What Camera Should I Use?

In my younger days, during the analog photography era, I was absolutely obsessed with cameras. I was so infatuated that I would even sleep holding them. Starting with my mother's Fujica Instamatic, I moved on to the Canon F-1 (the pinnacle of Canon's lineup at the time), then Nikon, Hasselblad, and eventually even bought and used a Sinar 4x5 large format camera.

While I was using the F-1, my girlfriend at the time bought a Leica. After taking a few shots with it, I was astonished by the distinct sharpness and feel it delivered within the 35mm format realm. Driven by a quest for even greater sharpness, I purchased a Hasselblad, a medium format camera with a larger film plane. Ultimately, that sheer obsession with sharpness led me to buy the Sinar 4x5. My eyes were exceptionally good back then. Eventually, however, I settled on the Hasselblad for the sake of convenience. Exposing even a single sheet of 4x5 film was simply too cumbersome.

Hasselblads were expensive back then, and they are even more expensive now. They have released a new lineup that is much easier to use, but the prices remain astronomical. Other camera companies are desperately trying to catch up to Hasselblad's prestige, armed with new technologies. I imagine the executives at Hasselblad are dealing with quite a headache over this.

What is photography? It is an image. Camera company executives are doing their utmost to package and present a 'good image' of themselves, much like a beautiful photograph, to seduce consumers into buying their products.

There are simply too many cameras on the market, all vying for attention and begging to be bought. Unless you are a camera fanatic who claims to be an expert and knows everything best, finding the right camera for yourself is a highly confusing endeavor.

Ultimately, a camera is merely a tool for your expression. As long as you can completely control it, what you shoot with doesn't really matter.

Criteria for Selection

• If money is no object: Buy a Leica to experience its unique feel and witness their 'world of vision' firsthand. There is significance in how you start.
• If you are on a budget: This is where things start to get confusing. Every camera is packed with a mix of various features that you may or may not prefer, or may or may not even understand. Even a camera under a thousand dollars is more than sufficient.

I have no interest in examining all these new cameras one by one, so I cannot recommend the perfect camera for you. So, in the end, it all comes down to your budget. Truthfully, all cameras are more or less the same. What matters most is what you do after the camera has done its job. The reason I recommend Leica is because, although it was a long time ago, I used one myself, and it provided a moment of awakening that broadened my vision at the time. And of course, looking strictly at the camera itself, my ultimate camera is undeniably the Hasselblad.

My Hasselblad is likely still somewhere in the US, though I don't know exactly where. It has been far too long since I left the States. Besides, it's a film camera, so I'm not exactly looking for it. I have now settled into a 100% digital environment, and I haven't the slightest desire to ever return to the darkroom.

What I Look For in a Camera Now

• Lightweight compactness
• Enough megapixels to print at 16x20 inches
• A zoom range around 28mm-200mm
• Accurate Autofocus (AF)

Lugging around a heavy camera means enduring neck pain that, at my age, is completely unnecessary.

Android phone cameras, by my standards, simply aren't sharp enough. I don't understand why they still haven't resolved that issue. We live in a world where humans have gone to the moon and AI is made to think like a person, yet they can't seem to make one small camera that fulfills this minor wish of mine. I can only assume it's not a matter of technology, but rather an issue of money and timing.

As with everything in the world, this is entirely your own choice, no one else's.