I was introduced to photography in my childhood, when I was 6 or 7. Our father was fond of photography, we had three film cameras at home – one simple 35mm camera, one 35mm SLR and a media format 120mm camera. My brother and myself, we watched how our father was taking pictures, and we tried to do that too. We had a wooden box to load films into cameras or a tank, we learned to do that by touch. We learned to process films (I liked that red lamp we used to lighten our dark room), to dry them out, to use enlarger and work with photo paper. All that was so amazing to us and I think it was the time when my love to photography was born.
I returned to photography 10 years later as a university student – I had a course on audio and visual equipment which included film photography as well. Several years later I bought my first digital camera – Canon A700, which was pretty good for its price, but the best thing I loved it for was CHDK – a software that ran on the camera to extend functionality.
The development of mobile phones led to the fact that I began to use Canon camera less and more often used my Sony Xperia U smartphone with autofocus and 5Mp sensor – it couldn’t replace Canon (Canon had better sensor and lens), but since the smartphone was always in my pocket – I used it a lot. The great thing about Xperia U was that it had a dedicated shutter button that worked just like the one on Canon camera – you push the button half-way and the camera focuses, you push it to the end and it shoots. That was extremely convenient to me, and I believe many people valued that Xperia feature.
My next smartphone was a step back – it was a regular device with fixed focus and same resolution as Xperia. I took this mistake into account and my next smartphone was Asus Zenfone Zoom. It was a great cameraphone for the time: it had 13MP sensor with optical image stabilization and 3x optical zoom! And, like my Xperia, it had a dedicated 2-position shutter button! That device was great, though it had some flaws. First – the default settings even in manual mode didn’t allow me to take the images as sharp as I expected from the camera. And it took a while to figure that out. Another thing – even a bigger flaw – it was unable to save photos in RAW. So I had to replace it with something else.
The smartphone I switched to from Asus was an average Nokia device which I’ve been using till now. It has no shutter button, no optical stabilization and zoom. But it has a 16Mp main sensor, and 8MP ultra-wide sensor that allows to make interesting shots. And can save in RAW.
But what about my digital camera? It was the same Canon A700 which I’ve been using very seldom since my Nokia takes better shots in most cases. But I also got back to film photography with my medium format camera from my childhood. It still works and able to take great shots (I use Kodak Porta 400 film). The camera is very simple, it doesn’t have a light meter built in so I use a separate device for that. What I love it for (and film photography in general) is that it produces shots with beautiful colors, and setting correct shutter speed and aperture I can get very nice shots. All my latest experience with the film camera led me to the conclusion that I need something decent for digital photography. And I chose Fuji.
Fujifilm X-T200 – that is what I use now to take shots of pretty much everything I take pictures of. The kit was not so expensive and recently became even cheaper. Functional enough for its price, convenient to operate. They say it’s a basic mirrorless camera for those who switch from mobile photography, but I disagree – X-T200 is not basic, the modes it can operate in and their settings are far beyond what most of smartphones can offer. It definitely lets you more than you can expect from the camera for that price.
I try to have my camera every time I’m go outdoors and of course on all of my week end trips. Shooting as much as I can – this is the only way to learn and become a photo pro.