In case you missed it recently I have acquired the dinosaur Nikon D50 and 50mm F1.8 for cheap (USD60) and I have been going nuts doing my shutter therapy with this combo. You can read that article here (click). Someone commented on my YouTube video recently that I should not waste my money buying such old cameras which will collect dust, and use them to fund the OM-1 instead. Man, I have only purchased half a dozen old cameras or so and they all cost me less than USD300-400 in total, which if I don't like any of them I can resell with minimal loss. How the heck did the guy think that these can fund a USD2200 camera is beyond me. And certainly, NONE of these cameras are collecting dust.
The reality is, I am now a content creator, I need fresh content in my YouTube channel. As much as I do not want to make video I have to do so now, for monetization purposes, YouTube pays well, much better than writing on blog (here). To make things a bit more interesting, using different cameras can diversify my content, and I can do so now, not being tied to any brands or companies exclusively. As a photographer I love ALL cameras, I want to try as many cameras as possible, obviously I cannot afford anything latest and greatest and it would be foolish to throw around money when the earning power for Malaysia is somewhere 20-25% of what our counterparts earn in the US, UK or European countries. Buying older cameras make sense, and believe me, I enjoy them tremendously!
The Nikon D50 shines as a street photography machine. The beefy grip was comfortable to hold, and the AF was snappy and fast under good light. Images come out beautiful, and 6MP is plentiful, the CCD sensor does render some interesting colors though I do admit I prefer Canon and Olympus colors in general, as I have mentioned before. I simply love the Nikon 50mm F1.8 D, more than the Canon 50mm, the Nikon lens is just superior in all aspects, though I am not using the 50mm on a full frame body. I share images from my latest shutter therapy adventure with the Nikon D50 and 50mm combo here in this blog article, and you can find my POV street video here (click).
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Hello Robin,
ReplyDeleteit is fantastic that you dive into the world of "old" cameras.
Of course, they may have much tighter constraints than modern cameras with the newest features. On the other hand sometimes they have got features which are missing on their successors, like the accessories port on the Olympus E-M1.
Since the CMOS sensors became the standard in digital cameras, there still was a fan base of the CCD sensor. Recently I purchased a Pentax K10D (it was the last APS-C camera from Pentax with a CCD sensor - their top model in 2006 with 10MP sensor) and really good film era prime lenses. The dynamic range of that sensor is fairly limited, so getting the exposure right and struggling with high contrast subjects is a bit of a challenge. Due to the relatively low MP number it's important to compose the image at the time when we take it - there is not much room to adjust that in post processing. Live view? What's that? ;-)
Initially the camera had a back focus issue, but that was not a big deal to correct that - there is a fairly simple way to adjust the AF: put the camera in debug mode via the pkTriggerCord open source software and then the menu entry for AF adjustment appears. After that the AF is reliable on relatively static subjects and with screwdrive AF lenses it is quick.
So it is a journey to the basics of photography: learn to take photographs deliberately. As you said in your video: taking photographs with such "old" gear forces us to become better photographers.
On the other hand: if we have got everything right for an image the CCD sensors reward us with amazing colours. Even that I've got a more modern Pentax DSLR (K-5IIs with the same sensor as in your K-01) with very good colour rendition, the colours of the K10D are a tad "finer" to me.
So my conclusion is: that old gubbins isn't as capable as the new fancy gear, but good enough - and at least in my case the limiting factor is still behind the camera.
Best regards from Nottuln, Germany