How it started

The first camera I used was my fathers Canon T70 SLR film camera. I mainly took pictures during family events, such as birthdays and holidays.

Years later, ahead of my first holiday abroad, I bought my first camera, a Canon APS (Advanced Photo System) compact film camera. At the time, I wanted something fairly simple, small and light.

APS was new and appealed to me due to the size of the cameras, how easy it was to load film and enabled me to take Black and White photos and change the film speed (ISO) depending on the light levels, whenever I wanted. APS used film cartridges, which could be loaded and unloaded at any stage, whereas I would have to finish a 35mm film roll before it could be switched out (well when out and about, anyway) and, I did not want to be constrained to finishing a roll before switching.

APS Film Processing was expensive

The one thing that has not changed between then and now is my high picture count. I love clicking, taking as many different shots as possible, so that I could choose the best one later. This was important to me because there was no way of viewing your pictures then, you had to get the film processed.

The big problem with clicking away, was that APS film processing was expensive. I remember going on a two week trip to Maui, Hawaii. It didn't matter where you were, there was always something to snap.

When I got home, I remember going into the store to get my film developed and being shocked at how expensive it was going to be to get all my cartridges developed. To manage the costs, I developed a number of cartridges a month and it took me six months to get everything developed. Each month, I also remembered being disappointed, when I would get my pictures back and discovered it only covered a small time period. .

Move to Digital

As low-cost airlines looked to increase their market-share, by offering unbelievable cheap flights to some very interesting destinations, I started to look at how to reduce my costs. I wouldn’t say that I was an early adopter. At the time, there was no Facebook, Instagram or VERO and I was still used to processing film and in return getting physical photographs. Whilst early digital cameras in the 1990’s were innovative, they were also basic. My first digital camera was the Canon PowerShot S40, a fixed-lens compact, which had a 4.0 megapixel image sensor. I also purchased an inkjet colour printer that worked with film paper.

As time went on, I upgraded to different makes and models to get improvements in the image sensor, image quality at higher ISO levels but kept to the same compact form-factor. I printed less photographs as I transitioned to posting on Facebook.

Moving to digital made it incredibly easy to use different ISOs, as well as switching from colour to Black and White and Sepia.

Move to Mirrorless and Interchangeable lenses

I eventually made the move to the Fujifilm X-E1, which had a 16 megapixel APS-C sensor with a 18-55mm zoom lens, on the recommendation of my brother, who had recently upgraded to it. I was initially hesitant of moving to a larger camera, as I was concerned about the extra bulk when travelling. The X-E1 was great as it was smaller than other cameras (Digital SLRs) on the market and did not add too much weight to my carry on.

Working in Norway introduced me to more extreme weather conditions that motivated me to upgrade to the Fujifilm X-T2 to get weather sealing and can operate at lower temperatures, especially as I was interested in photographing the Northern Lights.

Switching to RAW and Photo Editing Software

A colleague at work, who was also an avid photographer, recommended that I should switch to shooting in the RAW file format. He explained RAW stores a lot more image information, that gives more scope when editing photographs in an application, such as Adobe Lightroom or CaptureOne. JPEG, stores less information and whilst it can be edited, does not provide as much scope as RAW.

As an example:

**Before (RAW)**

This picture is under exposed.
RAW files contain more shadow detail information, enabling us to brighten up the image without introducing any noise.

**After (RAW)**

It is still possible to brighten up JPEG files but there is a higher chance of introducing noise as these files will not have as much information as RAW files.

It should be noted that RAW images (~25Megabytes for 26MP image) are much larger than JPEGs, which are typically in the region of 2 Megabytes.

Adobe Lightroom was initially my go-to photo editor but switched to CaptureOne when Adobe changed their licencing model, exclusively focusing on subscriptions.

GPS tagging

For me, GPS tagging is incredibly useful. If you use a cloud storage solution such as Amazon Photos, you can easily search for uploaded photos by location. Windows Photo Viewer can also display where your photo was taken

As my camera tethers to my phone for date / time and GPS information, it’s easy to ensure every picture I take has the correct GPS information stored.

Single-shot to Bracketed shots

I recently switched to Bracketed shots to be able to produce HDR (high dynamic range) photos. I take three shots at different exposures, which when merged, have a lot more shadow detail that I can make use of:

In scenarios where I do not plan to merge the photos, I have three shots to pick from.

The Future

Drone Photography

Using a drone really opens up the possibility of taking images that would not be that easy to get. I am looking forward to exploring this further:

AI Photography

A trend that I have been seeing is photographers using Artificial Intelligence tools to enhance their photographs.

Final Thoughts

Over the years, camera phones have significantly improved in image quality. The iPhone Pro range also enables you to take pictures in their PRO RAW format. Whilst I do take a lot of pictures on my iPhone, I still prefer to take my Fujifilm X-T5 as I think a camera system provides more scope to take more variety of photos.

Finally, the age old question “does the camera make you a photographer?” It’s not the camera but the person behind the camera who is responsible for taking good photographs. I am extremely proud of some of the shots that I took with my Canon Powershot S40, over 20 years ago.

Socials

Check-out a selection of photos on:

Vero

Instagram

My Photography Evolution