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Dumb Stuff

Optimus Plump

A couple folks on Pixelfed asked me what camera I preferred, so I thought I’d do a thing here which may be linked to easily. The most important thing to note is that even a $100 Fuji X-E1 is a great camera which I could use happily for the rest of my life and not approach the “limits” of. None of this is necessary and always buy used.

I use a Fuji X-Pro2 like 85% of the time. It’s dependable, has an electronic viewfinder to the left rather than in a hump, and it has a proper shutter speed dial to pair with the aperture ring on almost all Fuji lenses. I’d like an articulating screen, but otherwise it’s perfect for me. I use the Fuji 16-55 zoom most of the time, the 35 f/1.4 some of the time, and a 55-200 and a variety of adapted old Soviet lenses rarely.

My Luxurious Nonsense Purchase this year was a Ricoh GR III. I mostly got it so that I’d have a camera with a big sensor which fits in an actual pocket. I don’t love it as much as I’d hoped,* but I use it more than I thought, so. For very specific uses, it is excellent.

*Spoiled by the Fuji.

My Luxurious Nonsense Purchase last year was this DJI Mini 2. I use it pretty sparingly because I am completely petrified of annoying anyone with whizzing noises, so it’s basically “only when I can be 100% sure I’m the only person for miles around”. It’s alright. Picture-wise it’s like a flying iPhone 12, which means it does pretty well for sunny landscapes when used to take pictures in Raw format.

Any film pictures are usually from this little Canonet. I’d mostly picked it up since they are (were?) pretty affordable and durable; my other film cameras are the ones I started on when I was little, which are all weird SLRs from long-gone brands with no light meter and limited-to-nonexistant parts availability.

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Dumb Stuff

Gloparoo

Eyy, I unearthed my first real camera. I used this, then switched to a Rolleiflex SL 35 M, then that stopped advancing properly, and then good digital SLRs became a thing.

The Contaflex is really nice, but is sort of weird in that you can’t actually see through the viewfinder until it’s cocked, but it’s bad for it to leave it like that. Focusing is also done with little nubs around the lens, rather than a ring. Still great to use, though.

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Reviews

Elmitroid

I got a Fuji, and a really top-shelf flash for it. I hear this Honeywell is the bee’s knees.

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The old camera is a little more pocketable…

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…although the Fuji’s screen is bigger…

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…and its exposure controls are a little more sensibly laid-out.

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Overall, the Fuji is just as good as the Fuji I had before, and I think that Japan place is really going somewhere.

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Reviews

Assemblage