Taking my game to the next level

I have been a fancier of photography my whole life. I loved looking at photo albums and picture books as far back as I can remember. I can remember vividly taking pictures with my little Kodak instamatic with a 126 catridge film. While growing up with that old Kodak, though I did not suspect that I was born with an eye for photography. I didn’t realize the gift. I never worked with it and never tried to educate myself in the ways and techniques for taking better pictures.

My first experience of buying a more expensive camera and taking my game to the next level was when I first joined the army. I remember the little spring loaded Konica 35mm camera that I traveled all over Colorado with taking beautiful pictures. I was always seemed to be in the right spot at the right time on many occasions.

One of the greatest photographs I ever took was with that $35 plastic camera. (Pictures with handgliders, Rocky Mountains, and tree on an island were taken with the Konica) I drove to the top of Pikes Peak outside of Colorado Springs and got out and to find beautiful colorful hand-gliders all lined up and ready for flight. I walked up and the first two took off running down the shallow slope there on the summit before being lifted aloft by the alpine updrafts. I quickly rattled off a bunch of photographs that turned out spectacular with all the wonderful colors with the brick red Colorado Rockies in the background.

Tragically what made the photographs I took so much more serendipitous was the fact that the man gliding with the red hand-glider died on that particular flight. The newspapers reported that he had flown around for a couple of hours and then crashed into one of the canyon walls. I took the last pictures of him alive.

Shortly after that I was stationed in Garlstedt in northern Germany in 1987. That simple fixed wide-angle plastic lens Konica seemed woefully inadequate. There in the military exchange store was a thing of beauty. The Minolta X-700 camera with a fixed 55mm lens. (Pictures of windmills, water fountain in front of tower and half-timbered building next to river were taken with the Minolta X700) I agonized for weeks over the decision on whether or not to buy that camera which cost at the time about three or four months take home pay for me as a private. I finally did buy it along with some cheap telephoto lenses that at the time, made me feel like a professional photographer. I had to use the military credit system the military stores had set up to buy this ‘half mechanical work of art and half technological advance in science. The X700 was one of the first cameras to use computer chips and sensors to determine exposure for the photographer and took a lot of the formerly necessary guess work out of it.

With the help of the German Rail and a Peugeot 10 speed bicycle I took pictures all over Europe. I fell in love with travel, adventure and photography. I rapidly became a full blown photography junky.

I still have that Minolta, although I no longer use it. Fortuitously I temporarily lost that 35mm Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera in 2002 when it slid under the car seat of my Lincoln Continental. A couple of years later my mechanic Jeff would find that camera.

Believing that the loss of the Minolta was permanent, I agonized over buying one of those new fangled digital cameras (point-and-shoot) for an upcoming trip to Japan. (Pictures of two soldiers next to Monterey Bay, Church through the Cherry Blossoms, Japanese Pagoda were taken with the Olympus 3.2 camedia camera) The trip was going to cost a fortune and spending more money on a camera seemed like it was just too much at the time. After agonizing over the decision, I made the plunge and bought my Olympus Camedia 3.2 megapixle camera. I took beautiful pictures with that camera for about two year.

While serving in Iraq I began traveling with the division civil affairs officer where I had the opportunity to take numerous pictures all over the Baghdad area. The Olympus was woefully inadequate. So after doing much research online I took a huge gamble and purchased a very expensive Sony Cybershot F828 point-and-shoot camera online. I had never bought anything online before and this camera was so new that there weren’t a lot of consumer critiques to be found. Everyone in the market for a camera was talking about the newly released Nikon D40 Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR). Nikon had just brought the price of DSLRs down to whole new level of prosumer affordability. At that time, a consumer could buy that Nikon DSLR body without a lens for the exact same amount of money as Sony’s new F828. (Sunrise of Z lake in Baghdad and most the pictures I have ever sent home from the war were taken with the Sony F828 Point and Shoot camera)

I just had this gut feeling that I can’t explain now or then that this Sony was the right camera for me. I took the gamble after much consternation and it turned out to be the best camera I believe that I have ever had. That camera was perfect for shooting pictures in the Baghdad area, pun not intended. Most of you have seen what the result of that decision was and I have put out a book from those photographs.

Unfortunately for the world of amateur photography, the new era of affordable DSLRs brought forth very few sales of Sony’s camera and the quick termination of production of the Cybershot F828. I have since purchased a second one so that I will always have working F828. That camera has the shortest startup time of any camera made today. From the time you turn it on to it taking the first picture is 0.6 seconds. As they say in Boston; it’s wicken fast.

Pocket cameras seemed to be a great thing to have so I’ve tried to make several work for me but they always lacked the clarity and quality I wanted. I started out with a little Pentax in Iraq and a Nikon in Afghanistan. Eventually I gave the Nikon to my interpreter who promised to take pictures of Afghanistan for me.

After returning from Afghanistan I decided that I needed to upgrade my camera collection. After all I now had a book coming out and I have the better than the average Joe. I had an idea of what it was that I wanted, but I didn’t know how to describe what I was looking for. I didn’t know enough about the camera industry to know exactly what camera was right for me. I knew I wanted to take my game to the next level and join the DSLR crowd, but I didn’t know which one or what features or what I was really wanting to do with photography at this “next level.”

By this time I was thoroughly in love with Sony products and after some research of what Sony had to offer, I purchased the Cybershot T10 pocket camera with a fixed lens. (Pictures of classic cars with the Marcus Whitman hotel in background and the Seattle night scene with ferry in the back ground were taken with the Sony T10 camera) It has the same fast startup time as the F828 and if there is lots of light on a sunny day, it can take as clear and as crisp a picture as any camera made. It does require an enormous amount of light to take those great pictures though.

Now believing firmly that anything made by Sony is really great, I went with Sony’s first DSLR, the Alpha 100. Unfortunately the Alpha 100 never gave me anything that I didn’t already have with the F828. Now DSLR pundits are cringing at this, but I am telling you that the F828 point and shoot is so good that the Alpha 100 DSLR just does not take a better picture under any condition. It is true that you can buy new lenses and record in more professional formats, but when all is said and done you don’t have a noticeably better picture than what you get from the F828.

I sold that camera on E-bay for a loss. Now I still wanted to take my game to the next level. I had been playing with the idea now for about a year and a half about turning pro, or just taking my skills and talents to a higher level. I’m glad that the decision to buy the F828 was such a great decision that it is nearly impossible to do better than it without spending outrageous sums of money.

All the agonizing, all the torment over all the decisions to buy a new cameras over the past 21 years, were now culminating and amplifying off of each other. What do I do? What direction do I go? While walking through Best Buy store I saw the camera out of the corner of my eye and I knew it. I did a double take and just knew that camera there was the one I had wanted all along and had envisioned for myself when I had come back from Afghanistan. I walked over looked at the price. Oh no that is not the camera I wanted all along. Ouch! That hurts.

The weeks went by and by chance about four weeks ago I happen to ask to different professional photographers what they shoot with and they both shot with Canon cameras. Both in conversation told me that I might want to take a look at the Canon 5D camera. That was the camera I saw at Best Buy and knew that I just had to have it. Oh my Gawd what do I do now. I don’t have any source of real income. What should I do?

22 years of the agony of making decisions to go to a newer and shinyer camera were culminating in this one momentous occasion. It was completely wrong to go out and sin against my bank account like that. I did my research and even drove to Spokane to hold the Canon 5D and look through it and sure enough, I knew then and there that any other camera would never be enough. I bought one. Aren’t you shocked? (The fall colors with refelctions in the water were taken with the 5D as well as the jazz band in the night club)

I don’t know where I’m going with this now. I don’t know if I am somehow going to turn pro, and start making money at it, or if I am just going to continue on as I have been doing. I just had to have that Canon 5D and now I got it. Oh boy! A new toy! Now what do I do with it?