Photography has always been my hobby since I bought my first Halina 127 camera back in 1972. This was a mail order from a newspaper cutting which cost me RM19.00. It was 100% plastic including it's lens with the exception of a few springs and screws. This was a medium format camera and therefore not a pocket camera. I have to hang it around my neck wherever I went with it.
My second camera was a Kodak Instamatic. It was my first 35mm camera and this camera can fit in my pocket. This time the shutter button is metal and had a glass lens. To me this is a big improvement or upgrade. The negative film came in a plastic cassette. Just drop it in, turn the knob anticlockwise until it stop and its ready to shoot. Both of first two camera bodies were plastics.
My first metal camera was a Minolta Hi-Matic 7s rangefinder camera in 1976. This was my Dad's camera and I "borrowed" it from him - he never actually said yes when I wanted to borrow it. Of course I used it more than him and it sort of became mine.. It was the most beautifully designed camera anyone could have. It has a manual shutter speed selection and an aperture ring, and the exposure meter's actual EV-value displayed in the viewfinder. But most of the time, my exposures were merely estimates based on the guide provided in the ASA 100 film box. Set the speed to 125, bright sunlight f16, cloudy skies f11, In the shade f8 and low light f5.6 and below.
When I started my first job in 1981, I bought a Minolta XD7 with my first salary. It costs me RM840 at that time. This was a very good camera as it was the World’s first 35mm SLR camera with multiple exposure modes.. The shutter was silky smooth while the Nikons were still clacking away very loudly followed by sound of springs reverberating after every shot. Minoltas were producing fine electronic instruments while Nikons were producing tough work horses and could operate without batteries. I guess that's the reason why professional love the Nikon..
The XD-7 offered Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual. Since Minolta lenses were not fitted with an auto diaphragm mechanism capable to moving to a preset aperture, Minolta added an index lug and later on a minimum aperture lock to the MC lens design, this system was later copied by other brands. Technology had evolved cameras into auto-focus and motorised zoom and Cameras had started to turn plastic again.
The subsequent Minolta XG series and Maxxums were constructed of polycarbonate bodies and I was not impressed with it. I continued using my XD7 for more than 10 years until the metering broke along with all the auto modes.
I bought my Minolta 5xi in 1993 with a 35-80mm slow f4 zoom lens. It was more of a functional camera rather than a creative tool. I considered it to be one of the ugliest camera designed by Minolta. I lost my creative interest in photography thanks to Minolta's uninspiring product. I use the camera for my wedding shots, baby's photo and travels during the early part of my married life. The camera works very well but the rubber grip surface became sticky and later hardens and began cracking and falling off in pieces. That was the turning point.
I was a proud Minolta fan. It used to be a very innovative brand which manufactures better performing lens than Nikon, Minolta pioneered TTL metering and multi-exposure shooting modes. Somehow it seems to lost it's direction in technological advances started to produce cameras with fanciful Buck Rogers-like designs and sadly Minolta seems to fall in love with plastics!. That was when I started to look at at alternative make.
My first Nikon was a F60 which came bundled with two Nikkor AF zoom lens 35-70mm and a 75-240mm. It was another plastic camera but with a more functional design. Their mechanical and electronics has improved so much and they remained as the professional choice for their toughness and durability especially the higher end F3's, F4's and F5's models.
I began eying digital Photography in the late 90's. My first digital camera was the Canon Powershot Pro S70 bought in 1999. It costs a bomb at that time at more than RM4,200+. It came with a 8MB. It was power hungry and had delayed shutter response. Press shutter.. wait about a second to hear some kind of spring releasing inside, click.. await another second or so for the picture to be saved,.. It kinda tiring... The biggest CF memory card available would be 256K and costs several hundred more. Carrying this camera around means bringing along chargers and the period's heavy and slow to power-on notebook computer. It's just too much hassle and waiting. The only concession of owning this camera was that I don't need to send any film for processing to view the picture. On the other hand it will take a week to send the pictures to Kuala Lumpur to be processed and printed. Digital photography was at it's infancy and no local processing facility available. Sad to say though most of my baby's photos taken with camera was lost due unrecoverable hard disk's crash. (I rather not be reminded about it)
The next camera was a tiny pocket camera, a Canon Digital Ixus bought in 2001. I was carrying a Yashica pocket film camera which was a free gift for something I enrolled or purchased.. can't remember what it was. I was at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport about to board a flight to Phuket, Thailand when I saw this digital camera at the camera shop at the international lounge. It was the very first of the Canon Ixus series. This camera was tiny with tinier a LCD screen. It was good for traveling but would only shoot about 20+ frames on full charge NiCad batteries and camera would be hot after a few shots.
An Olympus Camedia pocket camera was purchased in a hurry in 2004 two days before my trip to Munich, Germany. This trip includes a 3 week planned self-drive vacation to Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Netherland. So a camera was a must have. This camera produced good pictures with acceptable shutter response delay. I had thousands of pictures taken with this camera. It was through this camera that I was impressed with the advances made in digital photography which led my interests back to SLR cameras.
The Nikon DSLR D70 was introduced later that year but I cannot afford it due to my job relocation to Kuala Lumpur, which was an expensive endeavour for a few years as I was maintaining 2 homes. I was seriously considering a Nikon because I already had two Nikkor AF zoom lens. I finally got hold of a Nikon D70 in 2006.
Realising the inconvenient bulk of my Nikon D70 during my 3 weeks biking trip in Mindanao and Cebu in the Phillipines, I bought the small Olympus E420 in 2008 which was intended for my future travels. It was the smallest DSLR available in the market.
The E420 has a lot of limitations and unfamiliar adjustments. Dark subject was difficult to focus despite triggering the flash burst to lit up the subject for focusing not to mention the irritation to both the the subject and photographer. Taking shots with the built in flash is results in horribly under-exposed pictures. I wonder if it was a defective design for the model or a just defective unit. My older Olympus Camedia would take better exposed shots with it's built-in flash. This camera however produced excellent result for daylight photography. Low light photography at ISO 400 and above tends to produce grainy pictures.
And finally the Nikon D7000 in 2011 with all the bell and whistles..
My second camera was a Kodak Instamatic. It was my first 35mm camera and this camera can fit in my pocket. This time the shutter button is metal and had a glass lens. To me this is a big improvement or upgrade. The negative film came in a plastic cassette. Just drop it in, turn the knob anticlockwise until it stop and its ready to shoot. Both of first two camera bodies were plastics.
My first metal camera was a Minolta Hi-Matic 7s rangefinder camera in 1976. This was my Dad's camera and I "borrowed" it from him - he never actually said yes when I wanted to borrow it. Of course I used it more than him and it sort of became mine.. It was the most beautifully designed camera anyone could have. It has a manual shutter speed selection and an aperture ring, and the exposure meter's actual EV-value displayed in the viewfinder. But most of the time, my exposures were merely estimates based on the guide provided in the ASA 100 film box. Set the speed to 125, bright sunlight f16, cloudy skies f11, In the shade f8 and low light f5.6 and below.
When I started my first job in 1981, I bought a Minolta XD7 with my first salary. It costs me RM840 at that time. This was a very good camera as it was the World’s first 35mm SLR camera with multiple exposure modes.. The shutter was silky smooth while the Nikons were still clacking away very loudly followed by sound of springs reverberating after every shot. Minoltas were producing fine electronic instruments while Nikons were producing tough work horses and could operate without batteries. I guess that's the reason why professional love the Nikon..
The XD-7 offered Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual. Since Minolta lenses were not fitted with an auto diaphragm mechanism capable to moving to a preset aperture, Minolta added an index lug and later on a minimum aperture lock to the MC lens design, this system was later copied by other brands. Technology had evolved cameras into auto-focus and motorised zoom and Cameras had started to turn plastic again.
The subsequent Minolta XG series and Maxxums were constructed of polycarbonate bodies and I was not impressed with it. I continued using my XD7 for more than 10 years until the metering broke along with all the auto modes.
I bought my Minolta 5xi in 1993 with a 35-80mm slow f4 zoom lens. It was more of a functional camera rather than a creative tool. I considered it to be one of the ugliest camera designed by Minolta. I lost my creative interest in photography thanks to Minolta's uninspiring product. I use the camera for my wedding shots, baby's photo and travels during the early part of my married life. The camera works very well but the rubber grip surface became sticky and later hardens and began cracking and falling off in pieces. That was the turning point.
I was a proud Minolta fan. It used to be a very innovative brand which manufactures better performing lens than Nikon, Minolta pioneered TTL metering and multi-exposure shooting modes. Somehow it seems to lost it's direction in technological advances started to produce cameras with fanciful Buck Rogers-like designs and sadly Minolta seems to fall in love with plastics!. That was when I started to look at at alternative make.
My first Nikon was a F60 which came bundled with two Nikkor AF zoom lens 35-70mm and a 75-240mm. It was another plastic camera but with a more functional design. Their mechanical and electronics has improved so much and they remained as the professional choice for their toughness and durability especially the higher end F3's, F4's and F5's models.
I began eying digital Photography in the late 90's. My first digital camera was the Canon Powershot Pro S70 bought in 1999. It costs a bomb at that time at more than RM4,200+. It came with a 8MB. It was power hungry and had delayed shutter response. Press shutter.. wait about a second to hear some kind of spring releasing inside, click.. await another second or so for the picture to be saved,.. It kinda tiring... The biggest CF memory card available would be 256K and costs several hundred more. Carrying this camera around means bringing along chargers and the period's heavy and slow to power-on notebook computer. It's just too much hassle and waiting. The only concession of owning this camera was that I don't need to send any film for processing to view the picture. On the other hand it will take a week to send the pictures to Kuala Lumpur to be processed and printed. Digital photography was at it's infancy and no local processing facility available. Sad to say though most of my baby's photos taken with camera was lost due unrecoverable hard disk's crash. (I rather not be reminded about it)
The next camera was a tiny pocket camera, a Canon Digital Ixus bought in 2001. I was carrying a Yashica pocket film camera which was a free gift for something I enrolled or purchased.. can't remember what it was. I was at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport about to board a flight to Phuket, Thailand when I saw this digital camera at the camera shop at the international lounge. It was the very first of the Canon Ixus series. This camera was tiny with tinier a LCD screen. It was good for traveling but would only shoot about 20+ frames on full charge NiCad batteries and camera would be hot after a few shots.
The Nikon DSLR D70 was introduced later that year but I cannot afford it due to my job relocation to Kuala Lumpur, which was an expensive endeavour for a few years as I was maintaining 2 homes. I was seriously considering a Nikon because I already had two Nikkor AF zoom lens. I finally got hold of a Nikon D70 in 2006.
Realising the inconvenient bulk of my Nikon D70 during my 3 weeks biking trip in Mindanao and Cebu in the Phillipines, I bought the small Olympus E420 in 2008 which was intended for my future travels. It was the smallest DSLR available in the market.
The E420 has a lot of limitations and unfamiliar adjustments. Dark subject was difficult to focus despite triggering the flash burst to lit up the subject for focusing not to mention the irritation to both the the subject and photographer. Taking shots with the built in flash is results in horribly under-exposed pictures. I wonder if it was a defective design for the model or a just defective unit. My older Olympus Camedia would take better exposed shots with it's built-in flash. This camera however produced excellent result for daylight photography. Low light photography at ISO 400 and above tends to produce grainy pictures.
And finally the Nikon D7000 in 2011 with all the bell and whistles..
