Anatomy and Art

It’s been about five months now, since I last owned my SLR still cameras.  It was about the end of February when my house was burglarized and both my Pentax K1000 and Canon 20D were stolen right in the camera bags I kept them in with all accompanying lenses and general accessories (filters, extra batteries for the digital camera, extra film for the film camera).  And it’s been weird.  I’m so used to having them.  I didn’t use the Pentax often anymore, but I learned on that camera and I’ve always appreciated knowing that I could when worthy situations or ideas arise.  And the Canon, well that’s the camera that finally sold me on the capability of digital photography.  At first I was very careful with it.  Then I started taking that camera all over, even to Burning Man.  I’ve worked and played with that camera.  But most of all, it’s just been there so long.  Part of why I haven’t replaced it yet is that the way USAA’s home insurance works is that the longer you’ve had a thing, the less they actually give you for it until you’ve replaced it.  So having a house full of goods to try and replace, and a whole lot of hassle with faxing receipts and endless phone tag after every purchase to get the rest of my reimbursement, it made financial sense to do things in a certain order, so as not to be out so much all at once.  My cameras are by far the most expensive thing taken from my house.  Well, technically my burglars came back and stole my car about a month later, but if we’re specifying *inside* the house, then it was the cameras.  I did get that car back, for the record.

Anyway, here I am, roughly five months later, about ready to finally replace my digital camera and lenses.  I’m probably going to go Canon again, though having a clean wipe on past equipment like this does make one think about the potential for starting fresh in another line entirely.  Sony is apparently getting into the camera game and pulling some professional photographers over to that side.  Nikon has always been a strong contender, and I believe that they are still the only company to make flat lenses, which could be helpful for shooting paintings or if I ever got a set up to shoot slides with a microscope.  But the main contender just now is the Canon 70D.  It seems the most similar to what I had, with some nice boosts to performance.  Then again, with as often as I find myself shooting in low light, I might do well to pick up something with a full frame sensor.  If I’m sticking with Canon, that would probably be the 6D which is more expensive, but certainly more affordable than Nikon’s D4.

One thing that I’m noticing in all of these new camera models is that they’re all trying to offer wireless connectivity now and synching with your smart phone, which while I like the idea of a remote, I always kind of appreciated that my real cameras didn’t upload to Facebook at a whim’s notice.  Sometimes the idea is to do it right and go through your images later, tweaking where necessary and only publish what still feels right the next day.  I dunno.  It’s not like they make you use that stuff, but it does seem a little excessive, and potentially like killer of battery life, which I do care very much about.

Anyways, I’ll have to pick something soon.  I am feeling myself done with my time away from camera ownership, and I want back in to what really is one of my primary art forms.  And really, I’ve been overcompensating with my iPhone in the interim.  And on that note I leave you with just such an iPhone photo of my and my little dog, because I just keep taking these, and because I caught a cute one.  Actually the iPhone really does have an impressive camera for what it is.  And it’s been nice exploring that.  But give me back my lenses!