Over the years that I’ve been taking photographs, I hit on equipment combinations that just sing for me. Clearly it’s a combination of camera, lens, subject matter of the moment, and post processing tools.
First time around it was a Minolta SRT 201, 50mm manual focus lens, low ISO black and white film, Ilford mostly, and fixed contrast paper with glossy finish.
Later it was an Olympus Stylus (the fixed focal length version) and color print film- from the drugstore.
The Sigma DP1 has worked very well. but there are obstacles. It’s found a place for urban travel photography. The Leica M6ttl with the 35mm f/2 Summicron with black and white film is perfect for a different kind of urban travel photography, different from the DP1. It’s nice to have both since they respond best in different lighting conditions.
My DSLRs have been good general purpose cameras, but both the Olympus E-1 and the Nikon D80 put obstacles in the process. I loved the image quality of the E-1 with the 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 lens, but it was slow to respond when setting up a shot. The D80 metering system and I didn’t agree. And I had no lens like the Olympus to go to. It was the 24mm f/2.8D with it’s normal view and chromatic aberration that mostly lived on the camera.
The D300 with the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 sings. Post processing in Capture NX2 with the NIK filter set is fast and can get me to almost any vision of the print I want within a few minutes. It’s wide enough, it’s long enough and it focuses close enough to do macro style photography.
It feels to me like I’ve arrived somewhere regarding these tools.
