I really need to sort my day-to-day cameras out... I'm down to my iPhone and a Sanyo (looks like a snub-nose handgun) for my day-to-day snapping, and minus the convenience of the iPhone camera, they're all quite crap. I'm always impressed, and made to feel slightly embarrassed, by the quality of imagery on other folks' blogs, so I feel obliged to make an effort outside the studio...
A big portion of my woes I'll blame on the lighting at home, and to me only having the time to take project snaps in the evening (so plenty of flash required) - the Sanyo doesn't have a great low-light sensor, nor does it take particularly nice shots, it's a convenient camera, not a beautiful camera.
And then there's my Olympus E1 - now aged, with it's 5MP sensor, but it takes a really nice picture... Kind of dumb really, I hardly ever used this camera outside of the studio when I first got it, and kept it as backup when I had my first 22MP digital back, in pieces in my equipment case. Since then, it's found it's way into a small clamshell-like bag, and occasionally is found under a cupboard or in my car. But I'm still keeping this thing pristine, and not keeping this thing to shoot with.
Dumb. But in the effort to protect it, and keep it safe, I may just prolong it's life, but in the same hand, I'm wasting it's value now. You can still get away with a good 5MP picture, but in the next few years, it'll be pointless (probably). I'd still love a tiny Olympus Pen, but frankly, I'd be too frightened to take it anywhere and I'd probably have this same realisation in about 6 years about that camera too.
So, I come full circle back to my favourite little (now broken) camera, a crappy 1MP Sony. It looked like a lipstick case, had a tiny flash, crappy response (in the near tens of seconds) and a horrible LCD. But it was beautiful. I took hundreds and hundreds of truly off-the-hip pictures. I carried it everywhere, because it was tiny - plus it had a lanyard making it easy grab and use. One reason, was that I got it used, and didn't really give a crap about scratching it (I had my E1 then, which was the prized possession).
I'll avoid the psychology of why, and I'll instead summarise, that I'll attempt to make more of an effort with my blog pics...
Promise.
