Philosophy Gamechanger?

sh0wtime

sh0wtime

Veteran
Location
Surrey/Hants border UK
Name
Adam.
Hi guys.
Over your Photography careers have you ever got any new kit that could be described as a gamechanger?

Obviously most new kit provides incremental improvements but did you ever use something for the first time & be like "Wow, that is awesome" :clapping:

For me it was probably my D3. it was just so much faster than the D2Xs i was using previously & it purely & simply allowed me to get shots that i would in no way have managed with my older cameras.
Gamechanger.

The D700 has a very similar output & when the Mrs got one her photography came on massively.
 
I'm not sure if we haven't had a similar thread before, but I don't mind - it's an interesting topic.

For me, the game-changer was the Olympus E-PM1 - a small, light and fun camera whose output didn't lag that far behind the Nikon D90 (another great camera) I shot at the time. The camera just felt right and made me love photography again, and digital photography, at that - something that even the otherwise really competent Nikon hadn't managed to achieve.

I used that camera until it died - twice, actually (I was able to resurrect it the first time). Still one of my best experiences photography-wise.

Apart from that, I only have a cliché to report: Everything transformed again once I handled my first M (the M4-P, a meterless film body). Now I had a benchmark as to how a camera should work and feel to please me. And to think I had always ridiculed that notion before ... It has been a somewhat expensive journey since, but ever so rewarding.

That said, I have kept a soft spot for small, competent cameras. I've owned (and still own) quite an ecclectic lot of cameras - finding out what some body or lens can do for me holds a lot of appeal to me.

M.
 
I've had the experiences you describe - I won't include my first cameras, since those seem like kind of a given. Going from the 2MP Olympus camera I got in early 2003 to the 6MP APS-C Nikon D40 in 2006 was like night and day. But that was a "serious camera" that I got as I was getting serious about photography. The game had to get changed at that point. I am thinking you're asking more about surprising game-changers that occurred farther along the photographic quest.

The biggest one for me has been the Ricoh GR. I've shot micro four thirds for probably close to nine years, had a bunch of cameras and lenses. But the GR showed me a kind of photography that I hadn't really thought about before. Having a body that's small enough to take along everywhere, quick enough to pull out, turn on, focus and shoot something and put away again all in the space of a few seconds with one hand has changed what I shoot to a large degree. I had pursued different photographic genres the way they were "meant" to be pursued... mostly street and landscape, a little bit of portrait. But now, I enjoy taking snapshots. High-quality snapshots, because the gear is capable of really great results, and I'm not a careless shooter, I still appreciate good exposure and composition... but I've gained a freedom of subject and treatment of the subject that I can only describe as coming from the effortless opportunity of the GR sensibility.

Thinking about it, some of these ideas come from the "GR Special" website that details the conceptualism that goes into the design of the camera. Reading that coupled with owning one really set me off in a direction. I'm really glad of it, photography is more fun now, and that has spilled over into my other cameras as well. I used the little Ricoh 500G the most out of the three cameras I brought on a vacation to New England last fall, and coming back with a bunch of B&W travel "snapshots" made me happy.
 
For me, the gamechanger was the Fuji X Pro 1 and 2; they made photography fun again. Fifty years ago, while working as a news photography I found the Leica M2 to be what I shot with most. A change of careers--instructor of British Literature--took me away from photography. When I returned to photography I was never really happy with the heavy DSLRs and then Fuji brought out the X Pro line and I began to enjoy photography again. I spent about two-and-a-half years shooting with only the 35/1.4 getting reacquainted with photography.
 
Nikon D80. My first SLR since the Nikon 6006, which I shelved after lugging 15 lbs of camera gear on a vacation in a shoulder bag. The D80 just outclassed the digital P&S cameras I had been using, and was the camera I learned to actually be a photographer with (along with some serious workshops).

E-M5. Bought as a backup to the D7000 I had moved to, but supplanted it within months. Small, light and great images. I gave up nothing but half the weight from the Nikon kit.
 
The thing that came closest to a gamechanger for me was the Panasonic G1 with its lenses, my first mirrorless system. Wow, the autofocus just worked! Gone were the times where I had to try to calibrate lenses only to find that sometimes a zoom lens could be calibrated only accurately at one focal length and where I took 3 shots hoping to get one that was really spot-on. The G1 gave me enough confidence to just make one shot and nail focus each and every time. A big source of frustration was after me and from that moment on photography became a joy again, and it has been up to this day. Needless to say I never went back to a DSLR, sold the Nikon D300s soon enough after getting the Panasonic G1, even though the D300s's sensor performed much better. Good riddance!

From the Panasonic G1 and GH2 I went to Sony NEX-6 and then FF as soon as the A7 came out; I must have had an A7 from the first batch that arrived in The Netherlands. After that the A7Rm2 and A7Rm4, but all these cameras were in essence incremental upgrades, however nice they have been. Happy as a pig in muck with these mirrorless cameras! They also make old lenses shine like they never have done on the original cameras they were made for.
 
E-P1. Once I put a decent lens on it, I completely switched to mirrorless. I do note I was also pretty pleased with the E-PM1 as it has no AA filter and was surprisingly sharp and used those lenses I had bought for the E-P1. Even though it had a bad reputation, I liked the original Oly 17 2.8 pancake. I still have one. Maybe two.
 
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Oddly, for me it was the Olympus OMD EM5.

I had a distal bicep rupture (disconnected my bicep muscle from my fore arm bone) and was unable to hold anything for months, let alone a camera. At the time, the only camera that I could acuate the shutter from the rear LCD was the Olympus cameras.

Gamechanger? Yes, it allowed me to continue to work in photography while I recovered.
 
My first game changer was the Canon 1Dmk3. Lightening fast at the time. Incredible AF. Built like a tank. I could shoot off road events and it would take a pounding from mud, dirt, and rocks. And keep on going. Plus I could put in the sink with a weather sealed lens afterward and run water over it to clean it off.
 
I couldn't name any piece of gear that changed my game, but I feel it in my bones that once I get my DAM solution up and running, it's going to be one. Allowing me to complement shots with metadata and organize pics into themed groups, it's going to change the way I can keep track of what I've been shooting and combining things into themed collections.

Flash photography might be another gamechanger but that's also into the future. 🔮
 
As a camera fan I want to say something else, but... My phone camera :-( not necessarily fun to shoot with, but it is always with me - contrary to my Samsung EX1 and Fuji X100, both of which I bought with the idea of always having them with me.

When I am on holiday or in the mood for photography, I will still bring a dedicated camera in a bag, but even then whipping out my phone is so much quicker that a decent portion of my photos ends up being taken with the phone anyway (and my phone is not by any stretch of the imagination "state of the art", mind! It's decent enough, and apparently that does it for snapshots).

On the camera front, borrowing my mom's Sony RX10 iii was a gamechanger of sorts - I found that when I have both that and my X100 in my bag, the flexibility of the superzoom outweighs the better user interface, smaller size, less conspicuous looks and more DOF control at wider focal lengths that the X100 gives.

Part of that may be because I have a camera that's even smaller, faster and less conspicuous (but with a much worse UI) than the X100, in my phone.

Another part may be that i have an "OG" X100 without wifi or flipscreen or usb charging, making it less convenient than both the phone and the RX10 iii.

But a big part is that incredible focal length range of 24-600mm eq, with sharpness, flare resistance and dynamic range from a 1" sensor that are not noticeably worse than my OG X100's APS-C sensor with its fixed prime.

I still love the creativity and "being in the moment" and focus that the X100 inspires, but in practice, it often ends up getting sandwiched between the RX10 iii and the smartphone...
 
rayvonn said:
EPL-5/ Lumix 20mm F1.7/ Olympus 45mm F1.8. Maybe not now but back when this gear was first released, it was a real eye opener getting something so small to produce stunning images. It all tumbled from there.
Click to expand...
The EPL5 was the first mu43 body I had with the 16 mp sensor. That sensor was better in every way over the 12 mp version. I only got rid of it because I finally got the EM5 and the IBIS was so much better. The EM5 was the fruition of all Olympus was working for in previous models.
 
My gamechanger moment came in 2001 when the Field Centre and Nature Reserve where I volunteered invited me to sit in on a Natural History Photography course run by Adrian Davies, a vice principal of an Arts College in south-east England and now an author of several books on digital photography. It was the first year Adrian had taught digital photography during the course. He'd been a very early user of digital gear back when it came in one or even two suitcases. On the course he was using a professional Kodak camera from their DCS series converted from a Nikon SLR.

I on the other had was using a borrowed Nikon Coolpix 800, 2.1 Mp with a 2x zoom lens. Up until then I'd used medium format cameras starting with a Voigtlander Bessa 1, a folding rollfilm camera, 8 on 120 which I'd bought in 1971. I also had, an indeed still have, a Mamiya Press rangefinder and a Mamiya 330f TLR. For 35mm work I had a Leica M3.

Passers by looked on with some degree of amusement as I used this little plastic box perched on a sturdy tripod. However when I saw my images appear on a projector screen that evening in the classroom with Adrian using Photoshop I was blown away. All I could utter when I saw the levels or curves screen with its sub divisions was "Ansel Adams Zone System". Perhaps not strictly true but I thought it to be a good analogy. My best photograph was of plants on a wet rocky face with a rivulet of water running down it. Adrian was lamenting not noticing the composition when we were out in the field. The rest is history.

Barrie
 
Game changer cameras for me were the Nikon D3/D700 and D800 (my least favorite game changer), Olympus E-M5 mark I and the Sony A7III. The D3/D700 broke the high ISO barrier, the D800 broke the high megapixel barrier, the E-M5 mark I was the first camera to showcase the advantages of mirrorless and the Sony A7 III to me is like a cumulation of all the tech prior placed in one package. I guess the A7R III and A9 could be considered game changers as well, but I didn't buy those bodies! :D
 
Game-changer for me was the E-P1 - my first serious digital camera (probably the first bit of consumer electronics I'd spent more than a grand on too). Loved it to bits and always tempted to get another E-P1 or E-P2 to replace my dead one.
Second would be the D700 - purchased used seven years after it came out - beast of a camera compared to my m43 stuff but the RAW files were/are still lovely and made me appreciate that the technical aspect of a camera outstriped my ability as a photographer long long ago.
 
Most likely mine was a Sony NEX-5R. After I switched from film, I had a series of P&S cameras, beginning with a Sony Mavica that stored 640 x 480 images on a 1.44 floppy. I was looking for something that would handle astrophotography images, and my readings led me to the Sony NEX line. The 5R was budget-friendly and I got a lot of nice images with that camera. Due to the short registration distance, almost any brand of legacy glass could be adapted, which led to a serious LBA affliction, but that's for another post!
 
mike3996 said:
Flash photography might be another gamechanger but that's also into the future. 🔮
Click to expand...

Flash would definitely have to be it for me. Understanding the impact it can have in contribution to better photos was a big step. Growing up with harsh direct flash I always felt that natural light was the only way to go. Once you learn bounce and off camera flash, you open up many opportunities to improve your images.
 

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