[ART]_CONnected

EVOLUTION

Over the years many things in ones life are changing. I am a photographer for 30 years now. And in this 30 years I experienced a lot of changing especially with the working tool, with the equipment. From manual to autofocus. From handheld exposure meter to matrix metering. From analog to digital... It was (and still is) some kind of evolution (also in case of digital photography it was more like a revolution).

Here are the steps of my (technical) evolution:

I got my first own camera when I was six. It was a Kodak Instamatic. I got it because my mom wanted her camera (a Braun Paxette) back again... As a teenager I took my first steps into SLR with a Praktica (robust constructed like a Russian T-34 tank) and a second-hand Canon AV1.

When I entered the art school i bought (after long saving) my first Nikon. And I sticked to this system until recently...

1980 _ Nikon FE, replaced 1983 by the Nikon FE2. Still can remember the shutter sound. Especially with the motor drive... ;-)

1985 _ bought a (used) F2AS as backup camera. It soon became my favorite...

1990 _ Entering the AF-age with the F4. 

1998 _ Replacing the then already very battered F4 with the F5. My last analog camera...

2003 _ As the demand for working digital was growing all the time I had to do the next step in evolution (or revolution) too with the Fuji FinePix S2Pro (an obvious choice as it was using the Nikon F Mount...). Not so easy for an "old school" type like me who liked to spent hours (somedays even days ;-)) in the darkroom... Lets say it this way: If digital photography wouldn't have developed beyond the possibilities one had with this camera it wouldn't have replaced the analog photography...

2008 _ The Nikon D80 was the first DSLR I liked to work with. 

2010 _ Nikon D300s. At last I had arrived at a point when I didn't miss my analog cameras anymore.  That camera (and my growing knowledge of Photoshop) assured me of the usefulness of digital photography.

2011 _ D3s. Heavy like a brick. Handling like a brick. But one could work in an ISO range one could not even dream about before.

2012 _ D800. The end of my Nikon era. Files of a size almost not to handle. And when do you need to print your picts up to 60x80cm?

Being tired of carrying around tons of equipment al the time I acquired The Fuji X Pro 1. Just for fun shooting first I became more and more addicted to this small camera. RAW files not so much different  to the one from the big Nikons. Flexible, light weighted, easy to handle. And much cheaper then the Nikon FX range and lenses...

2013 _ After trying out the Fuji X-1T for some time I made an important step (at least for myself) in my equipment evolution. I sold all my Nikon equipment and changed completely to the Fuji X camera(s). And I never have regretted this step one single day since then...

So that is my evolution until now. I still have some of the analog cameras, together with my all-time-favorite camera, the Mamiya RB 67, and the Sinar f2.
But you never know what is coming in the future. If I will win in lottery maybe my next camera will be the Leica S... ;-))