as I possibly can, actually that is what I always really wanted 馃檪
But now I need to get more active, and for that I had to choose between a camera like this or a cheap & light gimbal for the Fujifilm X-H1, which actually was the last time I bought something new, in 2018.
That investment was done on behalf of my newly minted company outside of Europe, but it was still my own money that went towards all of that. I certainly expected to eventually profit on it, but then 2020 came around...
In the background to the left is my old Nikkor 180/2.8, which is almost as old as me: its from 1970! To the far left is the D700 that I bought second hand at the same time, this is what I used to do with a few exceptions only.
So far it looks like a great piece of equipment, the build feels solid and although there are some quirks when operating it I'll get used to it somehow.
That is always the important part: can I rely on it, can I get used to it so that it is second nature, and will I be able to produce content in a predictable, reliable way?
When you have a cashflow already this is of course far easier, this time around I can't go wrong, and somehow it will have to prove its worth as a pure investment, meaning that I'll have to earn using it.
That earning can of course be indirect, if I end up doing video editing, websites & related things, or a mix of everything for paying customers then it will be perhaps an expense for marketing, proving value and so on.
Come to think of it all from that perspective, I think I've bought a new camera maybe just a handful of times... A couple of times in the mid eighties, then a Leica M6 in 98, and then a Nikon D200 with what I needed for real estate photography in 2005.
The fun thing about that investment, which included a new Macbook, was that it paid off big time: within the first week I had it paid down if I remember correctly 馃榿
I'll get back to doing a review, perhaps several, before I hit the road again I need to really know this little camera for sure.
Its also fascinating that back in the eighties I would have had to fill the whole table with extremely expensive gear, before I could even get close to producing the results that this one can manage easily...
It might even do the video job that my Fujilfilm X-H1 was intended for, although I do think that I'll keep it and use it extensively as a combo.
Now onto planning the content!
P.S: I used my Sony A900 for these shots, I still have two lying around with lots of really good lenses. They do have a relevant story in terms of professional quality and workflow, I might do something about that.
We have a lot of rain and moisture today, so I kinda let that do its job here, also I experimented a bit in Pinta, tweaking curves and so on manually to get filter style results.