I am a simplistic person. I loved my film days: one all-manual camera, one 50mm lens. I still think my old film photos are better than my digital photos of the past few years. It is as if the digital age has pushed me right out of my style, forcing me to buy an overly sophisticated camera and forget the perspective I found in my cheapo film camera. What was the difference?
Perspective. And in the past few days, I am feeling a new hope for my photographic vision. Back when I went digital—do not hear me wrong, that was a very wise choice for very clear reasons I have explained before—I did not know all the digital cameras had cropped sensors and that lenses would not act like I was accustomed to.
I had shot a 50mm lens for years, and decided that the first lens I would buy with my new Nikon D100 was an 85mm, so I could get a little tighter in to people’s faces. What I did not know is that lens was giving me something closer to a 125mm range! That was too close, I soon found, but still did not know why. So, I bought a news lens, moving back to my trust 50mm length, not knowing it was giving me 75mm.
On top of all that, I had not shot my film camera for quite a while due to travel between countries and frustration with destroyed film, and when I bought my D100, I did not notice the smaller viewfinder. It took me two or three years to realize all these issues, and even longer to truly understand how it had affected my photography.
So, to fix all these problems, I recently decided I needed a full frame digital camera. Nikon just came out with the D3, but that is way bigger than simplistic me can handle to carry around. I figured I would just wait for Nikon’s inevitable full frame, but not massive-sized camera to come out.
Then reality hit. When it did come out, I was not going to be able to afford it anyway. That was when the idea of buying a Canon 5D started knocking around in my head. I do not care about the megapixel count or any of the aging specs. And since I only have a couple lenses anyway, switching over is no big deal. So, being in the big city the other day, I was able to face a Canon EOS 5D mano y mano.
There is no turning back now. I still do not quite know how it will all come about…meaning, I do not know how I will round up the cash to make it a reality, but looking through that viewfinder was like stepping into a brave new world.
Looking through a 50mm lens on the 5D immediately rushed some of my favorite slides through my head. It is possible again. I am not confined by the viewfinder and not cropped by the sensor. I can shoot what I want to shoot.
The photo above is the hail of a new era in my photography. I will remember this simple and not so incredible photo—the perspective, the scene, the color, …everything—as I wait for a 5D to become mine. Oh so fitting that the subject is trying to figure out what he wants in a new camera too. My feelings are much less of the possesive “I want a new, fancy camera” type and much more of the “Finally, I can continue my photographic journey left off five years ago.”
