How it all began
Summer 2017: I had my first job, earned a little money and wanted to go on my first big trip in 9 years. I wasn’t familiar with cameras at the time. I therefore chose something simple that could be easily stowed in my luggage. After a lot of research, I chose the Sony RX100 I. A small compact camera that was perfectly adequate for my needs at the time.
In Greece as well as in other countries such as the Czech Republic, Portugal and Austria, I tried them out for potentially all motifs. I tested night photography, architecture, landscape, etc. However, I quickly realised that my photos somehow didn’t look like those of real photographers. The pictures weren’t necessarily bad. They were perfect for a ‘quick snapshot’ and definitely enough of a souvenir. But evening shots looked noisy, landscapes looked like they had been photographed from too small an angle, I couldn’t even capture large buildings and the zoom was nowhere near enough for close-ups of animals. And finally, one thing that I have only now come to appreciate was almost completely missing; the possibility of cropping or creating blurred foregrounds or backgrounds (bokeh).
In Greece as well as in other countries such as the Czech Republic, Portugal and Austria, I tried them out for potentially all motifs. I tested night photography, architecture, landscape, etc. However, I quickly realised that my photos somehow didn’t look like those of real photographers. The pictures weren’t necessarily bad. They were perfect for a ‘quick snapshot’ and definitely enough of a souvenir. But evening shots looked noisy, landscapes looked like they had been photographed from too small an angle, I couldn’t even capture large buildings and the zoom was nowhere near enough for close-ups of animals. And finally, one thing that I have only now come to appreciate was almost completely missing; the possibility of cropping or creating blurred foregrounds or backgrounds (bokeh).
Since the beginning of 2020, however, I have now switched to two other cameras. Firstly, I didn’t like the low-light properties of the D7500 (evening shots, dark rooms, etc.). The D7500 wasn’t suitable for that. When it came to animals or fast movements, the number of metering fields or the accuracy of the camera’s focus was often not always guaranteed or I missed moments of movement because the internal memory was full. The continuous shooting speed also left something to be desired. Especially when shooting birds, whale watching and observing insects, you quickly realise that the camera has to work quickly to freeze special moments.
This meant that two cameras were needed for two fundamentally different requirements. One for wide-angle shots and low light conditions and one for extremely fast situations. So I shot a lot with the D500 and the D750!
And just as I have chosen cameras for certain applications, my lenses have naturally also changed.
Concluding remark
I’ve been making a lot of time for photography since 2020. Before that, I only had the opportunity to do so very rarely or irregularly. Thanks to my work at the Alfred Wegener Institute, the opportunities have become more diverse and more intense again.
Photography is an extremely time-consuming job and taking photos alone is not the end of the work. After that comes selecting successful photos, sorting them in the database, editing the photos, uploading them and offering them on various websites or platforms. As there are many photographers and new photos are constantly being created, an outsider might get the impression that a photo is created out of nothing and is produced quickly. I can say from my experience that this is definitely not the case! Unfortunately, the use of AI is increasingly leading to a dilution of the market and the transition between elaborate, realistic photography and artificially generated images is becoming blurred. I only use AI to remove noise. I don’t use it to change image content.
