Letting the demons win

Obsession over technology has been an unshakeable vice for the majority of my life. The cool thing about being fixated on a space known for rapid development is you get to see things change all of the time, which is fun and exciting. The not so cool thing is that, well, things change all the time, and corporations know that it's fun and exciting, and everything is built to exploit that feeling, and I am apparently the world's biggest mark for this crap.

Getting into digital photography has played on these same fixations. There's always some new sensor, some new autofocus technology, some new body design, some new feature that completely revolutionises everything this time, we promise. Unfortunately, these tactics seem to work wonders on me, and I spend way too much time thinking, "if only I had that camera instead of this one, the one in my hands that's perfectly fine and has served me well, then I could do ___" (you can fill that free space with basically any recent buzzword, but it's most often occupied by "film simulations"). This constant swirl of consumerist garbage in my brain has been genuinely damaging for my mental health, and I'm sick of it - hopefully, as previously stated, this blog will continue to be a healthier way to engage further with my primary hobby without being out in the field.

This post will be my one permitted bout of gushing about cameras. It is an attempt to remind myself why I have what I have, what I love about it, and to share those thoughts and feelings with the poor, unfortunate souls that are stuck reading this. Unless I write a similar post for my favourite lenses, anything that comes after this is against my mission, and should be viewed as a relapse.

My beloved child, the GX9

I think it's fair to say that the Panasonic Lumix GX9 has become a cult classic. The tilting screen in the age of fully adjustable is a godsend for low-angle shooting, the 20MP sensor is hard to beat (in Micro Four Thirds land, anyway), and the internal stabilisation is up there with some of the best - outclassed today, sure, but still fantastic for what it is. It's also stylish, small(ish), and the tilting viewfinder is novel (if not as useful as I expected). Autofocus could be better, but it could be a hell of a lot worse.

When I picked mine up in early 2023, looking to graduate from the Canon M50 II that I'd started with, the owner must not have realised what he had on his hands, because I ended up with a lightly used body, the love-it-or-hate-it 20mm pancake, and a spare battery for $600. Even at the time, used listings on eBay were approaching $1k, so I felt extremely lucky to be idly browsing Facebook Marketplace at the right time (a terrible habit that I have unfortunately trained myself to no longer do). It's almost as if it was meant to find me.

The GX9 is not a perfect camera, but it is my perfect camera. When paired with the aforementioned 20mm, it's flat enough to fit in most of my slings (as a type one diabetic, I've almost always carrying a bag), but still big enough to feel good in my greasy mitts. The shutter is distinct, but not overbearing, and the silent shutter mode works well enough that a more discrete image or two is very achievable without the usual pitfalls. Night time photos are made more bearable by the excellent stabilisation at lower shutter speeds - a blessing that I relish with my hands' borderline tremor. Best of all, it turns on in less than a second (don't quote me on that), so decisive moments are rarely missed.

The benefits of Micro Four Thirds (MFT) as a lens mount are also not lost on me. With years and years of great glass, I've had the opportunity to experiment with many different focal lengths, all at reasonable prices with minimal compromises. Panasonic's budget 45-150mm (double each mm for a full frame equivalent) got me started on a little bit of wildlife photography, and Olympus's 75-300mm pushed me even further. Having easy to find lenses is also a hinderance, though - all of the time that I spent away from the included 20mm did not make me a better photographer, just a more equipped one.

If it wasn't for the struggles of a smaller sensor in lower light, and the not-quite-perfect autofocus, this would be the camera that I take everywhere I can. Really, those are just excuses to own more gear - I can take this camera everywhere, I can take all sorts of photos on the GX9, I can mix and match lenses to my heart's content. However, these "flaws" pushed me towards buying...

The Sony A7C - taking the "fun" out of "functional"

Sony cameras are tools. It is clear they want them to be this way - a slice out of Canon's market share pie, not Fujifilm's - but a tool does not a fun camera make. And that's okay.

My A7C is another secondhand body - I don't think I've bought any new cameras - which I managed to buy with two lenses (the Viltrox 24mm f/1.8, which I never use, and the Sony 35mm f/1.8, which I almost exclusively use), four batteries, a fantastic cross-body strap, and a SmallRig cage, all for $1500. The seller warned (in a furious all-caps screed) that the software was stuck in Japanese, and could not be changed. Fortunately, I didn't need to scrub up on my Kanji, as a little firmware hack solved this issue, and I had once again found myself with a bargain.

I immediately fell in love with its rock-solid tracking autofocus, its incredible low light performance, its beautifully detailed 24MP files, and its all-day-and-then-some-more battery life. AF profiles go beyond just human detect, and extend into both eye and animal - photos of family cats have never been sharper. Setting a tracking point and recomposing has become one of my favourite ways to focus for a photo. The shutter is satisfying, if a little noisy, and its intuitive controls did not take long to establish as muscle memory. Controversially, I even really like the Imaging Edge app - the camera links up with my phone over Bluetooth to grab location data for every shot, and I really miss it when I don't have it.

Over time though, the downsides of the A7C have begun to crop up. While the A7C and the GX9 are about the same size, full frame lenses dwarf their MFT counterparts - it's still not a huge package, but the length on the Sony 35mm does really eat into my little slings. The in-body stabilisation is better than not having it, but much worse than many other cameras (it took a few more generations for Sony to get good at IBIS). It's a bit slow to turn on, but not so painfully slow that I miss a lot of shots. The viewfinder is a bit garbage, but, again, better than not having it.

At its core, compared to many other popular cameras, the A7C is just not very fun. I don't regret buying it, and I won't stop taking it on all my trips for all of the reasons listed above, but it doesn't really spark joy. And again, I think I'm okay with that. It's a tool, and the joy is in the photography. It never plays up on me, I trust that the tech side works, and I get to direct my focus to the only part that actually matters - taking the damn picture.

Free as in (some sort of joke about a free thing)

The best thing about being a hobby photographer is that people have the urge to offload unused cameras onto you for no charge. I'm not quite sure how it's happened - maybe it's my winning smile - but I've ended up with a number of freebies that have entered my regular rotation. I won't get into each of them in great detail - no more multi-paragraph epics to endure - but they deserve a brief mention.

Sony RX100 II

While drunkenly (I promise it was not a normal work day) discussing cameras with a colleague, he mentioned that he had a potentially busted RX100 collecting dust at home, and said that he had been meaning to offload it. I did not let this opportunity escape me, and adopted it once we'd both sobered up. I've really enjoyed having it on hand over the last couple of months. It's nice to have a tiny camera that can always be on me but isn't my phone (which I don't really enjoy taking photos on), and the zoom really handy (if a bit soft on the long end). Unfortunately, it is also a window into spending more on a better point-and-shoot. We'll see if the demons win there, too.

Praktica BC-1

The first family freebie in the list - this time, found in an old fruit box during a house cleanout. The BC-1 is tiny by SLR standards, the 50mm lens is great, and the focus assist is perfectly usable. My only complaint is that B-mount lenses appear to be rare and a bit pricey - I would love to pair this body with something a bit smaller - but maybe, considering my usual spending habits, that's a blessing in disguise.

Panasonic TZ60

Unlike everything else in this section, chance did not cause the TZ60 to appear in my life - I pinched it from one of my sisters. While its minuscule sensor and small aperture are limiting in most aspects, I've really come to love it for concert photography of all things. The ridiculous zoom range (up to 720mm!!) means you can really get into the weeds, and the requirement to slow your shutter speed down and crank the ISO way up, combined with the ever-present smoke machines and intense lighting lead to really striking, dreamy (a nice way of saying smeary) images.

Minolta SRT 101

The requirements of the Marketplace listing were simple - the camera's free, but only if you're actually a photographer. This anti-flipping clause led me to end up with an SRT 101 in decent condition, and a 50mm kit lens that had seen better days. I love how it feels in the hand, and I'm obsessed with the look. It definitely gets a little less love than the BC-1, only because of the weight, but I'm keen to get back out with the 101 sometime.

The Hoarding Extended Universe®

The last two spots are reserved for cameras that have definitely had an impact in my life, but, for one reason or another, have fallen to the wayside. They were also not free.

Canon EOS M50 II

Picked on a whim as a "it's cheap and it'll do" option, the best thing about the M50 is the 22mm pancake that I bought for it. It introduced me to the beauty that is the 35mm focal length - not too wide for portraits, not too tight for general travel. The camera itself is perfect for beginners, but doesn't give you much room to grow into. If it wasn't for extreme laziness, it'd already be up on Marketplace. Maybe I'm just a bit sentimental.

Pentax SF7

This is where it really all started - with the purchase of an SF7 from a good friend who was trying to shrink her collection. This $50 SLR (with its bog-standard kit lens included) was the very start of me trying photography with something other than my phone. It's still a great body - maybe a little underused for similar reasons to the SRT 101 - and I have plans to one day pair it with an AF 40mm lens of some sort to finally marry my favourite focal length with film.

What I'm listening to: "The Passionate Ones" - Nourished by Time
What I'm reading: "House of Leaves, 2nd Edition" - Mark Z. Danielewski (expect to see this one for some time, it's doing my head in)