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| My Vivitar ViviCam 9114 |
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| My Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom |
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| My Praktica Sport Record |
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| My Samsung AF-333 |
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| My Samsung C 3050 mobile phone |
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| My Praktica MTL 3 SLR |
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| My Alba compact Digital Camcorder |
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| My Alba compact Digital Camcorder |
Stepping way back in time to 1985 when I turned 18 years old, suddenly I could get credit so I got hold of a mail-order catalogue and purchased a few things. Amongst these was my choice of camera at the time; I can't remember exactly what the model was but I do remember it was 'Praktica', a reputable camera manufacturer with a good reputation.
My new camera was a 35mm compact. It had a few 'advanced' features such as optional 'data-back' (this printed the date and/or time on the finished photograph - useful sometimes but a pain in the neck at other times), auto-focus (these days standard in almost all cameras), some zoom, auto-wind and rewind etc. etc. This fell somewhere near the top of the scale of mid-range compact cameras at the time. To give you an idea, I paid over seventy quid (£70+) for this camera; considering that this was some 28 years ago over 70 notes was quite a price to pay (as an educated guess, probably the equivalent of between £130 and £200 by today's standards).
I then went on to spend a fortune on batteries (it ran batteries out at breakneck pace), 35mm camera film and developing costs. Over the following years I must have taken over 500 photographs with my 'Praktica' - I recall lending it to a friend to use at my wedding some 5 years after I purchased it (he was the official photographer at my wedding as my new wife and I couldn't afford to hire a professional). This camera lasted some years after that but finally gave up around the mid-to-late-nineties; hasten to add I'd had well over my seventy plus quids worth out of it.
Now stashed away at my home in Sutton-in-Ashfield there are over 500 photographs that were taken with my good old 'Praktica' compact 35mm camera - may it rest in peace.
This sparked my interest in taking photos and during that period I did buy a few other cameras to try out - including a specialised panoramic camera (it lasted about a year before it packed up - never mind, it was only a cheap one so I suppose that was to be expected) - but none of them could match the photo quality I was getting from the 'Praktica'.
As time progressed and technology advanced of course cameras got less-expensive and provided good quality, then along came digital. For a few years I didn't even have a proper camera and took all my photos with the digital camera built into my mobile phone. Fast-forward to August 2011 when I first began to write about my '
Trail Trekking' exploits and posting my writings to my blog site - spare you the details but feel free to check out the site
here, in fact please do - this was just two years ago, and for a site that is focused in a small local area it has seen nearly 38,000 visitors so far - not bad for a local effort by a little-grey-haired bloke who started off writing about walking his dog - enough of the sales pitch, back to business.
The point is that 'Trail Trekking' provided an outlet for as many photos as I could possibly take, in fact the site needs photography to give it its unique character. However, the only camera I had when I first took up my 'Trail Trekking' challenge was the 2 megapixel camera built into my 'Samsung D600' mobile phone, so my earliest 'Trail Trekking' photographs were all taken with this. I needed a proper camera but due to finance I was forced to make do with the one on the mobile phone. Then along came Christmas 2011 and I was delighted to receive a 9 megapixel 'Vivitar' digital compact camera as a gift from a good friend of mine. Excellent! I now had the kit I needed, or so I thought at the time.
To be fair my new 'Vivitar ViviCam 9114' served me well for some time and still does - yes I've still got it and use it regularly. However, some of my 'Trail Trekking' writings needed a third party editor so I got in touch with my old friend '
Tom Bates' who used to write and edit for Derbyshire's 'Reflections' magazine. Tom is also a published writer and is responsible for several books released onto the market (I've also now released three books so far but this is irrelevant to this blog post, you can find out more on the 'about me' page). Being a lover of the countryside like myself Tom is also keen on hobby photography and gave me a 7 megapixel 'Nikon' compact camera that he was retiring after replacing it with a better kit. This had quite a good zoom facility built into it and I found the zoom most useful when I was out 'Trail Trekking' as although the Vivitar has a zoom facility a lot of photo quality is lost when using the zoom (I used to get a better zoom quality from the 'Samsung D600' mobile phone); the 'Nikon' retained its photo quality in zoom mode.
Sadly the 'Nikon' lasted for about 4 months before it packed up altogether, but to be fair Tom had had it for many years and it was the camera he had used for all the photography in his publications so it had served him well.
By the way I still have this 'Nikon' camera although it doesn't work anymore.
Having a good zoom facility for a while and then losing it left me feeling as if there was something important missing from my kit so I needed another good zoom camera. Scouring through 'ebay' found me purchasing a 2.1 megapixel 'Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom', OK it is a bit dated but still works well and is now my #1 camera and the one I use the most. It provides 10x optical zoom and a massive 27x digital zoom (more powerful than some binoculars). Excellent!
Nearly done now but it doesn't quite end there.
A while ago I was walking the first stretch of the 'Cuckoo Way' (also known as the 'Chesterfield Canal') with a walking friend and our dogs. We'd passed by a pair of mute swans about 5 minutes previously when one took flight and flew by us just a few yards away; I wanted a shot of the swan in flight but by the time I'd got the digital camera ready and it had focused the shot was gone. The problem with most reasonably priced digital cameras is that they don't take the shot instantly, there's a second or two delay - not quick enough - unless they are already set up to do so. I needed another 35mm film camera so I could get instant shots, they take the picture the instant you press the shutter button, with no need to set them up first.
A visit to a charity shop in Mansfield found me purchasing two second-hand 35mm film cameras for just 3 quid (£3) each; absolute bargain, so even if they didn't work I'd not lost much. One is a 'Praktica Sport Record' ('Praktica' - I suppose I had to really going on my much earlier experience with a 'Praktica' film camera), the other is a 'Samsung AF-333' (of course another reputable camera manufacturer). They both work lovely and never give me any trouble.
My most recent addition to my photo kit is an ancient (bulky and heavy, weighs about the same as a brick) 'Praktica' (there's that excellent German camera manufacturer again) 'MTL 3' given to me by a frind who no longer has any use for it (Thanks Colin!). This is my first foray into SLR photography and I am currently learning how to use it, whilst trying to get to grips with all its settings. Of course I am looking for a few reasonably priced lenses (such as zoom) and filters for this baby.
On a final note, although my 'Vivitar' is pretty good at shooting videos I do have also a 3 megapixels 'Alba' compact digital camcorder that I use for video shoots rather than using the 'Vivitar'; it takes crap photos but for the price it's pretty good at vids. I am on the look out for a reasonably priced digital SLR at some point to add to my ever-expanding kit.
Plus if for some reason I'm out without any of my cameras (which doesn't happen very often) and a decent photo opportunity appears I still have the built-in camera on my 'Samsung C3050' mobile phone which goes everywhere with me.
Of course, as I'm sure you will realise in time, my photography hobby now goes much further than just 'Trail Trekking' and I often go out solely for the purpose of taking photos. My main subjects at present are flowers and historical buildings.
Wow, that was exhausting!
Now time to get on with showing off some photos.
Thanks folks!
