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Photo equipment and films

Overview

Digital Cameras

Since April of 2006 I take photos exclusively digitally.

Since end of 2014 I use the Nikon D750 full frame (FX) DSLR. The camera is quite heavy but the image quality is breathtaking. Especially at high ISO the huge sensor size is very beneficial. Also the AF on that camera is significantly better then it had been on my previous cameras. And finally the camera controls and configurations have improved significantly (just as an example the auto ISO function can be used on that camera - on every Nikon camera I had before it was useless.)

With the Nikon D750 I mainly used (any carried with me) three different lenses:

Until end of 2014 I uses the Nikon D7000 DX digital SLR which is fantastic! It provides great resolution, noise free images at low ISO values and perfect low light performance at high ISO values.
But the in my opinion best (and for some reason not advertised) new feature of the D7000 is that the vibration induced when the mirror is flipping is minimal resulting in much more sharp images then I had seen with the previous D200.

From 2006 - 2011 I (mainly) used a Nikon D200 digital SLR camera, which is a great tool (though I have to say that waiting for the camera forever was quite annoying - the camera was announced for November 2005, I ordered it January 2006 and finally received it in April 2006!). I have enlarged the images from its 10Mpixel sensor up to 40x60cm. No problems!

With the Nikon DX cameras (D7000 and D200) I mainly used (any carried with me) three different lenses:

My "shift" to digital photography from analog (which I used exclusively until mid of 2002) was quite smooth I guess.
I bought my first digital camera mid of 2002 which was a Minolta Dimage 7i bridge camera - fantastic camera. It has a high quality 28-200mm (35mm film equivalent) f2,8-3,5 lens and a 5 million pixel CCD sensor. The resulting images can be printed as 20x30cm images without any problem.

Early 2004 I "upgraded" to a Minolta Dimage A2 digital camera. It's main advantages compared to the 7i are the Anti Shake sensor, 8 Mega-pixels instead of 5 at the 7i and an improved user interface. I printed the images at 30x45cm - no problem.

I have a couple of 16GB and 8GB SD cards to store the images "in the field". In order to be able store enough photos when I am traveling, I also use a mobile hard drive (The Hyperdrive Space with a 100MB HD) and a Sony Netbook.

Photos with the "Camera" icon (see right-hand side) and the link "Digital camera photo" at the end of the text below the photo are made with the digital camera. The link leads to a summary of the most important technical data of the photo (extracted from the EXIF data of the respective image file).

"Analog" equipment

I have used three different "analog" cameras for the photos shown at my site photos: Until September 2000 I have used a Ricoh XRX and a Ricoh XP3.
Since September 2000 I am mainly using a Pentax ZP1 (which is by the way a fantastic camera with an unmatched user-interface).

I have a set of lenses from 20mm to 500mm.
The lenses I mainly use while traveling are a 20mm F2,8 Soligor super-wideangle prime lens, a 20-35mm F4 wide angle zoom lens, a 50mm standard prime lens (a Ricoh F1,7 lens for the Ricoh cameras and a F1,4 AF lens for the Pentax camera), a 28-70mm standard zoom lens (a Sigma F2,8-4 lens for the Ricoh cameras and a F4 AF Pentax lens for the Pentax camera) and a 70-200mm F2,8-3,5 Sigma tele zoom lens.
Since March 2001 I also use a 80-320mm F4,5-5,6 AF zoom lens from Pentax.

I only use slide material for my color photos.
I used to use Fuji Sensia II 100 films, but at the end of 1999 I shot some rolls of the Kodak Elite CHROME Extra Color 100, and I was so impressed, that I switched to that material.

Black and white photos

The "analog" black and white photos were taken with a Yashica T4 Super camera. I really like that camera, because it is very small and it has an excellent Carl Zeiss Tessar 3.5/35mm lens.

For "analog" black and white photos I use Ilford XP2 film. It is very flexible and it can be used to make big prints.

In 2006 I started experimenting with converting digital color images taken with the DSLRs into black and white images. I am still learning but I do like the first results.