Now that I am settled into my new place, I’ve began to sort put together a game plan of things to do. By the virtue of being within walking distance to work, the lack of a long commute have reclaimed a bit of time back into my day. So what do with those precious extra hours?
This year has been a complete wash for my photography hobby for obvious reasons. The early lockdown restrictions have morphed into lethargy and laziness. Ever since returning from Guangzhou in early January, I’ve really not done any shooting at all this year, and that is a shame. Now that I’ve got more time to my day, I’m going to force myself to focus back to taking and editing pictures.
My primary shooting device this year is the iPhone 11 Pro, and it bears repeating just how awesome smartphones cameras have evolved over the years. Computational photography have done absolute magic to overcome the physical limitations of small sensors and lenses. Push comes to shove, I have no problem at all selling my entire photography kit and only relying on the iPhone to take photos.
But a pixel-peeper like me wouldn’t be satisfied with a mere 12-megapixels, no matter how amazing the computers can make those 12 million pixels shine. What I do value and enjoy is how utterly portable a smartphone is relative to a traditional kit of camera and lenses. It’s incredibly painless to just grab the phone and go, rather than having to plan and prepare the kit for whatever eventualities. The cliche goes: the best camera is the one you have with you, and more and more, portability is something I greatly appreciate.
So I started looking through some of the latest premium small cameras that sits just below the full-fat lens-swappable mirrorless types. The Fujifilm X100V caught my eye immediately on how small it is while packing a solid punch with a decently-sized APS-C sensor and a fast prime lens. Like my iPhone, the X100V would be something I can simply grab and take with me without any thought, something that can live in the daypack constantly.
Then I got to the price, and that’s where I paused. Now is definitely not the time to spend so extravagantly, and upon reflection I remembered that the camera that I own - a Sony A7R2 - is rather portable enough already when paired with the compact Zeiss 35MM F/2.8 lens. I already have the thing that I seek and want; now it’s down to actually doing the work: go out and shoot.
Ready set.