Photography
I first used a digital camera when I was very little for my first school camp. It was a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W110, a basic but functional point-and-shoot camera which was more than enough for 8-year-old me to play around with. Somewhere along the way I was allowed to use my dad’s much more capable point-and-shoot camera, a Sony Cyber-shot RX100 III, which I shot about 4,000 photos with.
In 2023, I watched Insomniacs After School, the anime adaptation of the manga which would soon become my favourite manga of all time. The main character, Nakami Ganta, uses a Canon 5D Mark IV. The manga inspired me to learn the basics of photography and post-processing. I practiced with the RX100, and I took a star trail composite astrophoto at my year 9 camp, inspired by Ganta at Mitsukejima in episode 11.
I was proud of myself for achieving this, so I began to take photography a little more seriously. I wanted to take macro and telephoto pictures, as well as astrophotography through attaching the body directly to a telescope. I also started to notice some annoying artifacts which were especially visible when taking photos of bright things, like the sky. And so I eventually grew out of the RX100, wanting a proper DSLR.
My dad gave me his Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi) with a Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens. He said he stopped using the camera because it “only worked intermittently”. Some quick testing showed that the camera would produce an Err99 message, but only when the aperture was set to the non-widest f-stop. Further research showed that issues with aperture are common with this lens, and testing another lens at a camera store confirmed that it wasn’t an issue with the body.
I haven’t attemped to replace the aperture flex cable in the lens, although I plan to try soon.
I bought a Canon EOS 700D (Digital Rebel T5i) along with some lenses:
- EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM
- EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM
- EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM
- EF 50mm f/1.8 II