My 3 Favorite Cameras Of The Decade
Herewith, by way of a 3–2–1 countdown, a lonely, image-gathering wanderer’s notes on the humanist machines that, well, give life meaning by facilitating understanding — while also poetically rendering the unsolvable nature of certain mysteries — through a kind of, albeit, ultimately limited, reclamatory engagement with the viscosity of existence via a dimensional sampling, a momentary visual scoop, from the time continuum(s) that make for an ever-if subtly-changing river of our immersive corporeal existence — and in the process, these machines represent, speak to, and stir the higher, and also the elemental, faculties of our spirits.
This is not a consumer guide; it is nothing more nor less than a collection of personal experiences and discoveries. I do suggest that you attend as many free camera shows and try out as many cameras as you can, and whenever possible, buy your camera directly from the manufacturer’s website, bypassing all third parties.
Irrespective of their differences, these three cameras have a few non-negotiable essentials in common: durability, form factor, and real-world weather-sealing — none of which would matter, if they didn’t exquisitely and reliably facilitate the taking of uniquely resonant images, which is the single factor by which the aforementioned properties matter all the more.
CAMERA OF THE DECADE #3: Fujifilm GFX100
If you had told me that I was going to have a volta with a new camera — and a mirrorless one at that — during the last weeks of the decade, I wouldn’t have believed it. Heretofore, I’ve intensely disliked most mirrorless cameras and all electronic viewfinders, and I’ve found the color science of mirrorless cameras (despite the tech’s theoretical fidelity? fealty? to color reproduction) cold and sterile. For me, with the Fujifilm GFX100, that’s not the case, anymore.
As a diehard optical viewfinder user, I can guarantee any and all fellow shooters who simply like to see natural life as it is in real time, that getting used to this EVF doesn’t mean making a trade-off; within the span of, say, test-shooting a 36-exposure roll of film, you’ll have zero issues using this EVF. Indeed, this EVF felt like using a magnifying glass on an illuminated, live contact sheet, thusly, well, living up to the mirrorless promise of what you see is what you get — or rather, for me, what you see is what you see.
The GFX 100 also reinforces what I learned when I started shooting 110 Instamatic, before I got my first 35mm film camera: always shoot on the biggest (in this case, digital) negative you can get. This isn’t simply a bigger is better mindset, and I could shoot all day with my beloved 16 year-old 8MP Canon 20D attached to a $125 “Plastic Fantastic” Canon 50mm lens, and be overjoyed with my results, like with this impromptu riverside shoot at a festival during Labor Day 2019, a few months before the world closed…
In addition to preserving phenomenal details on the very smallest elements of a given image, the one hundred and one megapixels also allow you — though I myself almost never crop — the ability to take a great image and make from it a lot of other great images; like, say, the way a detail in a Breughel delivers ye ole’ painting-in-a-painting. Yes, I know and appreciate — to a degree — the megapixel myth, however, in cropping, there are inevitable limits, and this is a case where negative size and pixel count and resolution — again, with bankable hand-held stability — can really, and quite beautifully matter.
It also means that happenstance, single shots that you had no time to frame perfectly, can still be gotten — and this is facilitated further by a definitely-not-nothing 5 frames-per-second burst rate, giving you far more options of what can be captured and cropped, at near lossless results.
Its dynamite in-camera RAW processing enables me to shoot only RAW (rather than my usual RAW + S Fine JPEG, thus speeding up always-precious processor time, a smidgeon) and then quickly process and output finished JPEGS in-camera, making for real world, real-time usability, which is further facilitated by its designers’ common-sense, road-wizened covering of every connectivity base: USB-C, Bluetooth, near-field Wi-Fi and also built-in Wi-Fi. And quite astonishingly, for all its sophistication, this is the easiest to use digital camera my (admittedly curmudgeonly) slow-learning self has ever worked with.
The top LCD, which I set to see dials for ISO and shutter (and histogram) and control with rear and front wheels, in addition to the actual, physical aperture ring on the lens, deliver, for me, sweet, sweet functionalities that go further in recreating my earliest and most enduring muscle memories from the film camera experience.
Unlike long-time Fuji users, I have no relationship with the company’s standard dial placement from which this obviously deviates, and so my Fuji muscle-memory virginity + GFX100 design made for an instantly classic pairing of human and machine, and its form factor required no adjustment (compactness matters not for me; I need a battery grip and an attendant complete vertical shooting set-up).
Its design, dually evoking a 40s beat reporter’s square box camera by way of a 70s Polaroid Instamatic, is hardier than a first glance at its casing might suggest . And just like the other two great cameras on this list, I’ve fearlessly and successfully shot with it from “Go” to “Whoa” in the rains and winters of New York, sans stalls, water issues, nor freeze-ups.
This cam is a game-changer, and so are my next two beloved cameras on this list.
CAMERA OF THE DECADE #2) Pentax 645Z
Simply put: this camera, and the camera to which it is penultimate on this list are, as the kids say these days, literally the left and right ventricles of my photographic heart. This best describes the essence of my relationship with these cameras, and by extension, to photography; after that, words fail.
Where do I begin with this one? With the obvious: REVOLUTIONARY PRICING; delicious form factor; heart-stirring, painterly, artisan colors with phenomenal contrast and shaded-area details; unsurpassed (in my experience) latitude for changes and corrections to its RAW files (as someone pointed out at my Instagram, one has to try this camera to really understand what its RAW files can deliver).
Its real-world performance delivered one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve ever had with a camera, and it’s also the only camera I’ve ever used for which I occasionally trusted a “Vivid” color profile (I usually set the value at “0” or standard) and swooned over the results. It’s very important to note that I‘m not a landscape shooter; I mostly shoot performances, fast-moving sports, candids and quickly-set in-situ portraits, often in low light, without a flash. I don’t even own a tripod; just the two minis that I rarely use (usually for video).
In addition to it being an obvious world-class standout as a first-rate portrait camera, this thing kept up with fast-moving subjects amidst endless new frame intrusions at NY Comic Con, delivering an unfailing 5 fps which made possible a spontaneous discover and burst mode, with incredible stability and super-duper fast autofocus. It also delivered delicious in-situ portraits, all using one lens. Put simply, for me, the Pentax 645Z with the Pentax 90mm is my favorite portrait combo. My second favorite portrait combo is the Zeiss 2/135 on my #1 camera on this list. I have to note that with Pentax’s 300 mm atop the 645Z, I have also delivered some of my favorite work.
Sure, some more buffer in both the Fujifilm GFX100 and the Pentax 645Z would be great, but I’m saying this within a paradigm that had heretofore been unthinkable for medium format cameras capable of creating such large, gorgeous files. And at this price, which only matters if the camera delivers — and this camera certainly does.
Maybe you just had to be there in 2014 (it was announced on a date close enough to April 1st to appear too good to be true) in order to understand what this camera meant — and still means, because this is very certainly not a camera of the past, and it makes the capture and delivery of stunningly rich images (relativism prevailing) affordable. If you shoot fashion, portraits, weddings or landscape, this is a worthwhile investment for delivering A-level photographic prints.
I am overjoyed knowing that Pentax are going to continue developing this system, and I’ve no doubt about how they will deliver even more in their update to this visionary machine — which again, in its current iteration, has nothing to do with the past-tense.
By way of an important endnote on the 645Z: That such an august and beloved brand as Pentax, upon their release of this kind of machine, should be under-heralded in some quarters, is unfair; my noting this is no inchoate bemoaning of market forces, nor is it a case of bitter fist-shaking at the shapeshifting, brand-birthing, brand-swallowing, brand-re-birthing, brand-leapfrogging technological evolutions within the cruelly indifferent cosmology of the photographic marketplace; rather, and quite specifically, it’s an expression of disappointment over the fact that the camera review site DxO Mark’s scores for the game-changing 645Z — which achieved that evaluation site’s first-ever perfect score (actually, it scored a “101”) — were delayed for a year.
All that said, you can’t keep a good brand nor a good product down…here’s to you, Pentax.
CAMERA OF THE DECADE #1) Canon 1DX and 1DXMKII
This is, as I’ve said before —and I’ve noticed other sites now using this phrase — the camera that changed my life; the Big Bang of my return to photography. Though not a wedding photographer, I would use it for a wedding as easily as I would for the Zombie Apocalypse — or to cover the protests, police brutality and rioting (three very different things) resultant of the first Human-Zombie nuptials, and everything in between — in my case, Coachella and tons o’ festivals, Red Bull’s Air Races, their Cliff-Diving World Series (see my notes on why cliff-diving should be added to the Olympics) and a healthy share of NYC street shooting.
What does the 1 DX line have, in a nutshell? A make-it-happen low-light sensor, a NEVER-FAIL BUFFER, (I repeat: a NEVER-FAIL BUFFER) a high frames-per-second burst rate, a with-me-every-step-of-the-way auto-focus with wide-ranging settings for same, a perfect form-factor, an indestructible, and thus worry-free build; again, impressive low-light capability (enough for almost any scenario); the availability of all kinds of great lenses at all kinds of prices; GORGEOUS out-of-camera JPEGs — a key element, the absence of which would render the previous four features infinitely less compelling.
Add to this all the options and paradigms its menus offer, and it becomes quickly and eminently manifest why this is my single go-to camera; the machine which has spoiled me for anything else.
Simply put: BEAUTIFUL IMAGES, TOP SPEED, UNFAILING POWER.
To once again borrow a term from the new generation, I can literally tear up (I really do) when I think of how this camera brought me back to photography. This is my sun, my moon, my existential passport into the cosmic sweet-spot of dharmic empathy and self-understanding — and technology’s facilitation of same. I could happily shoot with this camera for the rest of my life and never need anything else. Here’s to the next decade.
Endnote: To the designers of these cameras: as we find ourselves facing tumult and challenge, I thank you for your imagination — we shooters see you, and love what you do. Don’t forget us, our budgets, and keep leading us to places we’ve imagined (and thus knew) were possible, yet maybe never thought we’d see in our lifetimes.