People often ask me what camera I use, presumably because they like my photography and figure I must have a bunch of high-end equipment. Usually I laugh, somewhat awkwardly, as nothing could be further from the truth, and provide a sheepish answer. My gear isn’t anything special—in fact, it’s about as shabby as can be.
Most of the photos I’ve posted on this site from around 2011 until now were shot on a Nikon D3100 with the same 18–55mm lens it came with (pictured here). Over the years this camera has seen a great deal of use and is now bruised and battered, missing a few pieces, and completely without labels on any of the controls (as they’ve all worn off long ago). The lens is in even worse shape—not only is it held together with electrical tape that doesn’t entirely prevent light seeping in from seeping the bottom edge (spoiling most low-light and night-time shots) it also has a loose connection that inhibits auto-focus from working as it should most of the time.
Not exactly professional, is it? But I haven’t been able to justify (let alone afford) an upgrade. Photography is just a hobby, not something I do for money, and I’ve been living on quite a budget these years. I would love to be able to get a much better camera for daily use and will no doubt make a new post whenever I get around to doing so.
A few of the photos on this site from late 2013 to early 2015 were shot with a borrowed Nikon D5100, a slightly newer and better version of the D3100. I have also posted many photos shot on smartphone—first an iPhone 3GS (pre-2011; good luck finding any of those, there aren’t many), then a Samsung Galaxy Note 1 (SGH-I717R; which is what I used to shoot the photo for this piece), and more recently a Samsung S6 (SM-G9208), which is finally good enough to support entire blog posts.
Incidentally, every photo on this blog has its own canonical URL that lists what gear was used. To access this information simply click on any image that interests you. If a slideshow pops up (which happens on posts with more than one image) just click on the photo again. Below the image you will see the camera listed among the metadata.
Anyhow, the gist of this particular post is that it isn’t what equipment you use but how you use it that matters. (But I really would like better equipment one of these days!)
