If I were starting all over...

[rpcrowe]

If I were starting in digital photography, I would take a good look at the Panasonic G9.

I think that I could live with a 4/3 format camera and the G9 appears to have everything that I would like in a still camera. Pretty well tricked out for video also...

The size of the camera/lenses is what would lead me to this decision. Here is a link to a discussion on another forum that shows a Canon 7D DSLR with 70-200mm lens next to the G9 with 70-200mm equivalent lens - and it looks like this is an f/2.8 lens...
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...31&i=i92386755

There also seems to be enough lenses available to make the camera interesting AND many of the lenses seem quite reasonable in price.

But, I am too old to switch horses in mid stream - i might fall off

[Shadowman]

My intro to digital kept leading me to longer focal lengths, I'm still a fan of long glass even though I started with compact sized cameras.

[rpcrowe]

I absolutely love some of my Canon glass - the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens is a jewel as is the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II. It may not be an L Glass but the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS EFS lens is also a great piece of glass.

[Manfred M]

If I were starting right now, I would definitely be looking at a medium format camera. The offerings like the Pentax 645Z, the Fujifilm GFX 50S and the Hasselblad X1D all look quite compelling for the type of photography that I do.

As for a printer, the Epson P6000 sure looks interesting too (24" wide prints on roll fed paper rather than sheet fed).

[rpcrowe]

This is fun. Sort of like deciding what we would do if we won the lottery. If I got a Lumix G9 I would probably have a GS7 as my second camera...

I'd better not be thinking like this. It will make the Canon Gods angry and that's "bad mojo"

[TonyW]

I am about to start again in a sense. My Canon 5d3 is a good camera and the lenses I have are excellent, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth and I wanted something lighter, particularly for street photography and similar. A lot of people I know have and like the Fuji X-T1 or X-T2. When I went to the camera shop thinking of getting one, or perhaps the new Fuju XH1, as an additional camera, it looked as though the Sony A7 III might be a better choice, at about the same price.

I understand Manfred's attraction to the medium format but, besides the price, the size and weight of the lenses would be off-putting to me at this stage.

[billtils]

... My Canon 5d3 is a good camera and the lenses I have are excellent, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth and I wanted something lighter, particularly for street photography and similar.

A photo-buddy has recently given up his 5D3 for essentially the same reasons and bought an Olympus E-M1 Mk 2. To say he is delighted is an understatement and having seen some of the images from it I'm not surprised.

If I were going to change (which I am most certainly not), this would be my first stop (and I expect the last one too).

[JBW]

If you all were starting over you would probably have done it my way. An inexpensive bridge to see if you really had the passion. then an entry level detachable lens to see where your passions led you an finally into your specialty.

Can you really imagine starting this leaning curve with a medium frame camera for nudes? or an extreme macro setup and printer for shots that print out to 2 x3 meters?

I think not

[Manfred M]

If you all were starting over you would probably have done it my way. An inexpensive bridge to see if you really had the passion. then an entry level detachable lens to see where your passions led you an finally into your specialty.

Can you really imagine starting this leaning curve with a medium frame camera for nudes? or an extreme macro setup and printer for shots that print out to 2 x3 meters?

I think not

Brian there are two different factors at play in your response and one of them is clearly ones own development as a photographer. The other is the advances in technology; which results in what is effectively more talented and versatile equipment at a more cost effective price point.

I got my first camera when I was 7 or 8 years old. My second one arrived by the time I was 12 and my first SLR I got when I was 17. In high school I had access to lenses that were compatible with the camera I bought that had focal lengths from 24mm to 300mm. I had access to a full B&W and colour darkroom. I shot people (portraits), events, landscapes, street photography. I dabbled in macro and IR. I ended up building my own home B&W and colour darkroom.

Burning, dodging, controlling contrast, exposure, correcting perspective distortion were things I was doing in my mid to late teens. I was a better B&W photographer than I am now, just because I did so much of it. I have lenses for my film cameras that run from 19mm to 400mm (I've had all of them for close to 40 years); with my FF DSLR I own lenses that go from 14mm to 500mm; not all that much different than what I have been shooting since the early 1980s.

So I see no real learning curve issues in moving to a medium format camera; any more so than I found from going from a crop frame camera to a full frame one. Even in high school, I was printing at 16" x 20" size prints; my current printer is maxed out at 17" x 22". Going to a 24" printer or even a 44" printer would not be a stretch (especially with a the resolution a medium format camera offers). The FujiFilm and Hasselblad cameras are about the same size as my full-frame camera; the Pentax is definitely larger.

So for the type of photography I do, the transition would be easy. I haul my gear to pretty remote places all over the world, so that would not change either.

[TonyW]

Brian, I think we are mostly fantasising about starting again but knowing what we know now. It's a bit like wishing we were 18 years old but knowing what we know now, at least knowing as much as we thought we knew then.

[JBW]

Brian there are two different factors at play in your response and one of them is clearly ones own development as a photographer. The other is the advances in technology; which results in what is effectively more talented and versatile equipment at a more cost effective price point.

I got my first camera when I was 7 or 8 years old. My second one arrived by the time I was 12 and my first SLR I got when I was 17. In high school I had access to lenses that were compatible with the camera I bought that had focal lengths from 24mm to 300mm. I had access to a full B&W and colour darkroom. I shot people (portraits), events, landscapes, street photography. I dabbled in macro and IR. I ended up building my own home B&W and colour darkroom.

Burning, dodging, controlling contrast, exposure, correcting perspective distortion were things I was doing in my mid to late teens. I was a better B&W photographer than I am now, just because I did so much of it. I have lenses for my film cameras that run from 19mm to 400mm (I've had all of them for close to 40 years); with my FF DSLR I own lenses that go from 14mm to 500mm; not all that much different than what I have been shooting since the early 1980s.

So I see no real learning curve issues in moving to a medium format camera; any more so than I found from going from a crop frame camera to a full frame one. Even in high school, I was printing at 16" x 20" size prints; my current printer is maxed out at 17" x 22". Going to a 24" printer or even a 44" printer would not be a stretch (especially with a the resolution a medium format camera offers). The FujiFilm and Hasselblad cameras are about the same size as my full-frame camera; the Pentax is definitely larger.

So for the type of photography I do, the transition would be easy. I haul my gear to pretty remote places all over the world, so that would not change either.

But you misread the question:If you were to start over, as in from scratch. Could you handle a medium format system? I don't think so.

You are answering the question 'what if i could go any direction from where I now am'.

[JBW]

Brian, I think we are mostly fantasising about starting again but knowing what we know now. It's a bit like wishing we were 18 years old but knowing what we know now, at least knowing as much as we thought we knew then.

Agreed And i'm playing the literate literal devil

[tbob]

Two thoughts about this
If I could go back with all my current knowledge, I would have a PhaseOne.

If I was starting as rank novice again, then I would be content with my current gear. However I would take a ton of courses from people whose work and opinions I trust, who moreover are great teachers. Too many blind alleys gone down and clanging errors done while trying to learn over the last 57 years (first camera a brownie box at seven years old)

[davidedric]

I've been lucky enough to have visited some extraordinary and diverse places, jungles, deserts, mountains and much more.

It would have been great to have had any decent digital camera: I would have taken so many more pictures without having to tot up how many rolls of film I still had in my backpack.

But as for now, Im not really budget constrained and my Panasonic G80 does everything I need in a size I can manage. I can only see buying more gear if I wanted to try a different genre, or there were some really revolutionary development.

Dave

[DanK]

MFT is beginning to appeal to me because as I get older, the weight of FF bodies and especially lenses is gradually becoming more annoying. However, I have too much sunk into my current gear to make it sensible to think about an alternative, at least for now. And while the a few newer alternatives are better, my 5D3 is still every bit the fabulous camera it was when I bought it some years ago.


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[Manfred M]

But you misread the question:If you were to start over, as in from scratch. Could you handle a medium format system? I don't think so.

You are answering the question 'what if i could go any direction from where I now am'.

You have not read my response carefully. My comment was that I had already been printing and shooting with the same range of equipment that I do today as when I was in my teens and twenties. When I graduated from university, my gift to myself was a brand new top of the line Leica R3. It cost me the same dollars in 1980 as my top end consumer Nikon D90 cost me in 2010. The D300 and D700 simply did not represent good value to me at the time because I felt that the digital technology was not quite mature enough. Two years later I picked up the D800 because it had the level of technology I was after for the type of shooting I did. I could have gone for the D4, but Nikon targeted it at hand held low light and sports photographers, two genres I do not shot into very often, even today.

I worked with medium format 120 / 220 film in the wet darkroom and found the quality of the enlargements far superior to what my 35mm camera was capable of delivering. The two things I have always known is that maximum image quality comes from the largest negative I could work with and shots taken at the lowest ISO values (ASA / DIN in the film days). That basic premise has NOT changed, even in the digital age. That's why I had no hesitation switching from 1.5x crop frame to full frame back in 2012.

Remember that the camera of choice by masters like Ansel Adams and Karsh were the 8" x 10 "view camera (really large negatives). Even Cartier-Bresson shot the "FF" 35mm camera, rather than a sub-miniature Minox (it came out in 1936) that would have been even less intrusive than the smallish Leica he used; so he too stuck with a larger negative.

At the time I first got into digital, the medium format cameras were in the $40K - $60K range and were more aimed at the studio photographer, so again, of no real interest to me from a use or affordability standpoint. I did get a chance to work with some 50 MB files out of a Hasselblad back in 2011 and fell in love with the format and resolution (I was working with 12 MP files from the D90 at the time and could clearly see the limitations of the cameras, especially when I went to print the images). The three cameras I listed are all in the price range of what I could afford and all three create larger images.

The learning curve in shooting would be no different than if I switched form my Nikon FF camera to a FF Canon or FF Sony. In printing I have printed a lot on a 44" HP printer at work before I retired, so again, no issues at all in moving to a larger format printer.

[zen]

+1 on the Oly kit. A friend, part-time pro, switched from a full Canon kit to the EM 1, then an EM 1 -II, and couldn't be happier. If I ever decide to give up all my Canon glass, I'll follow his lead to Oly. But my brand loyalty to Canon dies hard!

[inkista]

MFT is beginning to appeal to me because as I get older, the weight of FF bodies and especially lenses is gradually becoming more annoying.

That's why I ended up with a Panasonic G3. Sciatica, a bad back, and repetitive stress injury in the hands. My Canon bag would routinely be about 20-30lbs. My MFT bag is 5 lbs. And the bag is 2lbs empty.

However, I have too much sunk into my current gear to make it sensible to think about an alternative, at least for now. And while the a few newer alternatives are better, my 5D3 is still every bit the fabulous camera it was when I bought it some years ago...

I felt that well as well, albeit with a 50D and 5DMkII with three L lenses. I still have all that. I just began thinking, "I'll just add MFT as my go-light kit, and not worry about covering the more esoteric stuff my Canon gear does really well" (e.g., birding, off-camera lighting).

So, I started out with a used G3 (it was around $450 at the time, about the same as a new advanced compact) with the 14-42 kit, and a 20/1.7 pancake prime. Just for walkaround/street shooting. Then I ended up going for a $250 consumer-grade 45-200. And got a 7.5 Samyang fisheye as a birthday present. Then I rounded it all out with a refurbed 9-18 ultrawide. I stayed with lower-cost consumer-grade lenses, since I had the L glass for the Canons. Overall, I think I spent roughly $1400 for the whole kit, and the cost including the price of the gift lens would have equalled what I spent on the 5DmkII body alone.

I've since passed the $2k mark, having upgraded the G3 to a GX7. But the MFT used market is rife with bargains, since the bodies are made by two companies, and they inadvertently cannibalize each other sometimes. A GX7 today costs about $350. Less than a new Powershot G# X model.

Just saying, if you only want a lighter casual-shooting kit in MFT, and you're willing to go used and with the consumer-end glass, it actually isn't as expensive as outfitting yourself with a full-frame Canon L kit, and you can keep it low-cost, small, and light. Keep the Canon full frame gear for the "I'm willing to lug the bag" subjects, and use the light kit for the social/casual/walkaround/travel shooting. Granted, you could also go the full-frame Sony E-mount/Zeiss glass direction instead, but then you don't get a lot of weight/space savings, lens-wise, and the lens selection's a lot smaller.

For me, the MFT kit ate more of my Canon shooting than I thought it would simply by being smaller/lighter. And then in turn, my X100T ate more of my MFT shooting than I thought it would.

It doesn't have to be a full-on switch. It can be an accumulation.

If I were starting all over today, I don't know if I'd have traveled the path I did. I'd probably be starting with a smartphone camera and a GoPro. But my only "if I were starting over from scratch" advice now that I give out on an endless loop is that if you're starting out in off-camera flash Strobist-style, go with the Godox X system, not Yongnuo.

[Acorn]

I have been out of touch with CiC over the past couple of weeks due to a laptop problem, but this topic has interested me. It immediately got the memory into gear to look back over one’s camera history.

My own started with my late father’s Box Brownie and impatient experiences with the local chemist’s shop. Then on to a plastic Kodak 127. Progress! But I suppose a more serious move came with a 35mm Ilford Sportsman and Kodachrome, zone focussing and flirtation with f-stops. Acquisitions of various 35mm and medium-format models from Nikon, Weltaflex, MPP, Rollei and Bronica stables followed.

Yet in terms of today’s digital camera technology would I have set out on a different course, i.e. MFT? I may have done but my interest in bird and wildlife photography, particularly birds in flight, and DSLR focus-tracking systems from the likes of Nikon have captured my loyalty.

Whilst the weight and volume factors in favour of MFT are attractive and I have no qualms with its excellent output quality, practical considerations in terms of focusing requirements would suggest it’s not an alternative for many bird photographers including myself.

I’m now into my early 80’s and the need for a golf trolley to cart my DSLR equipment is not yet on my shopping list.