One of the best parts of my job is that I get to test some very nice cameras. I've used the Hasselblad X1D, the Fuji X-Pro 3 (personal favorite), Canon tk, Sony A7RIV, and others. For the most part I am cynical about new technology, but I won't lie, I love testing new cameras.

That said, every camera I've ever tested I've been happy to send back[^1]. I've yet to test anything that made me want to give up the [camera system](/technology) I actually own.

Part of this is related to how I shoot. For nearly four years now I have been shooting everything with manual focus lenses and fully manual exposure. Everything. Landscapes, street scenes walking the cities, the kids playing, running, jumping, swimming. I compose, I focus, I meter, I shoot, I adjust, I refocus I re-shoot. 

It's a process, one that's become part of me at this point, it just happens without me really thinking about it. I rarely miss a shot that autofocus would have pulled off.

which is something I never realized until I pressed the shutter on the X-T4 and realized, oh, right, that's all there is to it. 

The most recent one to cross my desk is the Sony A7RIV. We've been in this area for a few months now and I have quiet a few images in mind, that I knew I wanted to make at some point. Having a new camera to test is a good excuse to get out and shoot them. I try to mix things up, shooting at different times of day to see how the camera/lens responds.

The scene above is about half a mile down the road, half way between our house and our nearest neighbor. It's just an open field, but when the thunderheads give it a good dramatic backdrop, it's fun to shoot.

I wandered down one afternoon by myself and spent a few minutes taking in the scene and then... pointed the camera, everything snapped into focus, and I pressed the shutter. Well, that was boring.


I felt less a part of the process, less invested in the result. 

I felt let down. Being out and doing nothing but making images makes me want to shoot more, that part was good, but it made me want my lenses, the feel of metal turning. There's a hard stop when I reach infinity, there satisfying clicks when you turn the aperture ring. The Canon is a great camera, and the lenses are nice too, but I much prefer what I have.

I worry this sounds like some hipster lamenting the bygone era of records or lumberjack shirts. But then, I'm not really sure I care if that's how it sounds because that's not what I mean. I don't want some previous time to come back, I just think the technology of that time was much better than we might think.

But then I have an attachment to the tactile parts of the process of making a photo. Possibly others do not. I enjoy the process of turning the focus ring and snapping through apertures. Sometimes I count them. That way I can focus on the scene and know what my depth of field is without having to look at the info on screen. 

and am glad that I have found a way to have the best of both worlds, analog process, digital and analog results. 

I don't really miss film the way some do, a little maybe, again the tactile part of standing in the dark, feeding and winding the film into the metal wheels, hoping it wasn't touching as you spiraled it on, but I certainly don't miss paying for film. And I'm far better at developing in darktable than I ever was at working with prints in the darkroom.

Sometimes technology moves so fast and pulls us with it so fast we don't get a chance to process what we're giving up. I didn't start out with manual focus lenses because I was nostalgic or missing focusing and metering. I started out with them because I was frugal and they're cheap. My favorite lense, a Minolta 50.. f/2, which I suspect is no one else's favorite lens, cost me $20. My most expensive lens, which is a 100-300 zoom, which I pair with a 2X teleconverter, was a whooping $200. 

I got in because I was trying to get some good glass without spending a fortune. What I didn't realize was happening was that photography was again becoming a process in which I was a key participant. At first I missed shots all the time. I still miss shots, but far fewer. My focusing skills have become much better and I can meter a scene in my head within a stop  or two without consciously thinking about it any more. I see the kids playing, backlit by the morning sun coming through the trees and I just sort of know that I'm going to want about f5.6 to hold them in focus but let the trees and light blur, and in this light, shooting at 100 ISO I should set the exposure around 1/80, maybe faster or slower depending on how much light is getting in the trees, but I know my starting point before I ever raise the camera to my eye.

That sounds pretentious again perhaps, woohee, look at how skilled I am. But it's not skill, it's repetition. Do anything for a while and it becomes *second nature*. 


[^1]: I hope it goes without saying, but I will say it anyway: I don't keep anything I review for work. Expensive cameras go back to the manufacturer. Things that companies don't want back go to charity.