The Ricoh and Minolta fragile and scarce.
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Plus it’s a system camera, and I didn’t want to waste any more time pining after whichever lens I didn’t already have. The Mamiya struck me as flexible but inelegant.
I ruled out the Japanese and Soviet cameras right away. A TLR seemed like it would satisfy my list easily. I was all-in for a TLR, having a passing interest since college.
This narrows down the field quite a bit, and as the Contax sat in its bag I started searching online for what would be my ultimate compromise goal. Taking stock, I settled on a shopping list. But remember how I had already owned a Hasselblad? Remember how manic and bouncy I got about the GA645? Medium format is my thing, and it took going through a dozen great cameras to get there. I’ve narrowly avoided a Hexar AF, RF and another Hasselblad V setup. I came close to replacing the G2 with an XPRO, but I consider that a dodged bullet.
I’m not going to sink to the film/digital debate, but during this time a digital camera only occurred to me once, and that was the introduction of the Fuji XPRO1. With its untimely demise, I stumbled onto the Contax G2. After dabbling with the Olympus RC, Yashica GTN, MJU-II among others, I ended up at the Fuji GA645. Like a divorcee, it was time to play the field. So I came full-circle to the camera-as-notebook again. I’ll be reliving memories from my daughter’s childhood, our family travel. I won’t be in the twilight years of my life leafing through commercial headshots, strangers’ weddings or annual reports. Rolleiflex MX – Christmas LEGO Rolleiflex MX – Dad 2016 Now that I’ve purged all the paid work from my archives, I realize I had been neglecting what was truly important to me. The spark wasn’t there to make images of things I thought were important since I had started putting a price tag on my time and skill. I felt like a pimp. My most profitable years with a camera are also the years that I have the fewest family photos. I had taken a love and sold it for money. Having time to reflect on things as the dust settled, I got a handle on what had gone wrong. I hate chasing trends, and I’m not a fan of how wedding and portrait photography has gone to magazine-style flare-and-saturation shooting. I’m a pragmatist, and I knew that it wasn’t sustainable to stay in the business with billables dropping and expenses increasing.
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Photographers were needing to upgrade computer hardware more often to keep up. My mobile 3-light studio was sitting idle, old clients weren’t doing any new commercial work. But as digital matured the upgrade cycle got shorter and shorter. I still do some graphic design and layout from time-to-time. I considered doing video, or learning web design to augment my digital photography business. Once the digital tide had come all the way in, everyone and their sister was shooting DSLR for peanuts and bookings started to drop off. I know, but that 10D (and later the 5D Classic) and I made a bundle of money together. Just as medium format was sinking its teeth into me, I made the business decision to jump on the digital bandwagon, selling both systems for a Canon 10D. I stepped up to Canon EF upon entering college, quickly outgrowing the plastic Rebel and going for a thrashed ex-press EOS-1N, then a Hasselblad. After I got paid to shoot a wedding, I realized how far out of my depth I was and looked into some education. I enjoyed shooting for myself, and hung some pictures on my wall. The actions I could understand, but the science behind the controls were still a mystery. Soon I was able to tweak the controls to see better images, though I couldn’t tell you what they were called or why. I’m a technical person by nature, I like working out systems and manipulating them to get a result. I shot a load of Kodak 200, came away with few decent shots but the hit-rate was embarrassingly low. It might have been two-hundred dollars including the ubiquitous Sunpak and a shoulder bag. It was a Canon T50 with a 50mm and an off-brand zoom. See the table below to understand our product condition rating at a quick glance, with more detailed definitions below that.Camera review: The Rolleiflex MX - EMULSIVE Close Search for:Īt 18, I traveled to England for seven weeks and bought my first camera from a pawn shop before leaving. Each used item is individually pictured in detail to allow you to see its cosmetic condition. We rate each item individually according to our findings to give it an accurate condition rating.Įach item gets two different ratings from 1 to 5, based on their mechanical and/or optical condition.
Here at our shop in Tampere, Finland we have authentic film-era machinery and tools which we use to test all testable items before listing them online or repairing / refurbishing when needed.