This page has been written for my American Internet friends in 2005 when digital was new to us and we were learning how to make panorama pictures for our flight simulators. But since it's a historic article, anyway, it may be still of some interest more than fifteen years later. That's why I even added text and pictures about my further photographic history.
It's about my approach to photography and my habit of shooting casually while being on trips and journeys. Some of the best pictures resulting from this habit are shown below. These pictures and some more, along with several recent digital photos, are on the (ad-free) photo-sharing website PBase, where I chose the name travelcam. Click on the button below:
My Approach
I started photographing in 1969 when I was 18 years old. On occasion of some journeys, my father loaned me his equipment and provided me with films and some good advice. So I kept carrying a bag full of cameras and lenses and nearly always had a handheld exposure meter tied to my wrist, permanently measuring light to be prepared for shooting a picture. Obviously, it was an obsession preventing me from full enjoyment of the journey. Yet I took a lot of nice pictures.
I not only aimed at having memories but also tried to make good pictures. If it was only about documenting a subject then lose no time and just shoot (remember I was prepared all time). But sometimes I thought there's a chance to make a good picture, either when documenting a subject or only to catch the moment and atmosphere. In these cases, I spared no time and effort for the picture, even risking to be left behind by my fellows. Very rarely I went only for pictures. I maintained this habit until today and shot several nice pictures (or snapshots, if you like) during all my journeys, that is I like these pictures.
1969 was a special year. We made two school journeys, one to the USSR (at the very time when first men were on the moon) and one to Greece. The former journey was on account of a Russian language course we volunteered for, the latter due to the fact that our school was a classical high school. Between these two big journeys I was on vacation with my parents and brothers in Starnberg on a beautiful lake southwest of Munich. Only a few years later, in 1972 and 1973, I was in Prague with a couple of “old” schoolmates. About 600 slides have been shot during these five journeys, half of them quite good and the rest not that good. Very few I esteem as really good pictures by my means.
My father went to great expense buying all the films and frames and boxes. Thankfully I'm looking at the photos today, appreciating both the big effort and the big achievement. In those days, technology was quite advanced and made good pictures possible. Today, technology isn't that much better except it makes photographer's life much easier and photography cheaper. That's progress!
At my disposal were even two Super Paxette II BL 35mm viewfinder camera bodies made by Braun in Nuremberg. They were small and lightweight, and they had a vibration-free Prontor-SVS leaf shutter. (I managed 1/15 handheld without blur.) There was a built-in exposure meter, but I used a better handheld meter (IKOPHOT) anyway. The viewfinder was even a coupled rangefinder, whom I used, and it had frames for 50, 85, and 135mm lenses, the whole finder being the frame for 35mm. Yet it was actually not useful for lenses other than 50mm so there was an OEM accessory viewfinder which was put into the accessory shoe. It was a revolver type for 35, 85, and 135mm lenses and had adjustable parallax correction. The single-coated or even uncoated lenses were made by Staeble, Schneider, Steinheil, or Enna, and had 35, 50, 85, or 135mm focal length. Lens speeds were f/2.8 (50mm) or f/3.5 what was standard back then. Each lens was fit out with its own hood and skylight filter. They had inconvenient (M39) thread mounts, but still the viewfinder was good to check different lens views before actually changing lens.
1973 in a hotel room in Prague. Look at that outfit!
One camera body was loaded with a standard slide film. At first, I felt as a German I had to use Agfa and I liked the colors (slightly reduced blue). So all pictures in the USSR were shot on Agfacolor CT18 (50 ASA / 18 DIN) and that was all about it. After that, I felt I had to use at least Kodak Ektachrome film since it had been used on the moon. (I couldn't afford a Hasselblad and Zeiss lenses.) My color taste had changed accordingly (neutral or kind of grey). Now my standard film was Kodak Ektachrome-X (64 ASA / 19 DIN).
In any case, the then exceptionally fast (and expensive) High Speed Ektachrome was in the second body for indoor and night. Probably it had actually 160 ASA / 23 DIN but was pushed to 400 ASA / 27 DIN in development by Kodak in Stuttgart (Germany) or by the local lab. I'm not sure about that today but I am sure that I exposed it like 400 ASA more often than not. Anyway, the pictures were a bit grainy but 400 ASA / 27 DIN is a lot more difference to 64 ASA / 19 DIN (6.25 times / 2⅔ f-stops) than just 160 ASA / 23 DIN (2.5 times / 1⅓ f-stops), which seemed too little too expensive. So I was left with the alternative of having somewhat grainy night and indoor pictures or none at all. Nevertheless, I always carried a pocket tripod (which I still have today) and a cable release.
The slides were put between paper frames and square (50x50 mm) glass panes, which were glued together with four paper strips by means of a small gadget. Each slide was properly labeled and registered. (Today I can't imagine how I ever managed to do this tedious work.) 50 slides in a Leitz (Leica) tray were projected by a Leitz Pradovit Color projector with a Leica 90mm f/2.5 Colorplan lens (I still have it today) on a reflective screen. That was very impressive since technical quality was already as good as today.
I had read a textbook about color photography, which was still expensive and unusual in the 1960s. Of course, I kept the book as well (Photographing COLOUR with Walther BENSER). It was a shining example for me and it recommended slide film. That's why I used color slide film and always strived to shoot technically correct. After all the picture is done when you have pushed the shutter release. And that in turn is why I had an exposure meter in my hand and why I tried hard to find the right focal length and view.
Nearly ten years later, in January 1983, I felt the need for an own camera that suited me better. After some experiments with my father's first SLR (M42 thread mount Pentax Spotmatic F), I decided to go high quality. So it had to be a Nikon because that was the professional's brand at this time. (My father switched to Minolta, which was not bad either.) I was sober and lucky enough to decide for some of the best items Nikon made back then. Now I went to great expense myself and bought a Nikon FM body with 85mm and 35mm f/2.0 AI-s (manual-focus, aperture-coupled, automatic-diaphragm) lenses. The FE had already been on the market but I didn't trust the new (aperture-priority) automatic exposure and didn't want it either because I was so experienced with manual exposure (and the FM has a coupled exposure meter). And I was sure that I didn't want a 50mm kit lens because I had rarely used this focal length. The salesman was quite astonished at my refusal of both automatic exposure and 'normal' focal length, but I never regretted.
Each lens was complemented by a matching hood to avoid flare, and a 52mm filter to protect the lens's front element. They were all original Nikon to avoid vignetting and to have a matching coating. One filter is a slightly pink skylight (L1Bc) filter because I always liked it for color film. I even have a mild amber (A2) filter but rarely used it. For both, the hood belonging to the lens is needed. Most frequently used was the excellent Nikon linear polarizer, which helped a lot to reduce reflections and haze and get better contrast and color with both lenses (which are not all that contrasty). It has a special hood that is adaptable to the focal lengths of my two lenses. For occasional use I bought a used FR-3 right-angle viewing attachment and a cable release.
This acquisition was a complete success. For me, the new equipment was sort of a revelation. f/2 was not the top lens speed at the time but it was affordable and even 1 or 1⅔ f-stops (2 or 3 times) faster than what I had before. Optical quality was excellent even at full aperture. SLR meant "what you see is what you get", for me when finding the right view and focus, and for the exposure meter (now even center-weighted) when finding the right exposure. Compensation for filters was automatic, especially with the polarizer which could be adjusted visually. All settings could be done much simpler and faster than with the old cameras and changing lens was faster with the bayonet mount. It was the perfected all-manual (and all-mechanical) system. I had a smaller camera bag than before and enthusiastically carried it for several years.
Before/After Comparison (click for details)
| Braun Super Paxette II BL (1957-1964) | Nikon FM (first generation, 1977-1982) |
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Shooting procedure: strike film advance lever twice select focal length in finder change lens (thread mount) measure light (handheld meter) set f-stop and shutter speed measure distance (coupled rangefinder) adjust focus for depth-of-field adjust viewfinder parallax point and shoot |
Shooting procedure: strike film advance lever once change lens (bayonet mount) pre-set f-stop or shutter speed set shutter speed or f-stop looking through finder set focus looking through finder point and shoot |
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Selecting one of even four lenses could be supported by trying in the revolver viewfinder. |
One wide-angle and one telephoto lens was an easy, intuitive choice. |
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Lens sharpness adequate to then film quality, no or single coating, reasonable contrast, really dull in backlight, pronounced lens flares. |
Lens sharpness adequate to any film quality to come, multicoated but still no top-class contrast, reasonable in backlight and few lens flares. |
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Light meters had a wide field-of-view so exposure for highlights or shadows was guessing. |
Center-weighted metering meant separately measuring in bright and dark areas and then deciding for exposure. |
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No polarizer; no way of seeing its effect depending on its orientation, exposure compensation pure guessing. |
Excellent polarizer; orientation chosen visually, automatic exposure compensation, f/2 lens speed made up for darkening. |
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Unprecise rangefinder and slow f/3.5 lens speed, hence always aiming for good depth-of-field. |
Excellent in-viewfinder focusing, depth-of-field preview, and fast f/2 lens speed, hence defocused background possible and even easy. |
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Peephole viewfinder, quite small and dark, no correction. |
Big and bright viewfinder, eyepiece correction lens available (and an adjustable right-angle viewer). |
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Smooth shutter release, vibration-free leaf shutter, 1/15 s handheld possible. Shutter speeds 1/500 to 1 second. |
Tight shutter release, mirror flip-up, and focal-plane shutter induce vibrations; 1/30 s handheld at best. Shutter speeds 1/1000 to 1 second. |
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Plain accessory shoe and PC flash sync terminal, 1/30 s to 1/300 s sync speed. |
ISO accessory (hot) shoe with contact, additional PC flash sync terminal, 1 s to 1/125 s sync speed. |
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Tedious film rewind by striking a lever many times. Cumbersome screw-off and pull-off casing for film change. |
Easy and smooth film rewind with foldable crank. Handy latched, swing-open camera back. |
At that time, I had no own projector and no room for projection, either, and sometimes I shot more pictures at parties and events than on journeys – I needed prints. I used negative film even on journeys and first stayed with Kodak, so it was the ubiquitous VR 200 or later VRG 200. But I wasn't picky and also used Agfacolor XRG 100. It was the time when drugstore chains started to sell, develop, and print the films at low prices. Over the years, several files were filled with prints but these became worse and worse. That was obviously due to the advent of automatic printing machines. The intended remedy, adding automatic picture "enhancement" to the machines, made the prints even worse (dull) – they were now cheap but useless.
The shooting at parties and events had ended, anyway, and in 1996 I acquired a new projector, a Braun Novamat 150 AF-M monitor. A built-in monitor screen can be used instead of a reflective screen, it has autofocus, and it handles CS frames which are slid into a special CS tray so they can't drop out. Besides, the frames are so thin that the special tray holds 100 CS slides rather than a normal tray holds 50 normal slides. That made shooting slides attractive again – more than ever. Ektachrome was no longer readily available so I used the ubiquitous Kodak Elite Chrome 100 instead.
But more and more I got lazy and felt hampered by the camera. Finally I left it at home and did not shoot anymore until 1997 when I bought a Nikon ZOOM 600 AF pocket camera – quite small and lightweight, with automatic film advance and rewind, automatic exposure and autofocus, a 38-110mm Macro zoom lens, and a flash. Although the lens's speed is not exactly fast (f/4-10.8) this camera works really well in normal snapshot conditions. Handling is very easy and the automatic functions work quite reliably.
In 1999 I finally bought a quite expensive Nikon COOLSCAN III (LS-30) film scanner. My main concern was about saving my father's and my own old slides before they faded away. I had to learn at least two things: Scanner technology (affordable, that is) was not nearly able to match film quality, and the slides weren't fading at all. Indeed, color negative film only a few years old was fading away, but not suitably stored slides. Of course, the LS-30 is a very good scanner and very high quality is not needed for electronic images. But it's impossible to preserve the whole content of a slide by scanning it. Besides, scanning is a non-trivial art of it's own and became a hobby in addition to shooting. So I was a bit prepared to shoot with digital cameras.
Again I was fortunate enough to experiment with borrowed cameras. In 2002 it was a Nikon Coolpix E990 (brought out in 2000), which made really good 3 MP (megapixel) pictures with a 3x optical zoom lens (equivalent to 38-115mm full-frame). It was not really small but handy and had a monitor screen as well as a good optical viewfinder. But it was awful when it came to more than snapshots: Any manual setting required to go through awkward menus, and a longer framing and pointing process was aborted by the camera going into power save mode. That was not yet practical.
The Canon DIGITAL IXUS 400, brought out in 2003 and borrowed in 2004, was far better. It had a customary 3x optical zoom lens as well (here equivalent to 36-108mm full-frame) and made great 3.6 MP pictures. It was quite small, easy to handle, and still had both a monitor screen and an optical viewfinder whom I strongly preferred. It had even a panorama function that I used for my delectation. I should have bought that camera.
Sideline (click for details)
As a sideline, in 2005 I bought a used Fujifilm Digital Q1 3M, an extremely simple camera. The initial 2 MP version had been brought out in 2003 and the 3 MP version a bit later. I got the red advertising specialty variant. I intended to strap it to a model airplane and shoot aerial pictures, what I finally did in 2007 (see here). Before that, though, I used it for two years on trips as a backup (when the "actual" camera's battery was discharged) or just as a toy in addition (to the EX-S500, see below).
It's unusually shaped and takes two standard AA cells, rechargeable or not. It has no optical viewfinder but a quite small and dull monitor screen. Its 8.64mm (46mm equivalent) prime lens has a fixed f/3.5 aperture and only two focus settings: 1.2m to infinity (normal) and 0.6m to 1.2m (macro). At fixed ISO 100 and different electronic shutter speeds, the pictures come out very decent in good lighting. There's even a flash with red-eye reduction for fill flash or 2m distance lighting. As typical for Fujifilm, the camera's color balance is less saturated than on other brands but perfect for skin tones.
If the shutter was pressed not firmly enough and the camera moved before it had enough time to "contemplate" the shot, the picture would come out weirdly distorted (rolling shutter?). That was a comic effect and I kept those pictures, but most pictures were just very decent snapshots, except those with some subject motion in them.
In many situations such a camera is enough for shooting good pictures. It's easy-going and fun to have only this camera and get along with it on a trip. But most times I just want more from a camera than this one has to offer and the "mainstream" cameras were just as easy to handle as far as normal conditions go. Alas, they were still far from being perfect as to their fancy automatic functions like focus, ISO, white balance, and dynamic range but they got better in the years to come.
Instead I bought the then new Casio EX-S500 in 2005 because it was a newer generation and extremely small. Still it made great 4.8 MP pictures, had the customary 3x optical zoom range (equivalent to 38-114mm full-frame, same as the E990), and was easy to handle and quite versatile. Its main drawback was the lack of an optical viewfinder for whom there is simply no room in such a tiny camera. Back then, the monitor screen was not as brightly lit as in later cameras so it was very hard to see anything on it in daylight. That made framing pictures difficult, but above all it was nearly impossible to supervise the autofocus, which was slow and unreliable again due to the camera's small size. I came to realize that I indeed carried the camera regularly but yet often missed good shots.
So in 2007, not even two years later, I bought a Nikon D40 DSLR with the 18-55mm kit lens (again 3x zoom range, but equivalent to 28-84mm full-frame). Brought out in late 2006, it was the first affordable, small, and lightweight DSLR. It had a simple but fast and reliable autofocus system and – of course – an optical viewfinder. Due to a lot of processing power it made awesome 6 MP pictures. Despite its bigger size and weight (compared to the tiny pocket camera) I carried it often and shot a lot of good pictures. Finally I got the hang of shooting "digitally". That was quite a process because now I had to set the camera beforehand so that it automatically does what I want when I press the shutter release. Sometimes I had to go into the menus what was not too bad but not really convenient, either. I shot more pictures than before and did some postprocessing to several of them, that is remove lens distortion and improve colors and contrast. I kept at that for even seven years.
But in 2014 I bought a Nikon D7100 (brought out the year before) and a
16-85mm lens (equivalent to 24-130mm full-frame). It's not really inexpensive
and not exactly lightweight, either, but it's in another class. The 24 MP
resolution is by far enough for any practical purpose. Considerably higher
ISOs are possible with the image sensor, and it is rare for auto-white-balance
to fail. There's a nearly unfailing multi-sensor autofocus system. And there
is even more processing power for new "generation 2" functions:
The camera removes any lens distortion and color fringes, what is required for
new huge-zoom-range lenses which have plenty of that. It gives even better
highlights and shadows so postprocessing is rarely needed now. Last but not
least, automatic exposure takes the lens's actual focal length into account.
With the D40 I had learned to
use all camera settings so I was ready
to use even more useful settings with the D7100. Very conveniently, there are
two selectable banks comprising all settings, as well as a few controls configurable
for the often-used settings, so going into the menus is rarely needed. All
that prompted me to put up with the camera's (and lens's) bigger size and
weight (and price).
The lens is in another class as well as it's even sharper, has good vibration reduction (VR), and an even faster autofocus with manual override. It covers a convenient 5.3x zoom range from the widest wide-angle (24mm equivalent) to an at least formerly common telephoto focal length (130mm equivalent). It had been brought out already in 2008, when it was the top of the line, but surpassed by the groundbreaking 18-200mm (11.1x zoom range) even in the following year. Yet I preferred the 16-85mm for its wider end and thought the long end is long enough for me. That proved to be true in the first place as I really used the whole zoom range and substituted longer focal lengths by clipping details (thanks to the camera's high resolution).
But that changed when I started shooting model-airplane flying events in 2015. I was fortunate to buy the second-generation 18-300mm, which had been brought out only in 2014, because it weighs merely 2.2oz more than the 16-85mm. The 18mm wide end (28mm equivalent) is enough but still needed for those events, and the 300mm long end (459mm equivalent) is even badly needed since 200mm (306mm equivalent) would be still not really convenient. What is badly needed on top of that is good vibration reduction (VR) and particularly fast autofocus. So this groundbreaking lens with its huge 16.7x zoom range (and yet reasonable price) is perfect for the purpose, which is some kind of photo reportage. For my habitual "casual shooting" I still prefer the 16-85mm for its smaller size and weight and because I just feel that it makes a little bit sharper and more contrasty pictures (yet it's surpassed in every way by the 35mm f/1.8 prime lens).
Nostalgia (click for details)
Over several years, since I started shooting digital, I collected a few additional manual-focus Nikkor lenses for my old Nikon FM camera – those lenses which I would have liked to have but hadn't allowed myself. Now they were cheap as used items and still as good as ever.
The first of them was the 20mm f/3.5 AI ultrawide. I tried the then new Fujifilm Velvia 100 slide film with it and practiced shooting ultrawide. It was used for my panorama making rehearsal (see here) and to document the rented house before we had to move out (see here), both on the same day (and film) by the way (and with the same mishap: flare in backlight).
Next was the 50mm f/1.8 AI-s "Pancake" normal lens, just because I wanted to try a normal lens on my FM after all. I wasn't keen on the f/1.4 and the f/1.8 is even sharper, smaller, and cheaper. Still I saw not much use for this focal length, or preferred the other focal lengths, respectively – as before and as long as I have those other lenses. If I were restricted to only one lens then this one could well be it.
The 28mm f/2.8 AI-s was just a dream lens for me because it's so sharp, has no barrel distortion, and is even kind of a macro lens. Besides, it's a true wide-angle as distinguished from my 35mm f/2 AI-s. The 28mm could have been a better general-purpose lens but seemingly I was somewhat fixated on the 35mm focal length. Unfortunately I didn't use the 28mm so it's just a collectible for me so far.
Last in the row was the 135mm f/2.8 AI-s telephoto lens. I was at least as fixated on this focal length as on 35mm. It's just only for the occasional use, for instance when a defocused background is wanted. This lens does it very well despite its not overly high speed. However, it takes the standard 52mm filters like all my manual-focus Nikkor lenses so I need only one set of filters (except clear protective filters for each lens). I tried Fujifilm Velvia 50 slide film with this lens.
Eventually I realized that I love the old lenses but not necessarily shooting on film. I tried them on my (APS-C) Nikon D7100 and of course it worked very well. There was even no vignetting on the smaller sensor. But – as it were – making the lenses' focal lengths longer by the 1.53 APS-C crop factor changed their character so much that I didn't like it.
So I bought even a used (full-frame) Nikon D600 just to keep using the old lenses in a most convenient way. A Nikon Df would have been nicer and more appropriate to the lenses but simply too expensive. The D600 was groundbreaking in 2012 (when the similar D7000 was the corresponding APS-C model) and with 24 MP resolution it can certainly show off the lenses' quality. It's nice to put one of them on this camera and go shooting just for the fun of it – with auto exposure and matrix metering all I have to do is point, focus, and shoot.
Focusing by watching the little dot in the finder can be tricky, especially in low light, when it's not clearly visible what is in focus. That led to another idea: I bought a used old autofocus lens, the 50mm f/1.8 AF-D. It uses the camera's motor (which is why the camera has an auto/manual focus lever to decouple electrically and mechanically) and focuses quickly. Like the older manual-focus lenses, it has distance and depth-of-field scales and an infinity focus stop. It even has an aperture ring to be used in the manual and aperture-priority exposure modes.
It may be quaint but it's an excellent (sharp, virtually distortion-free) normal lens. It's not the fastest but still fast enough for available-light shooting with the full-frame D600, which can go to even ISO 6400 with still acceptable noise in the pictures. It's just a special feeling being restricted to this focal length, zooming with my feet, and having to point and shoot only – even in dim light.
Retrospect (click for details)
Looking back, it seems that I was extremely lucky with my equipment decisions, however not by chance. The hands-on experiences with borrowed equipment were invaluable. I learned something by reading books and instructions, but actually I learned by doing. Hence not only photographing went intuitively but even deciding for equipment. Could it be different?
My father's viewfinder camera had the standard set of focal lengths then: 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm. Handling two bodies with different films, four screw-mount lenses, a built-in rangefinder, an accessory revolver viewfinder, and a hand-held exposure meter was quite involved. Yet I managed to do it efficiently, anticipating focal length, exposure, or depth-of-field – and organizing several shots for minimum change.
It didn't take much practice, just a wide range: Doing passport photos for me and my schoolmates (developing the black-and-white films and making the prints along the way, only to find that I'm not really into it). Shooting high-speed film in the local zoo's aquarium. Shooting physical experiments with light effects in the technical museum. Shooting during two short school journeys in summer and a rustic skiing vacation in the close-by highlands. By then I was well-trained for the following five major journeys – and even expert after.
Years later came my father's SLR. I was used to having two bodies and four lenses – now I had one body and only one lens, a 50mm (normal) lens. No film choice and no lens change, setting exposure and focus while looking through the viewfinder – all easy. That spared me thinking and let me shoot intuitively. I tried general black-and-white photography (even more constraint) and aerial photography (even wider view).
Eventually I knew: Self-restraint makes prolific. Yet only one lens is too little, two will do, but no extremes! 35mm and 85mm are two "normal" ways to see the world – 50mm is a compromise in case only one lens is allowed. 135mm is distinctly telephoto, but there was no distinct wide-angle in my mind, not to mention ultrawide. I had no idea on what I was missing out. I knew I love light and color, so no black-and-white anymore, but filters for better colors! And there are rare cases when I really need my pocket tripod, a cable release, and – ideally – a right-angle viewfinder. To my mind, an electronic flash was for event shootings only.
Hey presto – there was my Nikon equipment in 1983. I knew I would use it for long so quality would pay in the long run. Restricting it to an all-manual system with only two lenses and one set of filters made it yet affordable. Nikon – the consistent Nikon system – seemed all too natural to me, and it still felt so in the following years.
Some confusion came only later when more and more new technologies emerged: auto exposure, even with fill flash; instant auto focus, even for moving subjects and at high frame rates; auto exposure and auto focus combined for better overall results, even with face detection; zoom lenses with huge zoom range; all-purpose lenses with macro capability; image stabilization to get rid of tripods; digital instead of film, going to high ISOs; auto white-balance, even in strange lighting; adaptive dynamic range for better highlights and shadows; automatic correction of lens distortions and color fringes; most notably in-camera image processing which made much of all this possible in the first place, even mirrorless (actually real-time processing) in the end.
All that evolved in decades and I realized some of it when I bought or borrowed new cameras. Over and above, a wealth of information emerged in the Internet. Manuals and specifications are published "electronically", there are sites describing and reviewing new equipment as well as the so-called blogs, most notably Ken Rockwell whose line of thinking suits me.
So I was well-informed when Nikon brought out the D7100 in 2013. Then again, I knew what I was missing from six years of experience with my D40 and its 28-85mm equivalent kit lens. That was a great camera with still rather limited abilities as listed above. The lens had let me come to appreciate the convenience of a zoom, and it had my former 35-85mm focal-length range (as well as my mind) extended to a 28mm distinct wide-angle. Now I just wanted to have all in one.
That meant – as far as possible – getting rid of menus (by dedicated controls for most-used functions), getting rid of postprocessing (by better automatic functions and in-camera processing), having the full focal-length range (from the customary 135mm telephoto to 24mm really wide-angle) in one zoom lens, and having image stabilization (or vibration reduction, as Nikon calls it).
I wasn't fixated on Nikon, I just hadn't looked for other brands. There was no need to jump ship, it was an evolution in my mind. I knew the D7100 finally is it while the D7000 hadn't been it yet. I was cool enough to wait for a lower price and only one year later bought the D7100 body-only in the webshop of a photo retailer in my native town whom I knew for 45 years and who had been clever enough to add a webshop to his traditional retail shop.
Years later I feel still lucky for having bought the D7100. I don't need the D7200 (for what they added) and I don't want the D7500 (for what they left off). Full-frame is for using my old manual-focus lenses only; I like APS-C for its bigger depth-of-field and zoom range as well as lower weight and cost. And so far I don't want mirrorless, either. What should it be good for in my case? Yet I could be tempted by something smaller and lighter with even more abilities – Micro Four Thirds?
Habit (click for details)
Finally, it turns out that my habit persisted to this day: shooting casually while being on trips and journeys. The more recent "photo reportage" shooting for my model airplane flying club follows a very similar, if not the same habit so all my shooting may be some kind of photo reportage.
I'm just quite good at noticing subjects when I see them, then finding a good composition – only by choosing point of view and focal length – and releasing the shutter at the right moment. But not searching for subjects, much less arranging them, is only one side of this habit. Choosing exposure – the combination of aperture and shutter speed – is mainly a technical aspect for me as is depth of field. Just purposely blurring the background is part of composition in some cases. Last but not least, I'm harboring an aversion to postprocessing of any kind: developing film, framing slides, making prints, scanning film, clipping and enhancing digital photos (except very few which are worth it and only if suitable software makes it easy to do).
So I'm not an artist and not even an artisan in photography, just a reporter at best. Even though I'm technically interested – as an engineer – my interests in photographic technology are related to making pictures possible that wouldn't be possible without and to making photographer's life easier. I have no interest in developing technologies, just understanding and making use of them. I was fortunate to have more and more technologies on hand that allowed me making more, as well as better pictures and facilitated my habit.
It started in the late sixties with having the first good consumer slide films, with reasonably high ISO and fine grain. In the early eighties, operability was greatly improved by my SLR system. In the nineties, zoom lens and automation came with the pocket camera. The early two-thousands brought digital with lots of pictures at no cost. Then, the DSLR carried automation even further until it was so reliable that special settings are needed only for very few special pictures.
Now I'm really close to my ideal: having a high-speed camera (regarding ISO, autoexposure, and autofocus) with a big-zoom-range lens, setting up the camera beforehand, and working only zoom ring and shutter release while shooting. It's a big relief not having to think about technical aspects (settings). Just because I'm an engineer I'm used to thinking about settings beforehand and then letting the machine do its job automatically. Shooting model airplanes in flight and even my clubmates in action at events would be not possible otherwise. Even going into the settings for only very few pictures would spoil the whole shooting for me.
That's why I'm ready to compromise. The automated camera functions are not necessarily better at exposure and focus settings than I am. They are definitely faster than I am but even for still pictures (landscape for instance) I leave the settings to them – out of convenience. Ironically, they work just as I would do, they take me out of the loop so I can keep my mind on composition. And ironically again, there is a rather simple but crucial function which imitates me following a rule that connects a few things:
Hidden deep in the ISO settings, "automatic slowest shutter speed" increases ISO if this speed would be undercut otherwise. Automatic means it's faster when the lens's focal length – which is variable on a zoom lens – is longer. That (besides continuous autofocus) makes shooting model airplanes in flight possible in the first place. I can even shift this speed by one or two stops to slower or faster, respectively, and indeed make it faster before shooting model airplanes. Hence I'm not sure if it's regrettable that the lens's vibration reduction ability is not automatically taken into account here. In fact, for stills I shift this setting two stops to slower – as much as possible, while Nikon claims even a four-stop potential improvement for the 16-85mm VR lens (and manages two stops for sure).
That was my personal time journey through 50 years of photographic technology, now to some pictures:
This is one of my favorites, if not the favorite. It's like a painting and an example of my way of taking pictures (not snapshots): more or less by chance ('accidentally' would be the wrong word).
It was a warm and bright morning early in October 1973 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. If I remember correctly, we were heading for the city's western part and crossed the famous Charles bridge. Nearly at the end of the bridge was this mill. It wasn't the first time we passed it.
But this time I noticed the subject and stopped. Leisurely I measured exposure, chose point of view and focal length in the viewfinder, changed lens (those with a thread, not bayonet mount), set shutter speed and aperture as well as focus for good depth of field, pointed and shot.
It was the right moment (by chance, but I noticed it), and there was all the time needed. There had been nice late-summer weather for a week, with foggy mornings and hazy days. The colors of autumn and the light were beautiful. The scene is perfectly lighted and structured to show this atmosphere.
The colors of the Kodak Ektachrome-X (64 ASA / 19 DIN, E-4) slide film are adequate to this scene. The picture looks really nice when projected, but on a computer monitor it was not as nice.
I scanned the picture several times, in the first place with the scanner's 'hardware' resolution and letting the SilverFast Software do its automatic optimizations. I was never satisfied with the results. Then I noticed that SilverFast clipped a considerable part of the brightness histogram.
Still I prefer to scan at maximum generic resolution (2700 dpi), but now without changing brightness and colors. Only later, picture size is reduced using Panorama Tools with the nearly lossless Sinc256 interpolation method. At one go, the picture is corrected to cancel some pitch and roll in camera alignment so vertical lines are vertical again. The undistorted picture is then cropped to maximum rectangular size and finally again shrunk to a smaller size, if wanted.
In the scanning process, the new ACR (Adaptive Color Restauration) tool in SilverFast was applied what made for more and brighter colors in the picture's lower left part. There's some blue in the shadows and more red in the sunny parts, as would be expected. Now the picture looks just very pleasant.
Fireworks in Starnberg, summer 1969. The boat landing stage and the two people on it watching the fireworks make this a good picture, but they were there just by chance.
The camera was clamped to a pole using the pocket tripod. The shutter was opened with a cable release as long as a firework was in the air and then closed. Aperture was estimated but is unknown today (maybe f/5.6 or f/8).
These images did not need to be enhanced in brightness or colors, but they needed 16 scanning passes to reduce noise (with the designated function of the SilverFast scanning software).
This must have been red fireworks. The scene is eclipsed by the bright red light giving an effect similar to solarization. Considering subject and f-stop, the dark corners might be just dark sky and water and not vignetting.
This was not so bright, instead colorful fireworks, the different colors reflected by the water. By far not as interesting (or stunning) as the previous picture, this one is proof of the film's colors being still intact. (The two pictures were adjacent frames on the film strip.)
Both pictures Kodak High Speed Ektachrome (160 ASA / 23 DIN, E-4) slide film, scanned 30 years after they had been shot.
Fort Bourtzi offshore of Nafplio in the Peloponnese, 1969. Bourtzi blocked the harbor of Nafplio with a chain. For a long time, Nafplio was an important town. [Google Earth placemark]
The Temple of Poseidon at the peninsula called Cape Sounion southeast of Athens, 1969.
This detail picture has been undistorted and enhanced after scanning.
Characteristic picture of a traffic policeman in Athens, 1969.
Not too bad for the lens, which was not really sharp and contrasty, that is this early-1960s version (Enna Tele Ennalyt 135mm f/3.5).
All three pictures on Kodak Ektachrome-X (64 ASA / 19 DIN, E-4) slide film, scanned 30 years after they had been shot.
We had to fly holding patterns above the harbor when we flew in a Cessna 172 to Hamburg's airport in 1981. The bridge in the center is called Köhlbrandbrücke after the branch of the river Elbe it bridges. The city is in the background. This is just one lucky shot out of ten fair ones – I took my chance. Gladly I put up with a wing flap clipping the picture's upper right corner and the reflex of a cabin window (and my shadow) in the picture's upper half. [Google Earth placemark]
This photo is like a wimmelpicture which is why it's available in full (scanned)
resolution. 40 years after it had been shot, it has been scanned again giving
more color and saturation, meaning the original slide is still in good condition.
Even 16 scanning passes were meant to reduce noise but that didn't really work
out, so the film could be grainy and the scanner could be poor.
Pentax Spotmatic F, 50mm f/1.4 Super Takumar, Kodak Ektachrome 64 (ISO 64, E-6) slide film,
MediaX WorkScan 3600 Pro film scanner (3600 dpi, no ICE) and VueScan Professional software.
Icy tideline at low tide in the Wadden Sea. In late 1986, we were on Christmas vacation on the island Föhr in the Wadden Sea off the North Sea's eastern shore.
The man on the left side carrying a red thingy (a kite?) was there by chance. Without that red dot, the picture would be not even half as nice. Lucky photographer…
This picture was shot in "portrait" format and I still like it best this way. But in "landscape" format it wouldn't be bad, either, just more "conventional" (see here).
Nikon FM, Nikkor 85mm f/2.0 AI-s, Kodak Kodacolor VR 200 (ISO 200, generation 1) negative film. Sorry for the noisy scan.
Hvide Sande (White Sands in English) is actually a big sand spit on Denmark's west coast. In late 1987, we were on Christmas vacation in a well-known little town south of this special place. The churning North Sea made the beach look like boiling. The air was damp and hazy, the sun shining through it from the south. [Google Earth placemark]
This color photo is similar to the first fireworks picture in that it looks somewhat artificial. It has been merely scanned but not "corrected" in any way (exposure, color, noise) because it renders the unusual atmosphere just as it is. Nikon FM, Nikkor 85mm f/2.0 AI-s, Kodak Kodacolor VRG 200 (ISO 200/24°, generation 1) negative film.
Greenburrow Engine House in Cornwall, September 1997.
These engines were steam engines built in the 18th and 19th century for the tin mines below them. They had vertical beams moving up and down in the shaft. The miners had to climb up or down alternately stepping from a platform to a step in the beam and back to another platform. Read here about the "man engine" and how it worked.
Nikon ZOOM 600 AF, Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (ISO 100/21°, EB-2) slide film. Perspective distortion has been completely removed using Panorama Tools.
Mdina is the ancient capital of Malta at one of the highest places on the island. There's an amazing view over the island's northern part down to the main harbor in La Valletta. In February 1997 we were on vacation on Malta and visited Mdina several times. There was a nice café right on top of the city wall (to be seen below the rightmost steeple). While sitting there, we observed several buses with tourists stopping at a certain place below. I thought this must be the perfect photo shooting spot, if so many people come here, and obviously it was. [Google Earth placemark]
Nikon ZOOM 600 AF, Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (ISO 100/21°, EB-2) slide film. Part of the perspective distortion has been removed with Panorama Tools.
Antona is a village at the slope of a deep valley in the Apuanian Alps. These mountains belong to Versilia, part of Tuscany in Italy, and go up to nearly 2000m. Antona is at 420m above mean sea level and here seen from Altagnana, 100m lower at the opposite slope. [Google Earth placemark]
Nikon ZOOM 600 AF, Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (ISO 100/21°, EB-3) slide film.
It wasn't a strong storm, but it was an exciting atmosphere. Late August 2001 at the mole of Forte dei Marmi, Italy. The town's name means Marble Fort, erstwhile guarding the marble shipping on the mole. Versilia is the landscape along the shore and it's part of Tuscany. The white tower to be seen through the spray (on the horizon about one quarter from the left margin) is near the port of Carrara, the town the famous marble is named after. [Google Earth placemark]
Nikon FM, Nikkor 35mm f/2.0 AI-s, Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (ISO 100/21°, EB-3) slide film.
Portovenere, Italy, seen from a boat. Through the strait and then to the right is the steep coast with the famous Cinque Terre (Five Territories), actually five small villages of fishermen and winegrowers. The fort safeguards the strait to a wide bay. [Google Earth placemark]
Nikon ZOOM 600 AF, Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (ISO 100/21°, EB-3) slide film.
Viareggio, Italy. The town is a beautiful old spa and known for it's carnival. This isn't a stitched panorama but a wide-angle image cropped at top and bottom. Nikon FM, Nikkor 35mm f/2.0 AI-s, Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (ISO 100/21°, EB-3) slide film. [Google Earth placemark]
December the 29th 2007 was a nice cold day with interesting light. This tree is called the Mozart Oak because Mozart liked to stop off in the nearby Seeon monastery on his journeys. Picture shot with the D40, my first DSLR. [Google Earth placemark]
January the first 2008 was a cold day with a special atmosphere at the shore of lake Chiemsee. The D40 was able to reproduce most of the light and contrast. [Google Earth placemark]
March the ninth 2008 was not cold but a bit hazy, making for a "graphical" picture, its depth shown by different shades of grey. The stakes in the foreground belong to the harbor of Gstadt, the island in middle distance is the Fraueninsel (nuns island), and in the background are some Alpine mountains. Again Chiemsee, just a different place. [Google Earth placemark]
May the 15th 2008 was a very nice spring day, the burgeoning nature around the little church in Ettendorf seeming like praise of God.
Piz Palü (3900 m AMSL) in the background and Piz Cambrena (3600 m AMSL) on the right, two alpine mountains in Switzerland close to the Italian border. In fact, most of Piz Palü is located in Italy. During a tour on the Bernina narrow-gauge railway line in July 2015, this picture was shot from the Alp Grüm station towards the west. [Google Earth placemark]
It's not really spectacular, at least not in this small size, but it's an impressive not-everyday view. The D7100 and the 16-85mm lens have such a high resolution that this picture is even somewhat spectacular on a big monitor screen, which shows interesting details. That's why also the original file (full size/resolution) is available here.
The software Panorama Tools has been mentioned several times above. I used it to correct lens and perspective distortion. It's still great but has actually no user interface. That's why I'm using PTLens for a long time now. It's so much easier to use and still based on Panorama Tools, hence the name. It's offered by its author for a very reasonable fee. Click on the button below:
