Photography
I don't pursue a specific style or am in a specific niche because I am shooting mostly for fun and myself.
For me photography is about capturing and freezing the moment. A good photo can capture emotions and ensure that certain memories will never fade. It is also a document of time, so even mundane street scenes hold value for me. Who knows how the world looks in 30 years? It is worth capturing.
My grandfather was also photographing back in the day, and I am currently digitizing his work. It is interesting to see the 50s/60s/70s/80s though his lens.
I love shooting both digital and film, although film is more interesting for me since I'm still learning film photography. Digital cameras allow one to perfectly capture a moment and instantly review the results while film always holds the risk of exposing the scene wrongly in a hurry without knowing and thus ruining the shot forever. Looking at the results of freshly developed film is one of the most exciting things for me to do.
Sometimes weeks / months can pass between hitting the shutter and reviewing the results. I do use and enjoy working with both technologies, but I also live on the edge and film cameras have such a nice feel to them when being handled, so film probably tops digital for me personally.
Cameras
The Minolta X-700 is currently my favorite film camera to use. It is a 35 mm interchangeable lens camera that includes TTL metering. Shutter speeds range from 1s till 1/1000s plus BULB support. Focusing has to be done manually with a split prism supporting you. It is incredibly easy to focus with this camera and the metering is spot on.
Program mode and aperture priority modes are included. If selected, +2/-2 EV exposure compensation allows you to influence the automatic camera metering. Program mode only works on MD lenses.
The X-700 is really fun and easy to use and it has a great lens selection! Build quality is good even with the housing being hard plastic and the viewfinder is really bright. I can only recommend it if you plan on starting analog photography.
I have the following lenses for it which are all superb. I do plan on upgrading the 50mm 1.7 to the faster 50mm 1.4 in the future.
- Minolta MD 50mm 1.7
- Minolta MD 28mm 2.8
- Minolta MD 135mm 3.5
The Zorki 4 is a Soviet Leica clone interchangeable lens rangefinder camera. My version was built in the 1960s where the build quality was still good. They started cheaping out in the mid-60s and later built Zorki 4's lack some features or feel cheaper. Focusing is done via the split image rangefinder window, although you don't look through the lens here. The Jupiter-8 50 mm f2 kit lens is superb glass and makes this camera an affordable Leica alternative.
I inherited the Voigtländer Vito B from my dad's father. It is a simple but effective camera without metering. The Color-Skopar 50 mm 3.5 has a unique image rendering that causes every photograph to look like it is been taken in the 60s. A split image range finder is currently attached via the hot shoe. Using this camera to focus on close objects can be hard, by utilizing the hyperfocal distance it is however easily doable to focus properly on elements > 5 m away. There are also two markings on the focus ring that help with zone focusing. A triangle marks the 2.5 m → 5.5 m range and a circle goes from 5 m to infinity.
The second camera is a Zeiss Nettar 6x9 medium format camera that I bought on eBay for 12€. This variation of the Nettar was produced pre- or during the second World War. It is a folding camera with a leaf shutter and focusing on anything closer than 5m is hard and pretty much requires to bring a ruler. Due lens quality it should not be used with color film as it will cause heavy chromatic aberrations.
The Sony A6300 is my choice for digital photography. It is a mirrorless APS-C camera with a 1.5 crop factor. I am satisfied with this camera and it produces great images and allows for a wide range of photography.
The official lens selection could be larger for APS-C, but it is possible to adapt lenses from other mounts with it. Sigma and Samyang also produce great 3rd party lenses. I have a MD → E-Mount adapter that allows me to mount Minolta glass.
I also use the A6300 to digitize my film photos by utilizing the 50mm F2.8 Sony macro lens, an old Minolta copy stand, a Kaiser light table, a Lomography Digitaliza 35mm mask and the excellent Negative Pro Plugin for Lightroom. For digitizing slide film I just use Lightroom's HDR merge feature and bracket +1/-1 EV in case they're too contrasty.
I have the following lenses for it. The Sigma 16 mm is a superb lens, the Kit lens is okay and the macro lens yields excellent image quality with a slow autofocus.
- Sony 16-50 mm 3.5-5.6 Kit Lens
- Sigma 16 mm 1.4
- Sony FE 50 mm 2.8 Macro