Camera gear discussions

Thank you thank you! I'm pretty sure I've seen you write that before - my apologies for my forgetfulness. I saw some new funky New Balance 9060's for you. Hope you can snatch a pair - take a dope new photo.

 

I have a cheap[ish] phone with a poor camera. There is no question of it being able to compete with my "real" camera. No, I don't carry that, unless I am actually going to photograph stuff --- so the phone may, on occasion, be the best because it's there.

Also, I hate the ergonomics of phone photography. Next time (and my phone is getting old) I'll buy one with a better camera. But it won't be $0,000, because it's still going to be phone that, for me is hard to hold and use --- and If I have that money to spend, it would go on camera kit, not a phone.

(In this country we have to buy phones outright. They do not come on affordable contracts, etc. My relatively penniless friend in UK has a fancy iPhone: I never will have).

 

What camera would you knowledgeable folks recommend for someone who does a lot of day hikes and wants to be able to snap better photos, but doesn't want to carry a larger or heavier camera like a DSLR or a mirrorless? I currently just use my iPhone SE (2nd gen of the SE), but its camera kind of sucks. Totally an amateur photographer here, and don't want to invest a ton of time so a good auto/default mode is desirable.

Think I could either find a solid point and shoot that could fit in a hip belt pocket on my pack, or just suck it up and upgrade to a newer iPhone with a better camera like the iPhone 14 Pro. Advantage with the latter is that I don't suffer a weight penalty by carrying another piece of gear, which matters for 10-20 mile days. I have some epic hikes planned for this year, so wouldn't be able to wait until the new iPhones are announced in September.

If the iPhone approach makes sense, are the current models the best or would the 13 Pro be worth looking into instead? Every tech website says the newer the better, but know that often that's not the case according to people who actually know what they're talking about and use the stuff regularly.

 

I would get some Sony RX100, version 6 or 7. It's small point-n-shoot, but it has 24-200 lens, I personally think the longer lens is one of the most useful advantages of it over iPhone when it comes to hiking. And it has viewfinder (Even if tiny), which is so useful when framing on sunny days.

 

I thought that the P&S market was dead, apart from two or three premium models such as the Sony. Does that Sony have any weather protection?

Ah, another reason why I dislike using a phone, and it also applies to most of the P&Ss. An LCD screen tends to be barely visible in daylight with good vision: I need to use my reading glasses to use it. And, unless I need, for instance, to photograph from above heads, that arm's-length LCD-screen camera posture is absurd and uncomfortable.

A bit just-me, but I also must have a viewfinder to check colour temperature. One cannot do that on the screen, because the screen is in yet-another light from the on-stage light I'm photographing.

 

Yeah, new P&S are pretty much dead. All is now run by Richo GR3 or Fuji X100 versions (So many of them now sold in China).

On other hand, the point n shoots from early 2000s are now experiencing revival, hipsters moved from shooting film to these old digitals, as Kodak pushed prices of color film too high

 

According to me, colour film and processing was always expensive!

Mind you, being restricted to 36 exposures was great for discipline.

 

the reason my "point and shoot" is a Canon Rebel SL1 (not pocketable, but not much larger than a typical mirrorless). Very small for a dslr and I put a small tamron zoom on it for walking around

 

I would just go with a smartphone for hiking. I will acknowledge that the RX100 family is awesome and a 200mm zoom is pretty cool, but the convenience of a smartphone (which you would likely already have on you while hiking) would be the winner for me. Bonus is that it is a GPS/mapping device, flashlight, emergency contact device, waterproof to a certain depth, etc. My Galaxy s21 Ultra had a 10x zoom that was surprisingly usable for snapshots at distance.

I can't help on the iphone front, though as a Samsung Galaxy loyalist.

 

While I always have my phone (and use it for panos), my hiking kit is similar to this (but with SL1):

 

Let's say that in past 2 years price of color film jumped 100-200% Nowadays I have few old rolls of Gold in freezer and shifted to either BnW or Vision 3 stocks.

We run film photography projects in our photoclub. Last year it was like 16 USD for BnW, this year we do color and it's like 37 USD

 

OK - I finally was able to get my old P&S and get it to work.( Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 ) - For some reason it wasn't reading any SD card I had. Went out on a limb and purchased a new one and shazam, I've got plenty of space. I know it is peon level to what is being spoken about in here, but it does allow me fine tune better than an app or holding a phone all stupid-like. Everyone knows you stick your pinkies up and out like some pricks LOL.

Guess it's time to take some pictures and share.

 

Wow. Don't think I've bought any for well over twenty years.

It is amazing that it is still made. Like vinyl, it isn't for me any longer --- but long may it last!

 

As there’s no camera advice thread, I thought this here might be the best place for my question:

My son accidentally dropped my DSLR, a Nikon D610, yesterday. It was inside its protective bag, and it only fell down from the rather low sofa, less than half a meter, just a bit more than a foot, maybe. I didn’t think that anything happened, but when I wanted to take photos today, I found that the autofocus doesn’t work anymore.

It shows the two arrows in the viewfinder that indicate that it can’t focus. It works with neither of my lenses, and it still works in live view mode, and if I press the release long enough, then lens focus goes back and forth completely one time, so it’s not the lens contacts. AF is on both at the camera and at the lens. I tried the two button reset to no avail. I used that menu item to put the mirror in the upper position and looked if anything was obviously wrong, but as far as I could see, everything looks good. It seems that everything except AF is still working as it should.

My guess is that there’s something amiss with the AF module and/or the mirror.

My questions: The AF sensors are at the bottom of the inside of the camera, right? Or are those the sensors for exposure (which still seems to work correctly)? My hope is that some dust particle is covering the sensors that could be easily cleaned if I only knew where the sensors were. I don’t have such a blow thingy on me, but I could probably get one easily if that makes any sense at all.

Do you have any other tips what I could try before I have the camera looked at by a professional?

 

Can you try a different lens? It might be the lens rather than the camera.

Rob

 

Yes, I did, and it’s the same there.

 

Unfo

Uunfortunate; sounds like Nikon needs to look at the camera.

Rob

 

Yes, I think so, too. But I found that focusing manually again after decades with autofocus was actually refreshing.

There’s no hurry getting it repaired, and if it’s too expensive, I’ll just keep the camera as it is.

 

I suppose that is one word for it.

Focussing a camera used to be the first skill. Now I have got so used to autofocus that I completely take it for granted, finding manual focus to be almost painful. In every hundred snaps, I may reject twenty or thirty --- but only a couple will be because of focus fail.

Congratulations for facing up to the challenge!