If I Started With Photography In 2024, I’d Do This

Great advise Petr

Good advice Petr. I convince myself that using my older camera is similar to choosing a particular medium in art. Formalism in art is where you decide on certain parameters to provide limits which will help you learn strengths and unique characteristics within. Similar to deciding on a fixed lens, you can also decide on the sensor size and format. A 24mp APS-C sensor from 2016-era is not that far behind what you see today.

You can also limit your budget as a form of formalism. Do you run out and buy that new Fujifilm X100VI, or perhaps you buy that older X-T2 or T3 with several lenses. Both decisions have merits. Once you choose, resist the temptation to second guess or switch your gear right away.

I learned on cheaper 'bridge' cameras starting with Lumix FZ200/300/1000 models, moving to LX100 (an incredible camera btw and perfect to learn on, its 12mp sensor still provides decent pixel resolution), then to Fuji bodies X-E3 and X-T2 where I've now stopped. Personally, while I'd like to upgrade to a X-T5 it means selling some lenses to keep within my set budget limits - and I can't be bothered right now.

After a while, you become so familiar with your old gear and tools, it becomes hard to part with them, like old friends :)

This made me question my own expectations. A lot to think about. Thanks for the video!

really good video... thank you

Nice video! I have to say that gear does matter, a lot actually! Ever since I upgraded my a6400 to a7IV, I stopped doing street photography, travel photography, and vlogs because it's too big for any small sling bag that I always brought my a6400 with.

When you are suggesting lens focal lengths, are you quoting actual focal length? Or full frame equivalent?

Why is the zfc in your thumbnail if you're promoting fuji?

I am an old timer and once a professional photographer. In the old times, people who could afford it, would buy a camera to take pictures of family or momentos of important occasions in life or recording some scenes in their travels. There were cameras for every budget, particularly in 70s and 80s. No one was given the impression that buying a camera would instantly transform them into a Cartier Bresson, Ansel Adams, Hass, Newton or Bailey. Its different these days. Through so much progress in technology, they have managed to sell this fantasy that by buying any of these imaging computers, one is instantly transformed into a photographic icon. Nothing is further from the truth, sadly. Buying a £7000.00 Leica M body, and a £5000.00 Apo this and that lens , or the latest techno marvel from Nikon or Sony which now predict if an image can be taken, will not make you a photographer if the vision of photography is not already in you. Just buy the cheapest camera that fits your requirement.

The Nikon Zfc looks so beautiful!!! Great info.

"You don't use zoom" sounds a little bit like Apple brainwash. Didn't even buy the S24u since they cut the zoom and fps.

Gear does matter.

It just doesn't matter more than other parts of art and photography as much.

Humans seem to have over complicated the box b/c their vision, anticipation, creativity, and talent are lacking. (The Box: Camera and Computer)

Film is also digital, and digital is also film.

Take a shot on film, scan to digital.
Take a shot digitally, expose to film.

The medium no longer matters b/c they can be combined in different directions. You're not showing film unless it's physically in your viewers hands or projected on a surface from the physical emulsion. So it's a digital interpretation of film, and at a low resolution of 720p 😅 since I view most content at 720p.

Gear matters b/c it's part of what drives you or I to do what we do. If you had a camera you hated, you wouldn't take as many shots with it as a camera you most loved. We make connections with the things we can possess. The right gear makes things easier.

Making things easier doesn't necessarily make the end user better. I do think it can help to get us back to having the box get out of our way.

That's what film did best. The box got out of our way. We didn't have a computer, and you had limited settings that you barely changed. The focus was on the composition + moment + story.

Well said advice.

Not a Fuji fan (at least yet), but some great advice!