Realising My Imagination

Recently I have become increasingly dissatisfied with my photographic equipment. Over the last couple of years, I seem to have lost the spark that I had for a very long time for learning, practicing and enjoying photography. Last week, I think I figured out why. I was using the wrong camera. So out I went and supplemented my Fuji S1 Pro by giving it its own mini-me. A tiny little Fuji S5700.

I've been into photography for quite a long time. I got my first 110 format point+click when I was about 7, by sending off tokens from tins of beans. The strange stacks of single use flash cubes perched precariously on top of the tiny device remind me very much of my childhood. Slightly oddly coloured animals at the zoo, and people with bits cut off and lens flair covering half their bodies. Good times, those. I also had another camera, although I have no idea what it was. I remember it looked something like this Sugaya camera though. I also remember that I loved that camera, although I never had chance to do much with it.

Some time in the early 90s, my dad got me my first 35mm SLR. It was a Zenit E, made in the USSR (said so on the bottom), and came with a fixed 56mm lens. The thing was entirely mechanical. No batteries except for in the optional flash gun, although it did have a piezo trigger in the hot shoe. The metering, film selection, exposure and focus were all manual, though. It really taught me about what goes into a photograph. What I took for granted in the fixed focus, fixed aperture, fixed speed pointy-clicky cameras of my childhood.

I made the transition to digital in 2001 with a huge Kodak monstrosity that was cheap. It was a 1.3 megapixel thing, but was about 4 times bigger than the Canon compacts that were just coming out (the precursor to the current Ixus range). It had autofocus, but no manual control at all. It did me ok, I guess, but I couldn't really explore my artistic vision. Zoom, for example, was achieved by walking closer to the subject. I got rid of that after a short while and replaced it with another Kodak, this time a Kodak DC-215. It had every shortcoming of the original Kodak but was a bit smaller and had 2x optical zoom.

So I went off Kodak and tried other things. I ended up buying myself a Fuji Finepix S5100 in 2004. That camera is the one that really got me into photography properly. It was small, a bit too light, and the screen was miniscule, but that was okay. It had every configurable option under the sun. Full manual exposure, manual focus or 3 different autofocus options, configurable flash power, auto-bracketting, exposure compensation, and to top it all of, a 10x optical zoom (the equivalent of a 300mm lens on a 35mm SLR). With 4 megapixels and a Fuji SuperCCD, it really was a great little device. I could stick it in P or Auto and let the camera do all the work, or I could take full control of every aspect of the picture.

So far, so good, and I wanted something more! What better option than a digital SLR? I bought the S1 Pro for £100 around 2007 or so. It has a single kit lens, 28-100mm at f3.5-5.6. Not the longest telephoto or the widest wide-angle, and not the fastest lens either, but sufficient for perhaps 70% of photographs. I have used it successfully on many occassions to take some pictures that I'm very proud of. But something was lacking. Well, two things.

Firstly, the thing weighs a ton. It's huge, even compared to other SLRs, and the bag I have to carry full with replacements for each of the seven batteries it takes, in 3 different types (AA, CR-123 and CR-2032) makes it even heavier. It's not a camera you can just take out and about without it being very conspicuous.

Secondly, I have outgrown it in many ways. The occassions that I make best use of the lens I have for it could be adequately covered by a fairly standard compact. Sure, it has a better quality of picture because the sensor is so much larger than that of a compact, but the trade off is not in its favour. To do the best I would like to, I would need three lenses.

• A 35-200mm zoom
• A 56mm or 80mm prime
• An 18mm-50mm zoom

These should, ideally, be faster than the one I have. f2.8 would suffice. Unfortunately, to get these lenses it's looking like I might have to pay up to £1000. Ouch.

A570is - Rubbish at gigs

At the same time, I was growing increasingly frustrated by my new compact, a Canon PowerShot A570is. Not a bad little point-and-shoot if everything you're ever going to photograph is in broad daylight, approximately 2 to 20 metres away. Other than that, you're out of luck. This was most evident in photographs I take at gigs.

S5100 - Great at gigs

I find the PowerShot's pictures to be too noisy/grainy, blurred with soft edges due to its slow lens and low light. More generally, though, they are very much snapshot quality. Point the camera at the stage, try to get the best you can using the kit available to you, don't try anything too fancy. The S5100, on the other hand, allowed me to get better angles, better light control, and cleaner pictures without having to fight with it.

So, the Canon is on eBay. A shiny new Fuji S5700, successor to the venerable S5100 of old, is sat on my table. I look forward to getting back the fun and satisfaction I once had from my photographical expeditions. It'll be fun.