One With My Camera

Posted by Gunnar on Feb 28, 2014 in Behind the Lens | 2 comments

For the last four years, I have been shooting exclusively with a 21 mega-pixel Canon 5D with a 70-300mm zoom. It’s a terrific camera, and a terrific lens, and the only equipment I have used for last four years. Using a single piece of equipment has been my pattern for years, for it allows me to become ‘one with my camera’, which is absolutely critical for me.

In short, only by reaching a point where the camera and lens are completely second nature to me, can I get beyond the mechanics, in order to totally immerse myself within my subject and how I choose to interpret it.

In preparing for my trip to the Antarctic to photograph ‘blue ice’, I’m anticipating opportunities to photograph cliffs of ice as high as 2,000’, which means I want the ability to shoot wider angle images; and because I exhibit large scale color prints – 32×48” typically – the new 36 megapixel Nikon 800D, offering 70% greater resolution seemed ideal; and especially since Nikon now offers a 28-300mm zoom.

A little more than a month ago, a Nikon 800D with a 28-300mm zoom arrived! Since then I have been trying to become ‘one with my new camera’. I must confess it’s a daunting challenge! The software is of course different – I have switched between Canons and Nikons before – but never with so many bells & whistles: auto focus which I never use, image stabilizer lenses, which I de-activate, video capability which I can’t even think about… So even though it means I can skip nearly half of the 400 page User’s Manual, the camera’s redundancy features – I’ve never before encountered a digital camera that accommodates two different memory chips simultaneously – and on and on. And I need to ‘become one with this camera’ within the next ten days!