BarefootPilgrim
Senior Member
Hello. My name is Bob and I'm a gear-aholic. This is my story…
In the olden days of film I shot extensively with Nikon and Minolta rigs. They served me well for more than 30 years. Then one day, while on vacation at the Grand Canyon, my Nikon kit divorced me. Just walked away without any explanation. All of it: two F4 bodies, four exquisite lenses and a buncha other stuff -- even a custom, handmade "plain vanilla" leather bag that didn't look like a camera bag (and therefore would never be stolen).
I was lucky enough to find a replacement camera (a Nikon N-60) at one of Fred Harvey's National Park general stores. And all my previously-shot film was in a cooler in our room at the Grand View Lodge, so the vacation wasn't a total photographic disaster. But when all was said and done, it still left a sour taste, a bit like stop bath mixed into your Martini.
Since my middle initial at the time was "P" (for Poverty), I was forced out of photography for awhile. The N-60 with its kit lens wasn't exciting. The Minolta bodies and lenses that didn't go on vacation kept reminding me of the F-4s that had walked out of my life. And my credit cards were all maxed out.
Then in 2005 my wife gave me a Kodak point-n-shoot for Christmas. Whoopeee.
But I smiled and thanked her and began to use it to shoot everything I saw. After all, it WAS a camera and I WAS in withdrawal for the longest time. But….
I was one of those luddites that said "digital will never replace film. It just can't do the job as well." And then, because the itty-bitty Kodak P&S had reignited my interest, I began looking at "what else was out there."
And that led to my first mistake: a Nikon P-80 -- same thing as the Kodak, but with a 20-to-1 zoom and a sensor so tiny it could do one-to-one macros with a gnat. If you could find a gnat that small.
A month with the P-80 led to my second mistake: an Olympus E-420. I had an SLR again!. And "the world's smallest DSLR!"
Yes, it was that. And it certainly was a big step up from a P&S. And at least I could return the P-80 to Amazon for a full refund since I was still within the 30-day return window.
It felt good to know I hadn't wasted any cash on that P-80.
But the E-420 was a disappointment, too, though not in the same way. It was small, it was light, and it took great pictures… in good light. Those "Olympus colors" were gorgeous straight out of the camera. That was important to me then because I didn't have a clue about RAW except when ordering a steak for dinner.
But "small" and "light" aren't everything they're cracked up to be. And the Olympus-Panasonic four-thirds format was limited. I just didn't know it at the time because I wasn't shooting stuff that revealed the full extent of those limitations. High ISO noise was one. Fast autofocus was another (though not strictly a sensor limitation). Narrower dynamic range was a third.
I got some great photos with that E-420 during the eight months or so I used it. And by that time my negative-balance finances had (somewhat) over-corrected, so I was able to upgrade to an E-620 and an E-30, and buy a bunch of fantastic Olympus glass. And believe me when I tell you that it really IS some great glass -- every bit as effective as, and much less expensive than the Nikon full-frame stuff I once owned.
That's why I'm still heavily invested in an Olympus system, though I've now moved on to Olympus's micro-four-thirds mirrorless format.
I love the results I get from my OMD, but don't really enjoy shooting with it: too small; too light; doesn't balance well enough in my big hands.
And it also doesn't shoot action worth a damn for two reasons (maybe more): first, because the AF is too slow -- and no matter what anyone tells you, it IS too slow, even with the best m-4/3 lenses -- and second, electronic viewfinders tend to black out when the camera is in continuous drive mode and busy writing data to the buffer.
Pretty tough to follow action that you can't see, huh?
As a result, I'm slowly moving back into the Nikon fold. Oh, I'll keep my OMD and some of the better Olympus lenses -- together, they make such nice photos. But I've just ordered a used D-200 to mount my old Nikkor 70-300 f/4-5.6 AF-D ED. I'll use them mostly for shooting action: grandkids soccer games, my puppy's Disc Dog competitions, stuff like that.
Maybe I'll acquire some other Nikon glass for normal-range shooting, but probably not with the D-200.
As I said right off the bat, I'm a gear-aholic. So I'll have to be careful to look only at lenses that cover the FX format, because what I lust after now is a D-800 (for the FF sensor) and a D-7100 (for it's marvelous detail rendering).
Sadly though, my name now has two middle initials: "P" for "Poverty" and "R" for "Retired." So… sinking cash into FX glass will probably mean there won't be any grass-roofed, bamboo-pole retirement hut on the beach in Ecuador or Costa Rica in my future.
Hmmmm…. the wife would never go for that anyway: all the grandkids live in Chicago.
Unless…… maybe I could do like my old Nikon kit did at the Grand Canyon?
In the olden days of film I shot extensively with Nikon and Minolta rigs. They served me well for more than 30 years. Then one day, while on vacation at the Grand Canyon, my Nikon kit divorced me. Just walked away without any explanation. All of it: two F4 bodies, four exquisite lenses and a buncha other stuff -- even a custom, handmade "plain vanilla" leather bag that didn't look like a camera bag (and therefore would never be stolen).
I was lucky enough to find a replacement camera (a Nikon N-60) at one of Fred Harvey's National Park general stores. And all my previously-shot film was in a cooler in our room at the Grand View Lodge, so the vacation wasn't a total photographic disaster. But when all was said and done, it still left a sour taste, a bit like stop bath mixed into your Martini.
Since my middle initial at the time was "P" (for Poverty), I was forced out of photography for awhile. The N-60 with its kit lens wasn't exciting. The Minolta bodies and lenses that didn't go on vacation kept reminding me of the F-4s that had walked out of my life. And my credit cards were all maxed out.
Then in 2005 my wife gave me a Kodak point-n-shoot for Christmas. Whoopeee.
But I smiled and thanked her and began to use it to shoot everything I saw. After all, it WAS a camera and I WAS in withdrawal for the longest time. But….
I was one of those luddites that said "digital will never replace film. It just can't do the job as well." And then, because the itty-bitty Kodak P&S had reignited my interest, I began looking at "what else was out there."
And that led to my first mistake: a Nikon P-80 -- same thing as the Kodak, but with a 20-to-1 zoom and a sensor so tiny it could do one-to-one macros with a gnat. If you could find a gnat that small.
A month with the P-80 led to my second mistake: an Olympus E-420. I had an SLR again!. And "the world's smallest DSLR!"
Yes, it was that. And it certainly was a big step up from a P&S. And at least I could return the P-80 to Amazon for a full refund since I was still within the 30-day return window.
It felt good to know I hadn't wasted any cash on that P-80.
But the E-420 was a disappointment, too, though not in the same way. It was small, it was light, and it took great pictures… in good light. Those "Olympus colors" were gorgeous straight out of the camera. That was important to me then because I didn't have a clue about RAW except when ordering a steak for dinner.
But "small" and "light" aren't everything they're cracked up to be. And the Olympus-Panasonic four-thirds format was limited. I just didn't know it at the time because I wasn't shooting stuff that revealed the full extent of those limitations. High ISO noise was one. Fast autofocus was another (though not strictly a sensor limitation). Narrower dynamic range was a third.
I got some great photos with that E-420 during the eight months or so I used it. And by that time my negative-balance finances had (somewhat) over-corrected, so I was able to upgrade to an E-620 and an E-30, and buy a bunch of fantastic Olympus glass. And believe me when I tell you that it really IS some great glass -- every bit as effective as, and much less expensive than the Nikon full-frame stuff I once owned.
That's why I'm still heavily invested in an Olympus system, though I've now moved on to Olympus's micro-four-thirds mirrorless format.
I love the results I get from my OMD, but don't really enjoy shooting with it: too small; too light; doesn't balance well enough in my big hands.
And it also doesn't shoot action worth a damn for two reasons (maybe more): first, because the AF is too slow -- and no matter what anyone tells you, it IS too slow, even with the best m-4/3 lenses -- and second, electronic viewfinders tend to black out when the camera is in continuous drive mode and busy writing data to the buffer.
Pretty tough to follow action that you can't see, huh?
As a result, I'm slowly moving back into the Nikon fold. Oh, I'll keep my OMD and some of the better Olympus lenses -- together, they make such nice photos. But I've just ordered a used D-200 to mount my old Nikkor 70-300 f/4-5.6 AF-D ED. I'll use them mostly for shooting action: grandkids soccer games, my puppy's Disc Dog competitions, stuff like that.
Maybe I'll acquire some other Nikon glass for normal-range shooting, but probably not with the D-200.
As I said right off the bat, I'm a gear-aholic. So I'll have to be careful to look only at lenses that cover the FX format, because what I lust after now is a D-800 (for the FF sensor) and a D-7100 (for it's marvelous detail rendering).
Sadly though, my name now has two middle initials: "P" for "Poverty" and "R" for "Retired." So… sinking cash into FX glass will probably mean there won't be any grass-roofed, bamboo-pole retirement hut on the beach in Ecuador or Costa Rica in my future.
Hmmmm…. the wife would never go for that anyway: all the grandkids live in Chicago.
Unless…… maybe I could do like my old Nikon kit did at the Grand Canyon?
...
