To gear or not to gear

Take pictures with what you want

I have to admit that I never possessed a rangefinder or analogue SLR camera. There are no images I took with such antique equipment. I do not join the party of retro gear may it be old Leicas, Hasselblads, Nikons, Pentax‘ or Polaroid. Yes I own a Dual turntable but I sold my Thorens years ago and hardly ever play vinyl. Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate the soul of analogue technique, I love the sound and the look you can get with tools. Wise old men in grey or white coats created gems of precision mechanics with knowledge and affection – beautiful, but not for me.

I started taking photos when I had purchased my first camera, a plasticky Olympus Camedia 220z (also known as Olympus D-520 Zoom). That one held a 2.1 Megapixel sensor, a Lens with 35-105mm (equiv.) and 2.8-4.4 max apertures. The images were stored on Smart-Media-carts of which my first one had a capacity of 8 Megabytes. This was the camera I took the first foto of my daughter with – who cares about technical stuff.

But let’s be honest, buying gear for me is a little bit like shopping for fashion addicts. So my first update was a Olympus Camedia 4000 zoom with 4 megapixels and a little bit more of wide angle with 32mm (equiv.). A portrait taken with this camera in harsh backlight teached me what noise is – and color fringing.

Later I also owned a Pentax Optio S30. I told myself that it was truly pocketable and therefore could comlemend the bulkier Oly. But honestly – it was so cute and the metallic case was so intriguing! That one had 3 megapixels and used SD cards at last.

Unfortunately I smashed the cam while an unwillingly acrobatic activity on a beach rocker. I never owned another Pentax but I always liked the brand.

At that time I had long possessed my first DSLR, a canon EOS 20D. My memories of that machine are mixed to say the least. Image quality went up comared to the digicams I was used to use. BUT … horrible front- and backfocus problems with both lenses I owned – the inevitable Kit-Lens and the got to nifty fifty. When I look at some images from then – totally out of focus – and bring to mind the loud screeching sound of the focus motors that let the fillings jump out of your teeth I fully understand that photography went on the frustrating side of life and the gear began to gather dust laying in the drawer.

Nevertheless there were some shots that looked nice – with the typical Canon rendering of colors.

[Badpavillon]

But the initial …