Paul Lester Photo

Jan 14, 2004 – Trinity River – Irving, TX

My first serious digital camera, as mentioned yesterday, was the Minolta DiMage A1. It had most everything that I needed. It didn’t have interchangeable lenses, but had a zoom and a macro mode.

I cut my photographic teeth, so to speak, on ‘glass’. I had SLRs, which of course, view the image through the lens, wide open. As a matter of course, I think, I tended to shoot wide open because I liked the wider apertures and the out of focus backgrounds. Therefore, I’d shoot wide open or down a stop or two, rarely venturing past f/5.6. I still do that today, save for hyperfocal street shooting, then I hang out around f/8 or f/11.

When I moved to the A1, it had an electronic viewfinder. I had an immediate distaste for that technology, at the time. When looking through the camera’s eyepiece, it looked like an old video camera. Panning caused smearing and if your subject was moving, there was that video flicker as the refresh rate was not sufficient to keep up with life. Also, the resolution of the video was rather poor, so focusing manually was almost out of the question, especially focusing on a fine edge.

Technology improves. When I got my D300, it had Live View. This allowed me to see my image, ‘live’, on the back of the camera. I didn’t like it much, save for shooting above my head, which I do rarely. The refresh rate was fast enough. I tried focusing with it a time or two, but I just couldn’t get into it. I still wanted to look through the eyepiece.

Well, Sony decided to go the route of the EVF in some of their cameras. As I look at the genealogy, it doesn’t really surprise me, as Minolta was one of the first to come out with the EVF. Sony bought Konica, who bought Minolta. If you want to read more about the cameras, you can read about them here.

Now, if they got right, I would imagine that an EVF that looks ‘real’ could be a big positive, allowing you to see everything as it’s going to be: depth of field and white balance are the two biggies that come to mind. I can see this with my Canon S90, though it doesn’t thrill me because I have to hold it at arms length, no viewfinder.

Anyway, if you’ve had experience with this camera, I’d be interested to hear your opinions, or your overall opinions on EVFs.

Tony and Grandpa: December 2003. Tony was 11

This photo was shot with my Minolta DiMage A1. This was my first ‘serious’ digital camera. It weighed in at almost 5 MP and about $1,200. I thought of this camera when Ken made this comment to yesterday’s post about having the latest camera equipment:

It’s a fair question if the person asking knows about digital photography, I think. Digital cameras keep getting better with each new model whereas film cameras were very much alike in producing photos of similar quality.

I was going to answer him in the comments, but felt that this deserved its own post. So, thanks Ken!

I think that, in one respect, I’m on the opposite side of the fence on this one. I think that if someone knows about digital photography, they would, as Ken says, know that digital cameras keep getting ‘better’ with each new model, but better in what regard? There seem to be more bells and whistles, higher ISOs, more pixels, better white balance, perhaps, but does it really improve the overall photo? That, I believe, is still left to the photographer.

I looked back at some of the photos from 2003 and 2004 that I took with this, by today’s standards, modest camera, and was really quite happy with what I saw, even upon closer inspection. Sure, they wouldn’t stand up to the type of the enlargement that say my D300 or M9 would because they have a lot more pixels to give; however, for portraits, which the type of shot that I was asked to take, not a problem.

I have a few prints, 12 x 18, that I made from my 6 MP Nikon D40 and looking right at them, at arms length and even closer, they are beautiful. Printer technology has come a long way and you can get glorious prints from a 6 or even 4 MP camera, reducing the effect of the number of pixels.

The DiMage A1 was a cool camera, for its time. I shot with it for a couple of years until I made a serious upgrade to the Nikon D2x, which soon became outclassed by the D300 at a much lower price point. Since then, I’ve not upgraded my Nikon equipment. I actually, somehow, abstained from buying the D700.

It was an interesting look back at some of those photos. I think that it has even inspired me to write another post about it. We’ll see tomorrow.

Cloud shadows
Before I start this post, I just wanted to say that I’d never seen cloud shadows in the sky before. Yesterday, on my morning walk, I happened to look up and see the shadow of one cloud projected upon a thin layer of clouds. I thought it quite cool, indeed!

The day a former coworker contacted me and said that she wanted me to take some photos of her daughter. About 3 or more years ago when we worked together, she’d made that same request, but we never connected and made that happen.

As we talked about the specifics, she asked me a question that kind of caught me off guard. She said:

Do you have the latest gear? Are your cameras up-to-date?

I paused. My brain locked for a moment trying desperately to figure out why that was important. Finally, the lock disengaged enough for me to state: No. I don’t. I have a couple of digital cameras and some film cameras, all of which are capable of getting the shot.

She responded: Oh. Well, you know that I don’t know anything about photography, but I thought that it might be important.

Certainly, I had nothing against her question. Based on clever marketing to keep us buying the latest-greatest-most-up-to-datest widget, bauble, or camera, I can see why she though that was needed. I assured her that it wasn’t, though.

Who knows, I might show up with my Mamiya 645 film camera and really give them a shock! Hold on … I need to change my FILM!!! LOL