Me And My Mountain

I thought that it would be a good idea to show you what it’s like to be on The Sandias rather than just show you the mountain range from a distance.

I made this picture in late Autumn. It was so cold up there that I had to wear gloves until I actually was shooting. It took all of about five minutes for my hands started to feel — or not — numb. Because I have carpel tunnel syndrome in my left hand, it got number quicker.

That was no good, so I started making my way down the mountain fairly quickly. I kept working along the way down because I’m me.

If you notice, this picture is a bit squarer than most horizontal photographs. I used a Canon G-9. It’s a little pocket camera that I dearly loved. It is not showing off its best attributes with this picture. I used it so much that eventually the shutter mechanism broke. It wasn’t worth fixing so I bought another one, but it was used. Eventually, that one crashed too. I think they are good for about 75,000 actuations because it really is sort of a bridge camera. It has a built in zoom lens.

I may buy another one, or two, or three, from Ebay. Why so many? They cost anywhere from $75 to $140. Why not buy a bunch of cameras?

The problem with them are that they are 12 megapixel cameras. I believe that the best cameras for me are those that make around a 24 megapixel digital file. Of course there are mega cameras that make huge megapixel files. But, I don’t need that.

That’s another thing that I talk about, and always falls on deaf ears. Buy the gear you need, not the gear you want. Sure, it might be fun to have 60 megapixel camera, but what happens downstream? More RAM, better video card, bigger mass storage. Really, a new computer.

And, in the field. Better and faster cards. And, better and more expensive lenses. If you’ve got a huge sensor and you want the highest resolution you need the newest and best glass. They are usually huge compared to most mirrorless lenses. For me, that defeats the entire reason from moving to mirrorless from DSLRs.

After all, lighter and smaller is better.

That’s Saturday folks.