An everyday life's Odyssey

Paris reflection. Quartier du Marrais, 2010-08-28, some time in the morning, probably around 3 or 4 PM after a rough night of partying.

So, you may have noticed different kind of pictures on this blog lately. No exif, grainy black and white pictures. As a matter of fact, during one of those short week-ends at my parents, I found my dad’s first camera: a venerable Pentax ME Super with a 35mm f2.8 and 50-150mm f4 zoom. So far, I’ve used this 35mm only. What can I say? The thing is small, much more discrete, compact and lightweight than my bloated 7D/17-55mm f2.8 combo. Better than that, I look like an old-fashioned tourist running on a budget rather than I have something to compensate. Sure, it doesn’t feature all the modern electronic goodness: ISO is fixed until the end of the film, I cannot zoom, I can’t count on a fast autofocus system.

But this is maybe something I’ve been relying on too much? I already knew zooms make me lazy, but having to carefully chose a f number and then focusing slowly until I see the picture appearing in the viewfinder is a totally new story for me. All in all, I find this approach more relaxing. I need to be careful as every pic is “definitive”. No “chimping” (looking at the back of the camera body to see the just-shot picture), I discover with a little thrill the result two or three days later.

So, sure, I won’t give up my 7D. It’s a great and steady camera, well built and produces great images (well, I hope you enjoyed the ones I’ve been posting so far 😉 ) and I have lots of fun with it (remember, this is what it’s all about). But right now, I feel like playing with this old camera.