Reiseimpressionen
Commencement
My very first camera was a Revue Optima Pocket Camera with a 110 film cartridge. It was soon replaced by a Minolta Dynax 3xi in a kit with a 35-70 mm lens. During a trip across the USA I was lacking telezoom capacity and bought a Sigma 70-210 lens there as complement.
Transition to digital photography and current models
The first digital steps I made with the Minolta Dimage Z1 with an incredible 10x optical zoom (35 mm equivalent 38-380 mm) an a decent maximal apperture of 1:2.8-3.5. Apart from the, as of today's view, bad resolution of 3.2 megapixels it was a camera with a really good image quality.
My first real DSLR was the Konica Minolta Dynax 7D. With 6.1 megapixels on an APS-C sensor and an optical image stabilizer in the body. In addition two lenses from Tamron: 17-35 mm 1:2.8-4 and 28-300 mm 1:3.5-6.3 Macro. This camera as well had a very good image quality but issues regading the electronics. Two days after my purchase Minolta 2006 announced their exit from the camera business.
After Minolta backing out and selling their camera branch to Sony I decided to change to Nikon. My first Nikon was the D300. A semiprofessional DSLR with 12 megapixels on an APS-C sensor (DX) and in my view excellent image quality. I used the DX lenses 17-55 mm 1:2.8 Nikkor, 50-150 mm 1:2.8 Sigma, and 10-20 mm 1:4.0-5.6 Sigma. The 150-500 mm 1:5.0-6.3 from Sigma covers the extreme telezoom range. The Nikkor 16-35 mm 1:4 prepared the transition to the FX format. The system was completed by the Nikon SB 800 Speedlight flash and the MB-D10 battery pack. In order to include GPS data in the exif files I use the Solmeta Modell Geotagger N2. For stabilizing the images the Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 carbon tripod with Manfrotto 054 magnesium ball head comes into play.
After a short-circuit fault on the D300 in Jordan due to a broken cable on the 10-pin connector and having to cover most of the trip
with a small Canon Ixus 900 Ti, I decided to use the D7000 as supplement to the D300. It has an 16.2 megapixels APS-C sensor and a full-HD videofunction. It is still categorized in the consumer
segment but together with the battery pack MB-D11 is becomes a real competitor for the D300 regarding quality and speed. For this camera I use a Phottix GPS that is hardly distinguishable from
the Nikon original.
Megapixels? processor? memory cards? negative - the Tachihara 4x5 field camera is recording images the classical way on film. There is no electronics involved and even the shutter works entirely mechanical. The casing is made in Japan out of 400 years old cherrywood. The lens is a 120mm/5,6 Schneider Kreuznach Apo-Symmar-L, made in Germany. A beautiful, large format camera that can be carried along easily even on extended trips or on a plane. Its strengths is in landscape photography.
The Nikon D800 is my first full frame DSLR. It has a sensor with unbelievable 36 megapixels and records videos in full-HD quality. In spite of the amount of pixels on the sensor the ISO sensitivity is surprisingly good with little noise even in the higher thousands. The Nikkor 24-70 mm and the Nikkor 70-200 mm lenses are completing the FX-system. The D800 is replacing the D300 and is also predestined for landscape photography using a tripod.