Today a friend asked me “What did you do before you had all this amazing gear?” This question prompted me to open up my Lightroom catalog and take a look. It opened in the year 2012. My only photos from this year were those from my first trip to Hong Kong with Claire. Hong Kong is a place that is very dear to me (and Claire) and is a city I have visited many times. The majority of my pictures back then were taken with a Canon EOS350D or a little Canon IXUS 130 point and shoot. The 350D was seven years old at this point, and The IXUS was two years old. Neither were at the forefront of technology, but they were all I had. I was shooting JPEG only as I was still intimidated by RAW and I wasn’t as educated about photography as I am today.
Most of the pictures I found were nothing exceptional, just typical family snapshots that are of no significance to anyone else. There were, however, a few that stood out to me, so I added a custom preset to the files, adjusted some exposure, and this was the result.
I am genuinely happy with these images, and I have discovered some shots which were previously forgotten. What has amazed me more is that I made these pictures on cameras which were, at the time, obsolete. While I love my current Fujifilm gear more than anyone should probably love anything that doesn’t have a heartbeat, revisiting these old photos has reinforced the fact that you don’t have to have the latest, greatest, most expensive gear to take images of which you can be proud. The best camera really is the one that you have with you.
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