Above/featured: Winter morning at Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver – 22 Dec 2020 (X70).
Frankly, I don’t know why I waited so long.
For the longest time, I thought photography wasn’t for me. But the curiosity of making images would soon win me over.
My late-entry to photography means I have some regrets not having any images when I lived in Toronto and in Germany. After I moved to Minneapolis, I asked friends and colleagues for some advice, and by 2015, I purchased a compact Canon point-and-shoot camera. I pushed the limits of that camera, and I realized very quickly the kinds of images I wanted to make were beyond what the camera could manufacture. I needed greater flexibility and capability to adjust aperture- and exposure-values, and within three years, I moved “up” to a Canon camera with a crop sensor (450D).
I learned quickly I wanted a broader range of focal lengths, which led me to acquiring a couple of extra lenses. I pushed the 450D very hard, including my year-long around-the-world (RTW) journey in 2012. The shutter died the next summer in Prague, and with my investment of glass within the Canon camera-system, I moved “up” to a Canon camera with a full-frame sensor (6D1) in early 2014. With a larger sensor providing greater sensitivity to low-light, I feel the camera has furnished great images under a variety of conditions. But the 6D1 camera and complement of lenses can be bulky and heavy to carry around for an entire day, and I was feeling “burned out” by the camera-and-lens combination’s larger footprint and weight.
In early 2018, I pondered the idea of a more portable camera, and I decided on a lightly-used Fujifilm X70 mirrorless camera. I brought the 6D1 and the X70 on trips to Europe and the U.S. Southwest to experiment with both cameras, and to understand which device was ideally suited for different environments in different places. The 6D1 still has its place for what I want to photograph, but I discovered a different level of fun and versatility with the X70 with its light weight and small compact size. The X70 isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot easier to carry the X70 into the streets than with the 6D1.
I don’t know what happens next, but there are lots of possibilities for further projects in locations near and far.
Above/featured: Along Vancouver’s Seawall to a partly obscured Lions Gate Bridge – 17 Jan 2014.
I skipped a step, as I’ve moved from a triple-digit camera model to a single-digit model.
For over five years, I owned an entry-level Canon DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera. Carrying the EOS 450D (XSi) along for the ride, I traveled over one million miles in the air and I made over 75000 exposures.
Above/featured: Singapore, 3 Jul 2012 (no. 37629).
For the seventh time, I’ve “flipped” or “rolled over” the four-digit image-counter on my camera. I’ve made over 70-thousand exposures, which is a great accomplishment for both camera and me. Unfortunately, exposure number 75000 will prove to be a bad omen.
I own a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi), an entry-level digital crop-sensor camera which was introduced to the consumer market in the first-quarter of 2008.
The camera has no weather-proofing, poor to average low-light capability, and a small burst-rate, but the camera is affordable, portable, and easy to use. The kit-lens doesn’t have great build-quality, but the lens is lightweight with a decent range in focal lengths for my kind of photography.
But, all good things must come to an end.
3 August 2013.
With the weeklong travel-writing course in Prague completed, my new friends and I embark on a daytrip from the Czech capital city to Kutná Hora, some 70 kilometres to the southeast; here’s how we planned and made the trip by train.
I’m pleased and relieved my five-year old Canon EOS450D (XSi) camera continues to “hang on” during my return visit to the Czech Republic. I keep “flipping” or “rolling over” the four-digit image number counter; I’m in the tens of thousands, undoubtedly a big number for camera exposures or shots.
The “kostnice” or Ossuary, also known as the “Bone Church”, in Kutná Hora is all at once a surreal, unsettling, and fascinating experience. With ossuary defined as “a container, space, or room into which bones of dead people are placed where available burial space is scarce”, bone heaps from an estimated 40,000 skeletons were put into methodical use as ornaments inside the church. The decorative arrangement of bones began in the 16th-century, and what appears now has been in place since the end of the 19th-century. Moreover, a document from their information office states:
” … it (this place) is not a celebration of death, but it symbolizes the equality of people in front of the throne of God.”
While the following photographs mark an impressive milestone of the 75000th exposure on a single camera, I have to think the images are an ominous prediction about how little time my camera has left.
Previous rollovers :
• 15000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Berlin, Germany
• 25000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Vancouver, Canada
• 50000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Berlin, Germany
• 60000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Vancouver, Canada
• 70000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Sydney, Australia
I made the photos above on 3 August 2013. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.
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