Your journey through photography, be it short or long, to help us understand each other and where we are at

[spudhead]

It is clear on any forum and not just this one we have people at many different stages of the photographic journey, I would like posts on your journey from members and honesty on where they feel you are, do you learn from your mistakes, do you learn from others , if you look at an images from last year are they better or worse than this year. different genres, and locations, have an impact and to some extent current kit, although any kit used badly is no advantage.
For sure I make mistakes a lot but hope a learn, but not too sure at times, I do not have the vision of many on here, I do not see a good shots like some others, I only came back to this hobby and yes it is that a hobby in 2016 and have only been shooting bif for maybe 2 years now, I would like to shoot better street an travel shots and hope to learn from members on here who are clearly better at it.
My kit is ageing now a9mk1, a7iii, a99ii a couple of decent e-mount lens and a pile of a-mount legacy glass, I have resisted a new camera body so far so I could really learn to get the best I can from the kit I have now, the a9mk1 I have had 4 years and the rest longer. I new body is near hopefully.

please have your say, where are you are at, what are your challenges in your genres, talk about any part of the journey, thanks as always

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Interesting topic, so here goes...

I guess, even as a kid, I always loved taking photos, even though it was just with a Kodak 110, and they were always just snaps of course, but when I was 21 Pentax bought out the Zoom 70, the first well priced compact zoom with auto focus, and while it wasn't the greatest it was a good all round camera (I still have it somewhere I think!). About a year later my then girlfriend, now wife, bought me my first SLR, a Minolta 7000i, with a standard small zoom (I don't recall which) and from there I bought us both a 100 300 zoom (she had the same gear). That's when things really took off and I've been shooting properly since. That said, certainly for a good while I was a P Shooter, until I started getting into the more technical aspects of photography. Most of my photography back then was at Zoos and Wildlife parks, or Landscapes, and native wildlife was an occasional thing. That is mainly because the availability of cheaper big zooms just wasn't there, it was a big money, pro only investment really. Anyway, a few generations of Minolta SLRS passed through (7i, 700si) and then I bought a Dimage 7D, the first Minolta Digital Camera. It was a bridge cam, and was decent enough, but I sold it and bought the 7D when it came out. At 6.1mp it was a very high resolution sensor st the time, and that camera served me beautifully for a good few years. I actually wore the shutter out (although there was apparently a recall for failing shutters early jn its life, which I never knew about (no internet then!). I will say, looking back, that a lot of my shots with it aren't great, and that was probably because I didn't take as much care with settings as I used to on film, because it didn't matter when taking hundreds, as we now can. That was the biggest change IMO, digital doesn't demand you to be ax focussed on settings for every shot. You should be, and I now am, but it's easy to be blasé.
So it was then in to Pentax for a few years and 3 cameras (K30, K3, K3 II, and also the beginning of my more serious, and now favoured, forays into native wildlife photography, because the availability of suitable lenses at sensible prices was now a big thing. I started with a 120-400 Sigma, then on to a 150-450 Pentax.
The trouble then was, no 600mm lens, unless I spent 5k on a used one! so I swapped to Nikon D7500 and a Tamron 150 600 G2 plus others. A great camera, I still have it, but don't use it. 2 years of that and I was curious about Mirrorless, as Nikon had just bought out a Z50, so I toddled to Park Cameras to have a look. Oops...
Martin, who I knew well as we always went there, decided to spend some time showing me other gear as well. 2 hours later, after he'd showed me the 200 600, that was it, I had to have it, but not there and then. I went home, hatched a plan, sold a load of stuff (drum kit, records etc) and got together more than enough to buy the A7RIV and the 200 600. That's 3.5 years ago now, and here we are, with me looking at getting an ARV or maybe something else.
Do I think I have improved? Yes, an awful lot in the last 8 years, and more so since going Mirrorless.
Do I still try to improve? Yes, especially on Macro, which I'm getting there on now.
I am inspired by others shots too, and also by some people's processing ability, which is the one area I could improve on, but also feel I don't want to learn masking etc, I can't really be arsed
So there you are, a Njorls Saga for you to get through, thanks for reading.

 

[alexpler]

Interesting topic, thank you for bringing it up Gary.

My parents tell me that I like taking pictures since I was a child. We had a film camera back then and I was in charge of family travel pictures.

Later I bought a Sony A300 but it was too big and heavy for my liking and I wasn't that patient for technical stuff, so when the smartphones with decent cameras arrived, I discarded my dsrl in favor of the easier and more intuitive phones. They were all Xperias do I didn't abandon Sony to speak of haha.

Later models had the Alpha menu when taking pictures and I started enjoying being more technical. Thus past year during my travels to Venice and Athens I wondered that I might have a shot at digital cameras... But I knew I wanted a compact camera, light enough that I wouldn't mind taking it when traveling. Which brought me to the a7c.

Also at the same time I started experimenting with street photography. Until 2022 I tried to avoid having people in my shots, so it was more art & architecture stuff. So getting an a7c and the 40mm lens pulled me deeper into street.

I bought some books by Michael Freeman and other photographers to learn the basics about composition, exposure and such. I have yet to read some of them and I feel like I'm still learning and at the beginning of the path. It's only been 8 months since I bought the camera, anyway. There's no rush.

Actually when I compare my smartphone pictures to my FF pictures, I think many of the phone shots are better: I guess it was easier and and after many years I got accustomed to shot on the go. It will take time using a camera as intuitively as a phone. But it's fun doing so.

There's a Japanese saying that I like: you only get old when you stop learning. So I guess I like to always be a beginner.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Interesting topic, thank you for bringing it up Gary.

My parents tell me that I like taking pictures since I was a child. We had a film camera back then and I was in charge of family travel pictures.

Later I bought a Sony A300 but it was too big and heavy for my liking and I wasn't that patient for technical stuff, so when the smartphones with decent cameras arrived, I discarded my dsrl in favor of the easier and more intuitive phones. They were all Xperias do I didn't abandon Sony to speak of haha.

Later models had the Alpha menu when taking pictures and I started enjoying being more technical. Thus past year during my travels to Venice and Athens I wondered that I might have a shot at digital cameras... But I knew I wanted a compact camera, light enough that I wouldn't mind taking it when traveling. Which brought me to the a7c.

Also at the same time I started experimenting with street photography. Until 2022 I tried to avoid having people in my shots, so it was more art & architecture stuff. So getting an a7c and the 40mm lens pulled me deeper into street.

I bought some books by Michael Freeman and other photographers to learn the basics about composition, exposure and such. I have yet to read some of them and I feel like I'm still learning and at the beginning of the path. It's only been 8 months since I bought the camera, anyway. There's no rush.

Actually when I compare my smartphone pictures to my FF pictures, I think many of the phone shots are better: I guess it was easier and I got accustomed. It will take time using a camera as intuitively as a phone. But it's fun doing so.

There's a Japanese saying that I like: you only get old when you stop learning. So I guess I like to always be a beginner.

An interesting point about phone shots. I do think that for street and landscape they are very tough to beat a lot of the time. It's the whole "computational photography" side of things that they excel at, and the top cameras have very good lenses these days.

 

[Deleted Member 5045]

Well, it started out that I just wanted to find one of these.

View attachment 46424

And still haven't found one yet, so I'll just keep practising until I do... ️

 

[spudhead]

Well, it started out that I just wanted to find one of these.

View attachment 46424

And still haven't found one yet, so I'll just keep practising until I do... ️

wow Clint this is nuts at least to the left when do we get the whole story and the I am so happy with my Sony and I hate lens hoods version

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

wow Clint this is nuts at least to the left when do we get the whole story and the I am so happy with my Sony and I hate lens hoods version

You mean Quackers?

 

[Deleted Member 5045]

wow Clint this is nuts at least to the left when do we get the whole story and the I am so happy with my Sony and I hate lens hoods version

The duck story is the truth. All my Sony fanboy talk and lens hood hatred was only so you guys would think I'm cool... ️

 

[Unframed Dave]

I think I've mostly done mine before but in brief:

Aged 14, I had the option of photography at school as part of the art syllabus. Part of the attraction was some darkroom time with a red head called Sonia. Happy days.

Following on, I brought myself a practika mtl5 the same as we had at school.

I soon moved over to olympus for one main reason, David Bailey. I was hell bent on spending my days in St Tropez surrounded by glamorous bikini models like him. Sadly, it wasn't to be, I spent the next 3 years in greasy overalls as a mechanical apprentice.

I tried everything to improve on my wildlife shots, but as someone above mentioned, long lenses weren't as available or affordable as they are now. My centon f8 500mm mirror was frankly, rubbish. I still have it today.

When digital evolved, I moved onto nikon and started travelling pretty extensively. I set myself the challenge of fifty countries before I hit fifty, I managed 49, which was a bit of a blow.

Literally at the start of covid, we were almost stranded in Ushuaia after a trip into the Antarctic circle. It was during this trip I decided my kit was too heavy for travelling and I moved onto Sony mirrorless.

Being a bit of a gear tart, I have accumulated far more weight than I had as a nikon user, but have a lot more options available to me.

Travel, is my real passion photographically and if I can combine it with watching wildlife, it doesn't get any better.

I still think of Sonia now and again.

 

[alexpler]

I think I've mostly done mine before but in brief:

Aged 14, I had the option of photography at school as part of the art syllabus. Part of the attraction was some darkroom time with a red head called Sonia. Happy days.

Following on, I brought myself a practika mtl5 the same as we had at school.

I soon moved over to olympus for one main reason, David Bailey. I was hell bent on spending my days in St Tropez surrounded by glamorous bikini models like him. Sadly, it wasn't to be, I spent the next 3 years in greasy overalls as a mechanical apprentice.

I tried everything to improve on my wildlife shots, but as someone above mentioned, long lenses weren't as available or affordable as they are now. My centon f8 500mm mirror was frankly, rubbish. I still have it today.

When digital evolved, I moved onto nikon and started travelling pretty extensively. I set myself the challenge of fifty countries before I hit fifty, I managed 49, which was a bit of a blow.

Literally at the start of covid, we were almost stranded in Ushuaia after a trip into the Antarctic circle. It was during this trip I decided my kit was too heavy for travelling and I moved onto Sony mirrorless.

Being a bit of a gear tart, I have accumulated far more weight than I had as a nikon user, but have a lot more options available to me.

Travel, is my real passion photographically and if I can combine it with watching wildlife, it doesn't get any better.

I still think of Sonia now and again.

Thanks for sharing your story. We keep evolving but there's always a part of our own past with us.

 

[Deleted Member 5045]

I think I've mostly done mine before but in brief:

Aged 14, I had the option of photography at school as part of the art syllabus. Part of the attraction was some darkroom time with a red head called Sonia. Happy days.

Following on, I brought myself a practika mtl5 the same as we had at school.

I soon moved over to olympus for one main reason, David Bailey. I was hell bent on spending my days in St Tropez surrounded by glamorous bikini models like him. Sadly, it wasn't to be, I spent the next 3 years in greasy overalls as a mechanical apprentice.

I tried everything to improve on my wildlife shots, but as someone above mentioned, long lenses weren't as available or affordable as they are now. My centon f8 500mm mirror was frankly, rubbish. I still have it today.

When digital evolved, I moved onto nikon and started travelling pretty extensively. I set myself the challenge of fifty countries before I hit fifty, I managed 49, which was a bit of a blow.

Literally at the start of covid, we were almost stranded in Ushuaia after a trip into the Antarctic circle. It was during this trip I decided my kit was too heavy for travelling and I moved onto Sony mirrorless.

Being a bit of a gear tart, I have accumulated far more weight than I had as a nikon user, but have a lot more options available to me.

Travel, is my real passion photographically and if I can combine it with watching wildlife, it doesn't get any better.

I still think of Sonia now and again.

So what Sonia up to these days..?

 

[spudhead]

I think I've mostly done mine before but in brief:

Aged 14, I had the option of photography at school as part of the art syllabus. Part of the attraction was some darkroom time with a red head called Sonia. Happy days.

Following on, I brought myself a practika mtl5 the same as we had at school.

I soon moved over to olympus for one main reason, David Bailey. I was hell bent on spending my days in St Tropez surrounded by glamorous bikini models like him. Sadly, it wasn't to be, I spent the next 3 years in greasy overalls as a mechanical apprentice.

I tried everything to improve on my wildlife shots, but as someone above mentioned, long lenses weren't as available or affordable as they are now. My centon f8 500mm mirror was frankly, rubbish. I still have it today.

When digital evolved, I moved onto nikon and started travelling pretty extensively. I set myself the challenge of fifty countries before I hit fifty, I managed 49, which was a bit of a blow.

Literally at the start of covid, we were almost stranded in Ushuaia after a trip into the Antarctic circle. It was during this trip I decided my kit was too heavy for travelling and I moved onto Sony mirrorless.

Being a bit of a gear tart, I have accumulated far more weight than I had as a nikon user, but have a lot more options available to me.

Travel, is my real passion photographically and if I can combine it with watching wildlife, it doesn't get any better.

I still think of Sonia now and again.

Sounds like you might have been fumbling around in that darkroom Dave

 

[Unframed Dave]

Sounds like you might have been fumbling around in that darkroom Dave

Still am, but one tries.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Relative to most of the folks here, I'm a newbie to photography. My past only has brief exposure (see what i did there?) to the world of photography.

In my childhood, there was a brief stint with a FisherPrice/Kodak 110. No idea why I stopped, probably because my dad got rid of his camera and darkroom gear.
In my college years, I got my first taste of Sony photography with a Sony Cyber-Shot... some fixed lens 5 MP which I thought was pretty damn cool at the time. Again, not sure why I stopped. I probably lost the camera when I graduated and moved. I've had point and shoots over the years, but they usually died on me (salt water exposure) or went obsolete.

Fast forward 20 years and the photography bug truly bit me again, but different. I came to Sony in earnest when I acquired an a6000 for video and photos. In 2020 I was going to be a hybrid shooter and travel vlog youtuber, even upgraded to an a6400... then the Coronapocalypse happened. I did a few cooking videos and dabbled in some food photography but I knew better than to quit my day job. November will make 4 years with my a6400 and I've tried a bit of everything: videos, travel photography, landscapes, and family portrait stuff. I think I've found my true interests lie in floral photography, vacation photos and family photos.

I'm no expert, but manual mode hasn't scared me in quite some time, and I shoot RAW and am now comfortable with the editing process. I feel as though I've grown with this forum. This site really encourages me to keep at it and try new subjects and genres. Cheers to you all.

EDIT: I forgot to mention gear. The Sony 18-135mm kit lens for the APSC line-up is a great kit lens, perfect for travel photography when there is sufficient light. I might even miss it when I trade it in. The Tamron 17-70mm f2.8 has taken up residence on my camera and stays on 95% of the time. Primes demand respect, but rarely travel with me now. My favorite is the Sony 35mm f1.8.
And yet, the best takeaway from this forum is: gear doesn't matter if you don't go out and shoot!

 

[spudhead]

Thanks for reply Chris

 

[Doug Herr]

My photographic history is much too long for a forum post but here's a synopsis:

• Devoured National Geographic wildlife stories as a child, especially Fredrick Kent Truslow's photos
• Took a photography class in High School
• Bought a used Nikon F
• Borrowed a 300mm f/4.5 Nikkor for a field workshop and fell in love with wildlife photography (see Audubon magazine September 1974 inside front cover) then bought my own 300mm lens
• Career & family put photography on the back burner
• When kids were grown I found my photo equipment was hopelessly outdated, not fond of the huge bulk and Rube Goldberg approach to AF of DLSRs so I waited for mirrorless to become viable
• the rest is history: a7II, a7rII, a7rIII, 600 GM, a1
• 

 

[Deleted Member 5045]

I've always taken pride in trying to take nice photos of landscapes on my phone so it started out with buying an RX100III to throw in my camelbak so I could possibly print photos that I took while I was out riding. It quickly moved towards realising that I'd found something that I'm very passionate about and has since knocked riding off the top spot for me in regards to how I spend my free time. Funnily enough I still never take the RX100 in my camelbak because I don't want to break it..!

Photography has been a really special journey for me. It has made me realise things about myself that I never knew. You see, I'm a big, muscley extrovert, I'm quite loud, most people here know I'm very opinionated which is amped up even more in real life. I don't fit the photographer mould at all which I get told all the time. When I was younger I was the guy who doesn't show emotion and as I've gotten older I've slowly understood that it's absolutely fine to just be who you are, I'm an emotional guy but just never wanted to admit it, I wear my heart on my sleeve and I think photography has just really topped that off as it's a very emotional thing to engulf yourself into, I think it can really serve a person's heart and soul.

Anyway, I've been doing this for two years now, I started in August 2021. I'm just as passionate today as I was about the whole process the day I started. I don't have kids and I have a partner who absolutely loves roaming around on the camera with me so I'm able to spend most weekends doing just that. I still wake up early on Saturday all excited to get moving, just as I am right now. I feel that I've found my calling...

 

[Landshark99]

I think some may know my photography journey but for those who do not here are the highlights.

My Aunt bought me my first camera a Kodak Brownie, (still own it) when I was a child, but it was like all kids’ things, they are used a few times and forgotten. My father bought himself a Minolta Hi-Matic7, a fixed lens rangefinder for documenting his projects, I started to take an interest in using it for myself. When I went to high school, I needed to take a shop or art class, so enrolled in the photo class, little did I know what an influence my class and teacher would have on my life. This class was not like most high school photo classes it competed with colleges all around country. Mr. King, our teacher was not only had an influence on me, but there is also a long list of successful photographers and other artistic careers that were forever grateful for his inspiration. One of my favorite moments was maybe some 25 years after taking that class, at least a hundred graduates and myself did a tribute for Mr. King while he was still alive and could appreciate all he had done for us.

Anyway, when in college I thought I wanted to be a biologist but instead found myself wanting to take images of life more than spending hours researching it. I dropped out, bought a Nikon F (still own this one as well) and decided photography was the career I wanted. To launch my career, I worked at and managed a few camera stores including one of the main pro stores of its day in Los Angeles. The store gave me the opportunity to buy equipment, meet a lot of people in the industry and assistant a lot of them. In those days rentals of both studios and equipment was nowhere as easy as today. Assisting was not only a way to learn but also a way to have a friend help you out with building a portfolio. During this time, I started acquiring my equipment needs piece by piece, I started with a few lenses for my Nikon that I was able to buy used, a Hasselblad 500(grew to hate that camera) came later along with some early strobes. My image creation choices had now changed to more street and commercial project interests, portraits, tabletops, product, and cars.

One day a pro customer of mine asked me to assist on some entertainment projects, I was thrilled and within that year I started to shoot my own entertainment jobs. By coincidence I had found my calling, for the next almost 40 years I made my living shooting Ad, Publicity, Posters, Editorial and Magazine covers for the entertainment industry both television and features. I traveled all over the world to wherever the jobs took me, shooting an endless variety of cameras from Nikon, Canon, Sinar, Fuji, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Contax, Olympus from 35mm to medium format to 4X5 and 8x10, from Kodachrome, B&W, E-6 and C41film normal and cross processed, 8X10 Polaroid films, transitioned from film to early digital with Kodak, Nikon, Leaf, Contax, Canon, Hasselblad and Sony. All along this journey I always carried a film or digital P&S camera to continue my love of street and travel images, mostly Contax, Nikon, Olympus, Leica, and Sony.

So, this all l brings me to now, 5 years ago I decided to slow down and become semi-retired, I did not expect to enjoy the retirement part so much. Even though I loved what I did for all those years and met an incredible bunch of people, I cannot begin to express how happy I am now just shooting for me. No deadlines, no clients, more family, less stress traveling and more relaxed life.
Some of the early cameras, the Brownie, the Minolta(not my original one) and the Black Nikon F with a few of my original lenses

• X10
• 9.3 mm
• ƒ/3.6
• 10/1400 sec
• ISO 1600

• X10
• 9.3 mm
• ƒ/3.6
• 10/1000 sec
• ISO 1600

• DSC-RX1RM2
• 35 mm f/2
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/4
• 1/160 sec
• ISO 16000

 

[AlphaWorld]

I have been interested in photography since childhood, but film had too long a turnaround time for me to learn much - I never had access to a darkroom, so I had to wait to get prints back - I’d get them back, see flaws, but couldn’t remember what settings I’d used. Frustrating! I think as a child I had a plastic camera shooting 120 roll film, but my first SLR was a Canon FD mount (I really do not remember which). I had an EOS SLR, too - don’t remember which, either. I still had too long a wait to see my results. I even tried shoot E6 and getting the developed film back, cutting it up into slides myself to speed the turnaround, but even that took too long - overnight was still too slow.

My first DSLR was the Canon 350D - 8Mpixels. Also using Compact Flash cards - the original enormous ones. That was the real start of my learning. Moved up to a 5D (Canon’s first full frame that wasn’t a 1Ds), then the 1Ds III - getting really serious at that point. I was using Photoshop (this was before the invention of LightRoom), and learning Adobe Camera RAW. As well as being much faster, digital photography had EXIF, so I could see exactly what settings I got wrong and I could shoot hundreds of frames with slight variations, and see what effect they had. Digital was what I needed to learn!

 

[Landshark99]

I have been interested in photography since childhood, but film had too long a turnaround time for me to learn much - I never had access to a darkroom, so I had to wait to get prints back - I’d get them back, see flaws, but couldn’t remember what settings I’d used. Frustrating! I think as a child I had a plastic camera shooting 120 roll film, but my first SLR was a Canon FD mount (I really do not remember which). I had an EOS SLR, too - don’t remember which, either. I still had too long a wait to see my results. I even tried shoot E6 and getting the developed film back, cutting it up into slides myself to speed the turnaround, but even that took too long - overnight was still too slow.

Appreciate your perspective, for me film was the great teaching tool especially the unforgiving Kodachrome, digital felt very klunky in the beginning, now digital feels more liberating than film. Always curious why film has become popular for some if they are going to scan the negs and not print in the darkroom.

 

[Landshark99]

Sorry I do not get it, the film feel comes from the look of film, once it is scanned it becomes a digital file and loses that unique film quality. I loved film and was resistant to use the digital darkroom and even harder was shooting with early digital cameras. All of the film was being scanned and it just lost its special quality on the scanner. So when the digital cameras could capture an image as fluidly as a film camera, I made the jump. I am saying this as the owner of working Leicas, Nikon Slr and rangefinder 35mm film cameras, that are now more tokens of my past than things I want to shoot with today

 

[Landshark99]

so true

 

[spudhead]

I thought it might be worth mentioning Sonys terrible record on firmware updates for the complete range of cameras and lenses, it seems they drop a camera on us and fix tiny bugs then just stop giving updates that could improve camera use.
One of my real big niggles with Sony, they brought out the lea-5 adaptor for a-mount and gave us 2-3 bodies that would drive the old screw a-mount lenses why? firstly the a74r and I think 6600 crop body at release, no use to me with the a9, pretty sure it was done because the sports guys would not have bought the 4002.8 or 600f4

 

[DaveC Oz]

My first snaps were with an old Box Brownie that my parents had, next came an Instamatic 233 126 cartridge camera. Year 9 at the school I went to had photography, still, Super 8, and Video (B&W reel to reel) as that years art course. The still photography used Minolta SRT101's, was solely focused on B&W film and developing. Not much later one of my Aunts gave me an old Praktika SLR, totally manual, right down to a hand held light meter. I used this camera for about 6 years, replacing it with a Yashica FX-3. The FX-3 was replaced after being stolen by an FX-D, then a Minolta X-300.
When the X-300 broke down several years later, I had a young family. My wife is from Pennsylvania, and the cost of getting multiple prints together for both sets of Grandparents, plus postage was huge. This prompted the move to a digital point & shoot 2.1Mp Olympus, replaced by a Panasonic 5Mp, then 16Mp.
Finally in December 2016 I returned to ILC's with an A6000, which I have since passed on to my youngest daughter. Leading to my current camera's, an A6600 and an A7CR. Much as I enjoy the bell's and whistles of the new camera's I still enjoy playing around occasionally with old adapted manual glass. Most times when I go out by myself with the camera, I have at least a vague plan of the type of shots I want. If they don't really work out that's okay, I've learned something for the future, plus, if I've managed to get out into the country, the photo's are a bonus and a memory.

 

[pointreyes]

My first camera was a Browie that used 127 roll film. First picture I took was of a leaf. To this day, I still take pictures of leaves.
My parents then got me a camera for a present and I still have it - a Hanimex 110 with flash.
In 1982, I got my first used 35mm camera - the Olympus OM-1 with 50 f1.8 and my first tripod the Bogen tripod that I still use to this day with a Benro video head for my wife to use the RX10 IV on.

I had that camera till I lost it from moving in 1994. Did not take that many photos with it but I enjoyed using that camera so much. It was that camera that I used for one of my favorite places to go to: Point Reyes National Seashore.

In 1996 with first daughter of many to be born, got the Canon Elan II with Sigma 28-200 zoom and a year later the EX380 flash (I think). Got many great images of the family.

In 2010, Canon 5D along with EF 28-135, EF 85 f1.8, EF 50 f1.4, and Tamron 70-300.

In 2015, Fujifilm X-T1 and over the next five years a plethora of lenses that funded me fully switching over to Sony in 2020.
I did a brief stint with a Nikon D300s with the 80-400 zoom, the same zoom I use the X-Pro2 to get shots of the solar eclipse over my area.

Since 2018, the following Sony cameras I have had or still own:
RX10iv - still have
A7ii
A7iii - one was visible light, the other one was a full spectrum converted
A7Rii - one was 590nm infrared converted, one was a full spectrum converted
A7Riii - one was visible light, the one I still have is a 590nm infrared converted
A7Riv
A7Rv - still have
A7Cr - still have
A9 - had it twice
A1 - still have
A7Siii

From 2017 to now, I'm mainly known for photographing theater events that my children were in. Photos were published on posters and big prints for display along with the theater selling my photos for money. I am not allowed to make money in photography because my employer will not allow it (don't ask, I cannot tell you where I work). The year 2022 was probably the worst year for me, too many demands for me while trying to handle a full-time job and take care of my household. Things have drastically died down due to less theater events to cover.

This year was the year that OM Systems release the 90 2:1 macro that even takes teleconverters. This is one lens I've been waiting for someone to come out with the closest was the L-mount Sigma 105 macro that takes the TCs. Only way to have a 180 or 200 mirrorless designed macro lens.
That one lens helped to push me into the micro 4/3's world which I'm glad it did. Macro is fun with the system. And I discovered that I really like the 4:3 ratio more than the 3:2. I can now cover a range from 12-1600 with my OM-1.

For nostalgia, I did purchase a CLA'ed OM-1 (for infrared, I have Zuiko 24, 35, 50, and 100 lenses so I at least had a system).

If my photography demands change to less need from me, I might go back to Fujifilm but not the APSC line. I will go for the GFX line especially since I really prefer that 4:3 format. The sensor in the GFX line is similar to the 127 roll film dimensions. Where I started might very well be where I end my final endeavor in photography.

 

[RogerSmith]

I started in 2015. I used to fish off a kayak as my main hobby, had allot of gear, etc. It just started being no fun anymore. Very repetitive, started to get seasick in my 40's when I paddled the ocean. So I made this big switch, wife thought it was a mid life crises. Sold all my fishing gear to finance a camera, started with Canon rebel and 100-300 zoom. Worked by way up from there and then over to Sony. Love it, enjoy birding with or without the camera but love the pursuit of the lovely image and building a yearly calendar with top 12 images for friends and family.