Originally Posted by jyl
Lots of knowledgeable folks here, thank you.
Okay, most of my shooting is of two types:
- Available light, often poorly lit situations, range 5 to 40 feet, subject is people. Think dance performances, amateur theatre, music clubs, soirees. Usually, in the film world, I'm using a fast film, pushed, fast lens, f1.2 to f2.0, slowish shutter speed. I know the exposure, typically use an external light meter, so it can set it and forget it. Usually the subjects are slow moving, they kind of have to be at 1/30 to 1/125. Yesterday, for instance, I set both bodies at 1/60 f1.4 or 1/125 f1.2 and never changed exposure, just tried to anticipate focus and push the shutter release just before the moment, only had 36 chances per body. Usually use primes 35 mm, 50-55 mm, 85 mm. That's with film. With digital I could use faster shutter speeds, fast AF, fire a burst of shots, zoom around, might be nice!
- Still life, landscape, architectural detail stuff. This is usually small aperture, longer exposure, slower film, trying for detail. Most any camera will do. Usually using primes, 24 mm to 180 mm, maybe on tripod.
- All my shooting, on film, is black and white because I like the darkroom manipulation. With digital, I'd likely shoot some color.
- I only enlarge to 8 x 10. Purely a hobby.
- I don't know nothing about Photoshop. I've used Adobe Photoshop Elements. I guess I will have to learn.
I'm not needing a "small" camera. Right now I'm carrying Nikon F/motor drive or F3/motor, before that I hauled around a Hasselblad, so almost anything is going to feel nice and light! For casual snaps I use my iPhone. Or an old film rangefinder.
The mirrorless cameras are intriguing. I need to look hard at those. Which Sony model should I look at?. How about Olympus OM-D?. I loved my OM-1 back in the day. Leica is probably too spendy and I'd cover up the red dot anyway!
I'm quite sure I don't need video. I want to get into to videotaping my son's theatre and dance productions, and the low end camcorder I have is terrible in low light, but will buy a decent camcorder for that. I'd prefer that to a DSLR wired to an external microphone. For casual video I, yup, use my iPhone.
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