Hello fellow csers,
reason for writing this is to share my experience since embarking on this DSLR journey. hope it can offer some insight for those newbies who just started this very passionate and interesting hobby.
started with a very basic COSINA SLR/24-70 setup years ago. It was about reading up film photography books fm the library... basic light principle and the technical know-hows..physics. the clickin-aways were then religiously recorded and final pictures were like buying 4-D...1 day after takin them down to the developers. then scrutinising every picture against the recorded data to improve just on technical skills..long time before understanding about composition and those arty farty representation or whatever...
then come the DSLR which could instantaneously review what you click just moments away.it was leaps and bounds compare to film. So i bought my first DSLR-20D! the interest then was FEVERISH! hopped into clubsnap and within 9 months...3 L lenses, 2-3 3rd party lenses/ 580flash/ 5-6 bags/ monopods/tripods and even a new imac...it was more than 10k i spend...money aside...i m just simply emgrossed into the technical stuffs...equipment/setup....the only place i m in EVERYDAY is in the equipment discussion and market place.
of course along the way, clicking away was no brainer since its free , then come the archiving part... no whatsoever looking at the EXIF...simply too many pictures to see! always thinkin..maybe the new 30D or the 35/1.4L would give me better pictures! let see what dpreview.com wrote and what does the next canon launch were??it just the equipment i TUNNEL-VISIOM into....
one time, stumble across some film albums i took years ago... it was a reality check...the film ones were taken with CONVICTION...conviction to do better...the sharpness,compostion and the efforts into creating a beautiful picture were commendable and undoubt rewarding...the digital ones, yet after so long yields marginal improvement despite it technologial advancement... then my clusnap surfing started to detour to the GALLERIES section. the pictures others took were inspiring and then it incite my photography DIRECTION.. I KNOW WHAT I WANT TO TAKE! not anything under the sun anymore...its better to move further in one direction then to stuck midway not knowing where to go.
started offloading some of my white elephants and taking more effort in picture taking...at the end of the day...the basic setup i really needed is a big bag/flash/lenses to cover me a comfortable range(17-40+70-200+macro is good enuf) most of the time the 17-40 is of good versatility. 8 megapixels is good enuf too...full frame? unless my current one broke and the pricing is reasonable....its all about composition..i know..i know...take it in full frame and then crop rite? then when is the skill gonna improve???
i have known some ppl who took really beautiful pictures just with those small digital cameras and even handphones! those pictures as the are without ID is like a story. no sharpness, no bokeh, poor colour but the image can invoke something when you see one. Thats the picture i want to take! and Thats where i m heading!
the 1DSmark2+50mm1.2L / Leica M8 are tempting but even if money is not a factor, i rather stick to GOOD PICTURES!
reason for writing this is to share my experience since embarking on this DSLR journey. hope it can offer some insight for those newbies who just started this very passionate and interesting hobby.
started with a very basic COSINA SLR/24-70 setup years ago. It was about reading up film photography books fm the library... basic light principle and the technical know-hows..physics. the clickin-aways were then religiously recorded and final pictures were like buying 4-D...1 day after takin them down to the developers. then scrutinising every picture against the recorded data to improve just on technical skills..long time before understanding about composition and those arty farty representation or whatever...
then come the DSLR which could instantaneously review what you click just moments away.it was leaps and bounds compare to film. So i bought my first DSLR-20D! the interest then was FEVERISH! hopped into clubsnap and within 9 months...3 L lenses, 2-3 3rd party lenses/ 580flash/ 5-6 bags/ monopods/tripods and even a new imac...it was more than 10k i spend...money aside...i m just simply emgrossed into the technical stuffs...equipment/setup....the only place i m in EVERYDAY is in the equipment discussion and market place.
of course along the way, clicking away was no brainer since its free , then come the archiving part... no whatsoever looking at the EXIF...simply too many pictures to see! always thinkin..maybe the new 30D or the 35/1.4L would give me better pictures! let see what dpreview.com wrote and what does the next canon launch were??it just the equipment i TUNNEL-VISIOM into....
one time, stumble across some film albums i took years ago... it was a reality check...the film ones were taken with CONVICTION...conviction to do better...the sharpness,compostion and the efforts into creating a beautiful picture were commendable and undoubt rewarding...the digital ones, yet after so long yields marginal improvement despite it technologial advancement... then my clusnap surfing started to detour to the GALLERIES section. the pictures others took were inspiring and then it incite my photography DIRECTION.. I KNOW WHAT I WANT TO TAKE! not anything under the sun anymore...its better to move further in one direction then to stuck midway not knowing where to go.
started offloading some of my white elephants and taking more effort in picture taking...at the end of the day...the basic setup i really needed is a big bag/flash/lenses to cover me a comfortable range(17-40+70-200+macro is good enuf) most of the time the 17-40 is of good versatility. 8 megapixels is good enuf too...full frame? unless my current one broke and the pricing is reasonable....its all about composition..i know..i know...take it in full frame and then crop rite? then when is the skill gonna improve???
i have known some ppl who took really beautiful pictures just with those small digital cameras and even handphones! those pictures as the are without ID is like a story. no sharpness, no bokeh, poor colour but the image can invoke something when you see one. Thats the picture i want to take! and Thats where i m heading!
the 1DSmark2+50mm1.2L / Leica M8 are tempting but even if money is not a factor, i rather stick to GOOD PICTURES!