I Need More Toys

This post is about photography technology and my latest obsession with acquiring new toys for my hobby. So, you can ignore this if you want. Just a heads up.

The last time I bored my faithful viewers with a post about photo equipment, I may have said that I was through making major purchases after buying the Sony 7 IV. Well, it turns out I was just kidding.

I had figured that I would be relying on the new Sony A7 IV as my primary camera, and I could bring the older A7R II along if I wanted to have a backup on longer trips. That worked fine for singular focused (more unintentional puns) trips, like whale watching or hummingbirds, where all I needed was the new long lens. The Alaska trip was more of a problem. Most days there was a mix of wildlife and landscape photo ops, so I had to either change lenses on the fly, or rely on my phone for the landscape shots. Zodiac photography made things worse – trying to change lenses in a crowded, small, wet boat introduced a high risk factor of dropping the camera either in the wet boat bottom, or worse, the very wet ocean. In Antarctica, it will be a lot of fun trying to change lenses in the cold weather either in the boats or on the shore…standing on ice and snow. With penguins pecking at my boots.  And if you own a mirrorless digital camera, you have probably already experienced the joy of trying to clean a dirty sensor. 

For all of my upcoming trips I will have that same mix of landscape/close-up vs. longer distance wildlife photography, and was considering using my very old Sony 7R II for landscape (shorter lens), and the new A7 IV with the long telephoto for wildlife. That would work of course, but now I’d have to lug two different sets of batteries and chargers along. Plus, and now for the real reason, this gave me the opportunity to trade in the old camera (10 years) for a new one. Camera shopping!!!! Off to Mike’s Camera!

Actually, I did a lot of research first. If I was going to make a major investment in another camera body, I wanted to make sure it was the right one. I had been considering a different line of cameras which use a different, smaller sensor technology than the A7 line, the APS-C  versus full-frame. The Sony cameras are a bit smaller, lighter and a bit less expensive than the full-frame line like the A7 IV. They also have a completely different set of lenses that are designed for the smaller sensor, although the full-frame lenses can be used as well. The problem, for me at least, with the APS-C cameras is the cropping factor – the smaller sensor limits the scope/breath of the image, so you are effectively increasing the length of the lens by 1.5X. That’s great if you want more of a telephoto effect, which is not what I’m looking for with landscape photography. So for example, a 24-70mm lens loses the wide angle, since the crop factor makes this a 36-95mm lens. 

When I got to Mike’s, I was able to try this out with a few of the smaller sensor cameras. I liked the smaller body size, but the cropping did not work for me. What I really wanted was the top-end full-frame camera, the A7R V. And as it turns out, Sony was having an incredible sale on this camera. And with the trade-in for my old camera, it was less than the APS-C bodies I was looking at. And I would not need to buy new lenses either.  Simple decision – convincing myself took about 5 seconds. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use it before I leave for Antarctica. Plenty of time for that – I’m sure I can fit that into my incredibly busy schedule of doing nothing. I’m sure I’ll be able to talk myself into spending some time playing with the new camera.

Speaking of lenses, now that I have a long telephoto (500mm), I would really like to get to a point where I only need to carry two lenses – the big zoom for wildlife, and an all-purpose zoom for everything else, something like a 20-150mm. This would give me coverage for just about every situation, with just the two camera bodies. Currently, I have a 24-105mm, and a 17-24mm wide angle. I do not really shoot too much at the lower wide angle range, so if I had a 24-200mm for example, I’d just have to lug two lenses along on trips. Well, Mike’s Camera is having a sale in November, with that exact lens. So I may not be done with my toy obsession just yet.

Two last comments on photo equipment (if you are still awake reading this…zzzzzz). First – I did mention the use of my phone for landscape photography. The new Pixel 10 has an excellent camera, and I’m finding that in some cases, I’d rather just use the phone instead of the heavy digital camera. Cave tours are a good example – it’s difficult enough just winding your way through tight and/or low passages. It is hard maintaining your balance and keep the camera from banging against rocks at the same time. The same goes for kayaking – I have a waterproof case for the phone (and the GoPro too), so I do not have to worry about trying to keep the expensive Sony out of the water. And then there are crazy hikes like the Manitou Incline. The phone was all I could handle. I did not see anyone with anything other than phones or GoPro’s on that little adventure.

The second and thankfully last point, is why am I taking photo’s with the big, hi-tech cameras at all. I’m finding of late, that rather than using the blog to describe the images I’m creating with the high-end camera’s, the images are secondary to writing the stories of my travels. I’m using more of the jpeg images from my phone than the higher quality raw photos I take with the digital cameras. But I still want to continue submitting photos to contests, and go on tours focused on wildlife photography, like the Kodiak bear trip or an African safari. If I ever get to the point where all I’m doing are cruises, I may have to rethink my priorities when it comes to photography. Hopefully it will be a long time until I have to make that decision. Besides, the phone technology will probably make full frame digital cameras obsolete by then.