Cameras and Stuff

There has been some interest in the photography gear I am using. I am in the category of “serious amateur” when it comes to both still and video photography. I’ve been taking pictures all my adult life, and have piles of 35mm slides, 8mm home movies, and videos that document a lot of my life and my family’s life. Nothing excites my adult children quite like an old video of the family singing “Percy, the Puny Poinsetta” at a church winter concert.

My first “serious” cameras was Canon AE-1 that had automatic exposure control (“AE”) that was really cool for its time. I eventually upgraded to an A-1, which was a higher end camera at the time. I didn’t have an extensive collection of lenses for the Canon, but it was reasonable for me. My last film camera was something like a T-90, because my A-1 was stolen when I was on a business trip. The camera was one thing, but mostly I lost a roll of film that was still in it with pictures taken in Israel. That was about the time that digital cameras were starting to become practical so the T-90 never got a lot of use.

I admit to be ticked off at Canon because with their new line of cameras, they obsoleted the mount used to connect the lens to the camera, getting a new Canon camera meant getting all new lenses. When I looked at my options, I bought a low end Nikon, in part because I told myself it was the best choice for what I wanted, but that may have been slanted because I really didn’t want to support Canon at that point. That was my first digital camera and I used it for several years and have a stack of photos taken with it (can you “stack” computer files?), with only a single zoom lens, but it was a Nikor lens which was really pretty good.

When I decided it was time to upgrade to a better camera, my choice was again Nikon, but this time I really spent some time looking at the options and thought the Nikon D7100 was my best choice, and I am still happy with that choice. It is interesting to me that Nikon is still using the same basic mount that they have used for a long, long time. They have extended its life by adding to it but lenses 50 years old still work with it, although they may not have all the latest features. This particular camera uses an APS-C sensor rather than a “full size” sensor. The difference is that “full size” is the same dimensions (or almost) as a single frame of 35mm film. The APS-C sensor is significantly small (43% as big) (unless you have a Canon camera, where it is 38% as big).

The Nikon sensor has 24 megapixels (MP) which is about the same as many full size sensors. That means pictures have a lot of detail even with the smaller size. It also means the camera and lenses can be smaller, and less expensive to make. The D7100 has most of the features of their full size cameras. The trade off comes because the individual pixels must be smaller to get the same number in less than half the area. So what you give up is low light performance, or quality of the digital image if there is less than the needed amount of light. For taking pictures out doors in bright sun light, this is a non-problem, but it can limit what you can do indoors (without flash) or in other low light situations.

The other interesting artifact of the crop sensor as it is called is that the effective focal length of a given lens changes. That is because the focal length of the lens dictates how big the image is when focused on the sensor (or film). Many photographers and books, etc. reference the effect of a given focal length by how it looks on the film. The old “standard” 35 mm film lens was a 50mm focal length. If you use that lens on a crop sensor (APS-C) camera, it has the same effect as if you used a 75mm lens on a full frame sensor. The effective focal length is multiplied by 1.53 (usually rounded to 1.5) if a lens is used on the smaller sensor. There are other effects on effective aperture and other details as well.

The camera takes what I consider to be very high quality pictures. I don’t have the equipment or experience with more expensive, professional grade camera bodies to necessarily be the best judge of that, but I do take what I consider to be good photos. Two of the lenses I have for this camera are Nikor (NIkon’s brand of lenses). I have three more which are Tamron lenses and they are often reviewed by others a on a par with Nikon’s own lenses.

What I expected with this camera was that it could also take decent videos. It is rated to take video in “4K” resolution which it does, but only with a reduced size active area of its sensor. What I didn’t expect was that it would really not autofocus well when taking video, but that is what I found. Digging into this, I found that the standard answer was that you should use manual focus when taking video. My previous several video cameras were not limited this way, and it seemed to be a serious limitation on DSLR technology.

Then I started looking the Sony line of mirrorless cameras (35mm cameras and many DSLR cameras all use mirrors and prisms as part of their design). They generally get excellent reviews on their video capability, and that is what convinced me to add a Sony A6500 camera to my bag of photography stuff. It is also an APS-C sensor with the same megapixel count as the Nikon, so the basic image quality is going to be similar. This camera is smaller and lighter than the Nikon and takes excellent pictures. The video uses the full sensor in 4K video so is perhaps a bit better looking than similar footage on the Nikor. Most importantly, it has an excellent autofocus system that works in photo mode as well as video mode.

Today, pretty much all of my video is taken with the Sony. My older video cameras are no longer used except in a pinch. I often take just the Sony because it does both video and stills and I don’t want to be loaded up with too much stuff. On the other hand, when I am going to take pictures I often take both cameras. For one thing, it is easier to switch between lenses by having two camera bodies and just pick one. For another, the “longest” lens that I have is a monster for the Nikon which is a really great 150-600 mm zoom lens. I have an adapter for Nikon to Sony cameras which works somewhat. It isn’t as good as a lens designed for the Sony, but it gives me flexibility to put a Nikon lens on the Sony body if I want to.