Hi everyone, I am currently living and working in China. Around 2009, I started buying and selling, and buying and selling lower-end DSLR gear from Canon and/or Nikon. The more I read on the net, the more I needed that extra feature, and I had G.A.S. really bad. In the winter of 2009, I got really drunk one night with all of my gear in a backpack strapped to my back, and left a bar around 4am, though I had done about 6 shots in a row right before I left. I left alone, and stumbled out into the street. I woke up about 30 minutes by subway from where I was the night before, at about 9am, on the stoop of a building I had never visited before. This was Seoul, South Korea, and I am a white guy from northern Canada. I looked around, groggy, completely out of it, and there was my bag, sitting between my legs in front of me. Phew! I thought. It was time to sort out how I got where I was, and to find my friends again. That's when the realization hit me. I picked up my bag, but it was completely gutted. It was even zipped closed, but when I opened it, I found nothing inside. There was a Nikon D60, an 18-200 Nikon lens, a 50/1.8, a 32GB iPod touch, a $500 Canon megazoom camera, my favorite sport coat.. all of it, gone.
About 2 months later however, my luck was about to change. Another drunken night out with friends had me alone, but this time, when I realized where I was, I was sitting at a blackjack table, and I was playing three 500 dollar hands. There was a small crowd of people around me, and I was panicking! I had no idea how I got there, but I had more than $8,000 in chips stacked up, which was odd, because I had only $300 to my name before the night started. Anyways, as anybody would do, when presented a 3 from the dealer, I went with it. I had two 9's in the first hand, 11 in the second, and 18 in the third hand. I split the nines, got something like 17 and 18 I think when I split them, and doubled on 11, and got the 10. So, I had $2,500 on the table, and I was still reeling about how I got to where I was. Thankfully, the dealer busted, and after a couple of hours of back and forth, and about 20 cups of green tea and 10 trips to the bathroom between deck shuffles, I busted out of there too, up $15,000. 17-inch macbook pro, new motorcycle, and new gear, as well as a couple of much needed vacations from the ESL world I had submerged myself in while living in Seoul were in order.
I bought some Canon gear at the time, and did some upgrading to the body, and lenses over the next year or so, and then I was introduced to the M/43 cameras from Olympus. Well, I didn't realize it then, but I had found my perfect camera format. Lightweight, good image quality, and some flexibility with, and ease of use with, manual glass. I moved to China at the beginning of 2012, only to sell all of my M/43 stuff thinking that a switch back to Nikon would improve my overall image quality. Up until that point, I had the notion that photos shouldn't be altered in any way, I posted loads of photos on FB and elsewhere, proudly touting that I didn't do anything to them in post. Well, after watching some videos by Jared on YouTube, and then finding TNG, I realized that photo-editing is an essential part of the process. So, I am definitely years behind in that department, but I have had experience with no less than 20 cameras, and countless lenses, and I have gone backwards to the days of film, and also back to Olympus.
Cameras
1) Olympus OM-2S 2) Olympus OM-2 3) Olympus OMD-EM5
Digital Lenses
1) 14/2.5 2) 20/1.7 3) 12-50 3.5-6.3
Manual Lenses
1) 24/2.8 2) 35-70/4 3) 50/1.4 4) 135/2.8 5) 200/4
Also in the picture is a Tokina doubler for the manual lenses, the OM-43 adapter, an FL-300R flash, my battery pouch, and some various films ranging from 200-3200 speeds. The bag is a lowepro, it's the runner 300AW I believe.
I primarily enjoy shooting people. I have had fast focusing lenses in the past for the OMD like the 12/2 and the 25/1.4, but when I got the itch to go to film, I ditched these lenses for the 14 and the 20, and used the money to buy most of the film stuff I have. I didn't lose that much in IQ, but I did lose some speed by going to the 20. But, when shooting film, you need more time anyways, and I think it's taught me to be more patient, and think more about composition. The longer lenses have also been fun in the crowded streets of a small suburb of Shanghai, where I currently live. Putting a 135, or a 200 on the digital OM makes for a very long reach, and I have captured some pretty nice moments, all without disturbing the people who are my subjects. The bokeh from these lenses has also been a nice surprise. I rarely shoot other types of photography, but I think in 2013, I am going to buy a crude lighting set up with a couple of umbrellas, and bigger flash, and see if I can get some volunteers for some studio-style stuff, or take the equipment to the street like TNG has done in so many of his great videos. I started a FB group a little over a year ago while living in Korea, and we have over 140 members now where we share photos, ideas, try to organize photo walks, and that sort of thing. You can find it at:
www.facebook.com/hobbyphotographers
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