yesterday, today

An unexpected weekend for me, photographically.

For Xmas 2008 I bought myself a Canon Rebel Xsi, my first DSLR. I was thrilled with the clarity of the first shots I took, but somehow over the course of months I didn't find I was taking that many pictures I really liked. I kept pushing at it, figuring that I had to let the camera become more of an accustomed and instinctual tool for me.

I suppose it was spring 2009 when I realized it just wasn't happening. I picked up my older camera, a so-called "prosumer" model by Panasonic, the Lumix DMC-FZ18, and bam bam bam took more shots in a day that I liked than I had in the six months before.

My life has a certain material elasticity - it was not a disaster for me to have spent $600 on the Canon, which I thought I'd never use again, but it wasn't a negligible matter either. I comforted myself with the thought that I never would have known for sure that a DSLR wasn't for me until I had one in my possession, and wondering about it would have bugged me. Taking pix is a large part of my sanity maintenance regime, so the overall experience was worth it, esp if I could sell the Canon.

I handed the camera off to my friend Chris, to try out and if he liked it, buy. For his own reasons he didn't take to it, and he returned it to me this past Saturday. Since learning he wasn't going to buy it I had been mildly obsessed with selling it and using the proceeds to buy an even higher-end Lumix (I love the whole line, totally recommend it to anyone who wants the best quality pix without the weight and complexity of a DSLR). But having the Canon back, I wanted to handle it one last time before putting it on the block.

I was surprised at how right, instantly, it felt in my hand. Not only was every control sensibly placed (sometimes, cleverly, placed twice), but I knew exactly where each one was - a tribute not to my memory but to what I knew even the first time round was some smart design.

So I began snapping pix around the house. And again, I loved the clarity. And the depth of field. The Lumix, as much as I grok the shots it takes, is a super-high-end point-and-shoot. Getting everything so you know you get what you want is the priority designed in. You can set the controls to compensate, but you're not working with what the cam does best. But it was easy to adjust, to flip back and forth, with the Canon.

And then I had my epiphany, which had to have been one of the stupidest epiphanies any photographer has ever had about photography. It wasn't the Canon that was at fault. It was the lens that came with it. The Lumix 12X optical lens, fixed to the camera, zooms from close-up to telephoto. I'd gotten used to zapping right in. The lens that came with the Canon was perfectly fine but designed for a shorter range. I needed a different freaking lens, that was all.

I took the Canon for a walk around the neighborhood, not shooting for art, but to take fast shots that would match up with the kind of thing that usually turns me on - grids, scraps and chaos, natural light mixed with artificial. I covered a route much like one I had taken recently with the Lumix, trying to recreate the conditions under which I'd taken a pic with a tree that knocked me out in the center, but with crazy distorted buildings teetering in at the sides.

Comparing the shots I wanted to go for with the shots the cam - I should say, the lens - could take, I confirmed my stupid epiphany.

I changed over from obsessively comparing cameras at dpreview.com to obsessively comparing Canon-compatible lenses. And yesterday I bought myself an 18-135mm Canon zoom lens. Again, duh, any photog should have put this together ages ago. But every process has its tempo, I suppose.

I haven't had a chance to try it outside the apartment yet. But I did take one pic with the old lens on Saturday that I really liked, and it's posted under "today," below. Some comment on that pic, above.