Ten more digital years
Sunday 24 July 2022
Ten years ago I listed the ten digital cameras I had owned since I bought the first one in 2002. This post brings the story up to date. In the last ten years I have bought another five cameras, of which two were new and the rest second-hand.
1 This is me, and my partner Margie, celebrating my birthday in 2017. Our daughter Sally picked up my FujiFilm X-E1 with 18mm f2 lens and shot this picture. I had bought this camera second-hand, to experiment with carrying an aps-c mirrorless camera as a lighter and more compact alternative to my full-frame Canon EOS system. I liked the Fuji, with its crisp sensor and lenses and its direct controls for aperture and shutter. I took it on a trip to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Italy, Austria, Germany and Scotland (along with a Canon 5D mark II) and used both systems.
2 Later in 2017 I replaced my old iPhone 4 with a second-hand iPhone SE. The old phone couldn’t run the Scrivener and Macquarie Dictionary apps, which prompted the upgrade. I admit that its camera makes a fine note taker, in the right circumstances, such as recording this diagram I saw in a market in Trieste.
3 In 2019, after enjoying the FujiFilm X-E1, I decided to buy a new X-E3 body as the basis for a lightweight compact travelling kit. For a trip to France and the Netherlands I intended to take just the X-E3 and a couple of small lenses. Then came Covid, and the trip was off. I took this shot at a Black Lives Matter gathering in Brisbane in June 2020.
4 My next purchase was a Canon 6D Mark II body—a full-frame DSLR with a swivelling LCD, inbuilt GPS, inbuilt level, all important conveniences for photographing historic buildings and sites. My old 5D Mark II became a backup, and the original 5D was stored away. Here is a photograph of a calf sale yard at Warwick, Queensland.
2 Late in 2021 I had a replacement battery fitted to my iPhone SE. The new battery failed and damaged the phone. I still liked the small, pocketable form of the iPhone SE, so I bought a second-hand Second Generation model. It’s a handy snapshot camera for shots like this one of the Point Lookout Lighthouse.