Greetings to all! I wanted to share my experience.
I'll start with how the camera came into my hands. I already once told in my greeting post about how I went with a friend on a camping trip and took my father's Zenit-11 with a Mir-1V 37 mm lens. For our city Soviet angle lens was a rarity - all shot on Helios-44, which is 58 mm. My father showed me how to use the built-in exposure meter, how to set the shutter speed relative to the aperture, and explained what determines the aperture and depth of field. For some reason, for the first time, everything was clear to me!
A couple of years later, when my father was convinced that I seriously took a great interest in photography, he slowly began to get me different lenses. So I had Jupiter-9 85 mm and Jupiter 37A 135 mm.
Then my father bought me Kiev-19, for my first place in the regional photo contest! There was also a shooting experience for an old American camera - the quality was terrible, but the impressions and photos remained in the memory and archive.
Over time, I had another lens Mir-20N 20mm. At that time I owned a good park of lenses for Zenith and shot Kiev-19, which was respected by provincial press photographers.
Time passed, there appeared all sorts of "soap cases", Polaroid, the first digital cameras. But I kept shooting Zenit / Kiev all the time.
It's time to go to serve in the army. Has served. I came to a civilian - everything changed greatly! Almost everyone has a phone with a good camera (not yet a smartphone, but already something good) and a digital camera.
Even I fell a little sick with a digital camera and went to shoot everything, but quickly realized that it was not reaching the level that I saw on the Internet. Why, you ask, I did not continue to shoot on film? I will answer: it seemed to me too old and I quickly chased the digital technologies. I even had some kind of disdain for the film.
Just over a year I shoot Olympus digital camera and mobile phone Sony Ericsson W890i with a 3.2 megapixel camera and I envy all those who have a DSLR camera.
And here it was! I went to the bank, took a loan and bought myself the first digital DSLR camera Canon 50d with a Canon EF-S lens 17-85 mm IS USM. It was a plane! A bunch of buttons and items in the menu. Immediately began experiments and photos all in a row. Immediately began to feel a cool photographer. Now I look at those first photos from the 50d and in horror, how could I ever shoot such after those smart frames on the film? Degraded? Rather, I began all over again! As the experience gained, my self-esteem began to decrease noticeably, but the desire for excellence was not diminished! Tried myself in everything: macro, portrait, landscape, reportage, sport, object, etc.
After a while the fashion for Soviet lenses went - and I have more than enough of them! Here I am gaining a sharp popularity among portrait and landscape photographers and begin to "cut the loot." But the basis of my portfolio still remained landscape!
The Internet thing is hard. There I absorbed information about photo processing, photography techniques and technical characteristics of other cameras. Naturally, I learned about the full frame (camera with a matrix, the physical dimensions of which correspond to the size of the film frame 24x36 mm). Well, how can you not want 5d! What a contrast and plasticity of photos, what color !!! Mmmmmm ... but how does it blur the background (at that time I already had 50 mm 1.8).
In a year I'm already the lucky owner of Canon 5d! I bought with a run of 25 thousand frames. I had to sell 50d, along with the lens, since EF-S 17-85 did not physically stand up for the full frame. It turns out I was left alone with 5d, 50 mm and Soviet lenses. And how to "cut the loot" on photosessions and weddings? I had to take a second-hand Canon EF 28-90 mm. The lens for the quality and functionality of the analogue of the whale is 18-55 kit, only it came from the film era.
By the way, forgot to mention that he began at that time to shoot again at Zenith and Kiev - yes-yes! - all the same fashion affected! She influenced the fact that I again picked up a film camera. Gradually I have such lenses as Sigma 70-300 to replace Jupiter 37A 135 mm and Tokina 19-35 mm to replace the Mir-20N / 20 mm, which still serve me. Soviet lenses sold to a friend.
Fisheye. There was also such a lens in my park. It was Peleng-8A, 3.5 / 8 mm circular Soviet fisheye. I shot it for 1.5 years and also sold it to a friend. Impressions are positive, but after buying a fullframe 5d, he began to give a round image.
In parallel with digital photography, I am fond of film to this day. For this reason, the Canon 1000QD-P film was purchased 3 years ago and the lenses with the EF bayonet mount and the autofocus is retained.
Constantly there were thoughts to try myself in the medium format, of course in the film, because To buy a digital medium format, you will need to sell an apartment or a kidney. There were also thoughts about the ultra-wide-angle pinhole. But while it's all in my head.
This year I became the owner of Canon 6d, since 5d could no longer cope with my tasks - I squeezed out of it and so all the juices! I will explain: shooting star tracks, the Milky Way, serial reportage shooting, video - all this is beyond the power of an old man. Also, I was tortured with dust on the matrix!!! For each photo it was necessary to kill 5 minutes purely for the removal of dust. Unacceptable! So now I enjoy the processing of files from 6d!
In addition to the 6d was bought an old, but in an ideal condition, the Canon EF 24-85 mm. It is bought because the nickle had to be sold with the tired 28-90, and the reportage needs to be removed for something. Tokina 19-35 is still dead. Sorry for it, nice was the lens. It gives an error Err001 - this is most likely a break in the diaphragm loop ... so says Google. I'll buy "L" 17-40 or 17-35!
A few words about the working camera. I work in a local newspaper photojournalist and working by camera is Nikon D5100 with an lens 18-55. The device does not correspond to its position! It would be possible to add a little and buy a D7000, while at that time they had very little difference in price. But there is something that is. Shoots, as for me, badly. I tried to process RAW files from it - I did not make friends! I shoot in JPEG. Run it has 140 thousand frames - it works so far without any complaints.
What I would like to say at the end of this whole text: I've tried not so much, but the beginnings on film give a good bonus in mastering technique and processing photos. Of course I want to own an expensive full frame type Canon 5D mark4 or 5Ds and a set of fix "L"-series lenses, but all my life I have to be content with used cameras and lenses. Although now I'm finally finished with what I have now. I also want a quadrocopter to take pictures from a height and a medium format film camera for the soul, but this is already time and finances.
You need to think about technology, but not in the first place. The very first thing to think about is the moment and the plot. Almost all great photographers shot and shoot not on top technology. That since your picture is super-sharp, like diarrhea , you can see every grain and color is simply gorgeous, but the plot is boring and the eye does not catch anything? If you compare two photographs - high-quality, but boring and not high-quality, shot on the smartphone, but with a very strong storyline - then the second will win!
Thank you for reading this text!
Added: List of equipment I was shooting
- Zenith-11, Helios 44-2, Mir-1V, Mir-20N, Jupiter-9, Jupiter-37A, Industar-50-2, Peleng 8A
- Kiev-19, Helios-81N
- American antique camera
- Sony Ericsson W890i 3.2 Mpx
- Olympus FE-360 8 Mpx
- Nikon D5000, 18-105 mm
- Canon 50d, EF-S 17-85 mm
- Canon 5d, EF 28-90 mm
- Canon 6d, Tokina 19-35, Sigma 70-300 mm
- Nikon D5100, 18-55 mm
- Canon 350d, 18-55 mm (the camera of my wife)
A little later, we'll create a separate post from my best film photos!