On collecting and shooting the "Imperfect" cameras

As anyone who's read my blog knows, I collect cameras. A lot of times these cameras are ones that are old and outdated or just ones that are overlooked or tons of them are on the used market for people who upgraded for "better" cameras (like my Nikon D610).

However, a good portion of my cameras are not in "perfect" shape by far.  A few have various liveable flaws and still take great photos, and I often got these for half the price of what a "perfect" condition camera would sell for (except for the a99 but that one is a story of itself that I covered in my review of it two years ago.)

Taking in cameras that are "as is" or "flawed" is always going to be a gamble.  You might get one that is totally inoperative IE it flashes an error on the screen, shuts itself off, or something like the shutter is jammed. Or you might get one that works for everything but one small feature that is often liveable without having or having to use a "workaround".

Recently I picked up a Canon 90D, one of the last DSLRs Canon ever made for half of what they sell for normally (they are still pretty modern and thus fetch a high price) because it has a broken function button and grips that are expanding off the camera likely because it was left in a hot car at some point in its life.  

The shutter count is less then half of its life expectancy (which is never an absolute there are 100k shutter rated cameras out there with half a mil to almost a mil shutter actuation out there) so for its "lifespan" it still has a ways to go even if the previous owner may have been a little rough on it physically. For under $400 its a heck of a deal for an otherwise amazing camera. 

Another good example of this which is probably my best deal I've ever gotten was a Canon Rebel T6i for $100.  Canon Rebels are still popular as they are small and easy to use and the newer models (T6i-T8i) still sell for $250-500 used as they have their cult following.  

The issue?  The orientation switch is broken so if you flip out the screen and then close it against the body it's updside down.  It still works folded out in the correct orientation and closed inwards so that the screen is "off" just fine.  Otherwise the buttons on the camera are brand new and the camera itself had less then 20,000 shutter fires.

I have a number of other "imperfect" cameras: a Sony a99 with a broken IBIS unit (which flashes a message that needs to be cleared constantly) but the images it takes are still just as good as any other Sony a99 as long as you aren't in really low light situations.  

Another camera with a broken IBIS is an Olympus Pen E-PL6 that I thought about returning but I haven't been able to tell any difference in the photos I take with it. Its mostly used for candid street shots as its a tiny mirrorless camera with a tilt screen making it a hip-shot wonder cam. 

There will be more of the Olympus Pen EPL-6 soon as its my next month's challenge cam, and a definite improvement from what I stuck to this month.

In summary the point of this post is someone's e-waste is another user's treasure.  A flaw or defect which might be too much for one photographer may be a perfect fit for someone on a tighter budget or like me looks for the best bargins to feed his camera collecting hobby.

Used cameras have character, and Imperfect cameras have even more. We're in the golden age for used camera equipment and sadly a lot of hobbyists just pass it right by to go out and buy the newest Sony A7 brand new with several thousand dollar lenses when they'd likely be just as happy with say a used first generation Sony A7 and used lenses instead.

Photography doesn't have to be a $5-10k investment.  The only reason it is for me is because I can't stop adopting all these misfit cameras no one wants and if you add up the value of my entire collection, yeah we are talking several grand worth of investment minimum.  Most individual lenses and cameras however I've spent no more then $400 a piece for.

Maybe I'm the weird one that would rather have my menagerie of "not perfect" or "not the best" cameras then one "of the newest and best" and two lenses.  This just be how I roll and I'm helping keep used camera stores in business.

New Year, New Challenges: Back to Basics for 2025

After taking nearly 65,000 photos in one year (boy I am glad that is not all on ONE camera x.x) I think its time to try and tone things back for 2025, and try something new. There will be no more daily photo "requirement"  but I will still enjoy going out and doing photo walks when I can as the weather is cooperative; it is my primary source of exercise and keeping active and not sitting at a computer all day (since that is what I do for my day-job).

The challenge I am going to do to try and get back to the basics of photography this year will be to have a daily carry camera that changes every month which is shot in either JPEG or RAW+JPEG to post up photos SOOC without any kind of Edits in POST. 

I will also be using cameras that are newer purchases or trades and I haven't fully reviewed here yet. I'll "pretend" I don't have this huge library of lenses to go with these cameras and if the camera has interchangeable lenses, I will only have one lens attached for that "Daily Carry" I can just keep in the car assembled, grab and shoot.

For those who followed my 52 camera challenge in 2023 or my daily photos on my personal social medias this year; you would have noticed that almost all of the photos, yes even those taken with an absolute rubbish camera like the GE 1400, were doctored up in POST.  

I was aiming to get the best photo I could get from the equipment I had at my disposal and it did teach me one thing: with today's Lightroom/Photoshop/Photo Editor of choice you can indeed polish a turd quite easily even if the camera does not support RAW (Raw just lets you do more with it and push further but these days yes you can polish a JPG from a digicam into something respectable with not much effort).

Looking back at a lot of my camera  reviews a lot of the sample photos look very similar in quality with only subtile differences because whether it was a DSLR from 15 years ago or a Mirrorless body that's modern and still being made (or recently discontinued) I was putting this extra effort into making the photo look like what I thought it should look like after it was pulled off the camera.  Adjusting exposure, white balance, contrast, sharpening and of course the biggest sin: becoming super pixel peepy and removing as much noise as I possibly could.

As a dedicated hobbyist photographer I do not "take photos" in the same way as the "average person" does if the average person was armed with a dedicated camera and not just their Phone which makes all these crazy corrections to the photo for them automagically.  

When shooting RAW I often try to go for as Neutral of a shot as I can.  Have a nice flat curve, even exposure and not too vibrant of colors because I can just bump them up in POST.  This mindset changes of course when you are either stuck with, or shoot by choice in JPEG.

Cellphones aren't the first to have offered "filters" and effects inside the device.  Digital Cameras were.  Some of these such as Fuji's "Film Simulation" modes are still quite popular for people seeking to just point, click and post.  

Up to this point filters/creative modes/etc are something I've been fully ignoring because they are all "consumer features" normally.  Part of the challenge will be using some of these filters and see what they can do.   

So if you see me post up a black and white photo for example during this challenge; that wasn't me editing it in post but using a setting/profile in the camera that is adjusting the image as it is being shot and written to the memory card.

This is not to say I won't use my "best gear and edit photos" during the year at all; quite the contrary.  I will still be shooting raw and slapping things around Lightroom when out doing more serious nature photography walks or at a Photography Club outing or event where I DO want to push my gear and get the best photos I can from it.

But I think it would be neat to take a few moments to take a step back and see what these cameras can do on their own without going overboard on editing just like the average person who takes photos for fun would do with it.  

Is "Fuji Magic" actually a thing (because there IS a Fuji mirrorless camera in this challenge, I finally got one!) and does a $1400 modern Full Frame mirrorless camera with a $1000 lens actually take that more impressive of a photo without taking advantage of its much better Dynamic range in a POST editor then say a digicam I payed less then $20 for out of the box?  

It will be interesting to find out.  I will be doing a review at the end of the month of the camera I used coming purely from the perspective of the shooting experience and what the photos look like straight out of the camera. 

During these reviews of the "daily carry" for the previous month I will be more critical on things that I normally would not care as much about such as "how good is the camera at Auto White Balance" which otherwise may not be a dealbreaker for me, but would be night and day for someone who just wants to upload and post the photos they took straight off the memory card which again, is the majority of people who go out and do casual photography.

The only editing I will allow myself is rotating and re-sizing the photo if necessary; since a 24mp image is quite large for posting on social media.  

This "no edit in Post" otherwise rule also means I can't crop for these photos which is another reason I am still going to "Cheat" when it comes to my regular Wildlife photography as I know I'm not going to get a good photo of like a Bald Eagle without having my longest lens on and then cropping heavily in post so the subject better fills the frame instead of just being a little speck in the center.

Getting good photos for this challenge will rely soley on trying things with the camera itself and culling, IE there are going to be a lot of terrible photos from this experiment I'll likely just delete.  You're only going to see the ones where the camera actually did its job and didn't fuck up :).

Here's a sneak peak from some SOOC images I took with my first challenge camera for 2025 this week.  Which camera is it? Well you'll have to wait till the end of the month to find that one out.