I Said I Would Not Buy a New Camera, But I Did
I do not know why I pulled the camera buying trigger when I did. I guess you could say there were signs. I find I get tired more quickly than ever when I am shooting in Nashville. In all fairness, I might walk more than 7 miles in a day that I go into the city. I swear, Nashville is located in a valley. No matter whether I park in Public Square Parking or Music City Parking, which are at opposite ends and several blocks off of Broadway, walking back to my car is an uphill battle. My Olympus, which is a relatively small camera, feels like such a burden around my neck. Once I decide I need a smaller, lighter camera, history shows that I act fast. I made snap decision to go from a DSLR to a Mirrorless 4/3rds. I suppose the snap decision to go to a Ricoh GR 3 is consistent. I wonder if one day I will decide to use my mobile device camera and never look back.
Sometimes I feel like sitting down, also.
I do not think I am particularly susceptible to shopping for the purpose of feeling feel better. However, I decided to buy the camera on 9/10 from Amazon. It was going to be delivered the next day on 9/11. Under any circumstances, 9/11 is a day to wish to feel better for most Americans. Our family has a little extra sorrow because we lost Doug, husband and father, on that day 14 years ago. I am guessing that had something to do with the decision to buy.
Getting a new camera is not without accompanying angst. Let me tell you, the change from a DSLR to a Mirrorless 4/3rds was unbelievably difficult for me. I was absolutely was not used to using menus to make the myriad decisions that had to be made. I had never programmed buttons. I was not used to seeing the scene I was shooting on a screen, instead of live as in a DSLR. I learned a lot about photography as I had to make those choices. For example, the decision of choosing AE Lock or AF Lock or AE + AF Lock was an idea I had to come at multiple times.
I am really pleased when musicians interact with people outside of their honky tonk. This happens most often at the Lucky Bastard.
Learning about the Ricoh has been an entirely different experience. I searched for a uTube video about how to set up the camera. I found two, picked the best one for me and an hour or so later the initial set up was completed. Really, a lot of that time was learning how to use uTube videos. Pro tip: stop the video immediately when the screen shot of the choice to make is shown. You will need time to understand and find that choice in the camera menu. At least, I needed that time.
I have seen my share of User Manuals. The Ricoh GR 3 manual is a work of art. Imagine, a manual that is user friendly. I know, hard to imagine. The team that developed it should be the most sought after team in the world in that workspace. Or, I am getting better at using user manuals, which seems highly unlikely. I was able to use the manual to do all of the mop up work of changing some settings to better reflect my needs.
I have been lurking around parking lots because of a challenge in the Photo Salon that I belong to.
I went out for a test drive, so to speak, on Sunday afternoon. In the spirit of simplifying my life, I used a custom setting of a 1.5 meter fixed focus, a manual setting of 1/400 sec. shutter speed and f/8 aperture. I have never been happy with Auto ISO, but I went full on Auto ISO. I can learn to love it. It was, in fact, super simple. I took any picture I wanted to take. Some pictures were a little darker than I am accustomed to, but post processing can largely solve that problem.
The battery life is not in the same league as the battery life of my Olympus. I need to watch the battery symbol on the shooting screen. Since there are various choices between shooting screens and what information they convey, I had to go back to the drawing board on configuring them and figuring out how to use them.
This picture will take its place in the project, The Gang is All Here.
All told, I think I made a good decision to buy the Ricoh. I am looking forward to always having my camera with me. I am looking forward to slightly bigger image file sizes. I am looking forward to paring down my decision making by setting a fixed focus, shutter speed and aperture and let Auto ISO make up the difference. It will be interesting to see if I take my Olympus on international trips. My travel photography needs vary from my street photography needs. If there are going to be birds, I guarantee you the Olympus goes.