Not been on here much lately, busy doing other stuff.  You know, that stuff that makes life “interesting”.  Photographically though I haven’t been doing much of that lately either. If you know me, I like to try out cameras in an effort to find one that can inspire me, is ergonomically a working tool, learn how to use it, and produces great photos too …. although of course any camera can do that, it’s the brain behind the camera that makes that difference.   So whilst away I had a dabble with a Sony A7Cii for about 6 months.  It was good, really good and technically was more than capable at just about everything.  But here’s the thing.  Technically there was everything there that you needed as a camera, as a tool.  In fact, there might have been too much if all you want to do is make photos.  It was nice and compact … although being full-frame it had to usually have big lenses.  And the size of gear (particularly full-frame lenses) was becoming a negative.  Also, it never felt right for me to quickly find my way round, to inspire me, to make me pick it up.  It […]

I love my Nikon gear and was looking to upgrade from my more elderly Z6. So I was seriously disappointed when they started to come out with the bigger cameras like the Nikon ZF, the Z8 and now the Z6iii, with nothing small on the horizon. Camera manufacturers are just getting like car manufacturers, they all think we want bigger cameras and cars. No we don’t. With very few compact cameras on the market and whilst smartphones are very capable, there is definitely a need for an interchangeable lens camera and lens system that is small, without giving up modern features. So today I sold my Nikon Z6 and Zfc to fund the full-frame Sony A7cii, a small rangefinder style camera that when you couple it with one of the small Sony full-frame lenses like the 24mm, 40mm and 50mm f2.8 G lenses, you get a nice compact system that can fit in a coat pocket.  As per usual, it was a trip to Harrison Cameras in Sheffield, a camera dealer I’ve dealt with for many years.  They always tend to give a good price on trade-ins, and the experience is nice, easy and hassle-free compared to selling gear privately […]

There was some discussion on one of the photography forums about what photo backup equipment someone should use. To me, it’s not just about the equipment. It’s also the methodology of how …. and where … you backup. So anyway it got me thinking that I’d write a bit about how I manage my files. Many people swear by them I know and they really do have their place in a corporate environment, but I have never liked RAID or NAS units for the simple reason some (maybe all) use a brand-specific bespoke Operating System (OS) and software backup programs which to me means the way they store files would be incompatible if I moved it over to a different brand either to upgrade or to recover a crashed unit. Maybe some don’t use bespoke OS and software but I have never bothered to complicate things by finding out which ones don’t, and only use those ones, which to me would be a vulnerable point if for whatever reason they were no longer available or supported. So I keep it all nice and simple and use external portable 2TB and 4TB hard drives formatted to FAT or NTFS, that way […]