My photography journey

Abdul Halim Johar
4 min readJan 29, 2020

--

I always have a penchant for photography. As far as I can remember, I started photography since 1992. It was when I studied in Canada that I pick up photography as a hobby.

However, I would not say I am a good photographer. All the while, I try to ensure the picture that I took, appeal the eyes of the people who look at it. With few pats here and there, I can safely say some people were impressed with some of it.

Along the way, I have used quite several types of equipment to supplement my hobby. This has allowed me to observe the evolution of how people take their pictures. I started my journey with an analogue point and shoot camera. It was a Ricoh camera that I bought while studying in Canada. The camera remained with me throughout my study there until I passed it to my late sister. I served me well and I managed to capture some of the best moment while staying there.

I eventually migrated to an SLR camera right after coming back to Malaysia. The first one was my wife’s camera, which is Pentax SLR. It was stolen when a burglar broke into our house. After a while, I settled for Nikon F70. Not long after that, digital start to encroach into the photography scene.

After a while, I decided to go for Nikon D90. It was the early iteration of Nikon DSLR. It is good enough, but not to my liking. Every vendor started to come out with the version of DSLR. Canon and Nikon seem to take the commanding lead. At the same time, we see the downfall of Kodak. Somehow, they may have held on to the belief that people may not adopt digital. By the time they realize it, it is too late to react to the shift in consumer trend.

After a while, Nikon came out with D7000. It was a good camera for an amateur like me. Eventually, I settled for it for the long run. The camera has been with me through thick and thin. It has followed me almost everywhere and captured some of the best photos of mine. It was then the concept of mirrorless come into the picture. So far, I have invested into two of this camera, which is Nikon J1 and Fuji XT-1. Both cameras produced some of the best colours for me. However, Nikon J1 has failed me when it ruins some of the pictures that I took while travelling in San Francisco. XT-1, meanwhile, has travelled with me all over the place. Due to its smaller size and lightweight, it has become a camera of choice. The picture quality is also comparable to the quality that we can obtain from fuji film. I can safely say that the Fuji line of X camera is one of the best cameras that I ever use.

Nonetheless, the domination of D/SLR and a mirrorless camera is being challenged by the next generation of smartphone. I am currently using Huawei P20, and all I can say is I am very impressed with it. Huawei and other brands such as Apple, Oppo, Samsung and Vivo have been producing a stream of product that caters to the photo bug like me. Coupled with the use of photography apps have allowed the amateur photographer to produce a high-quality output that was previously possible only with the use of DSLR.

At the rate of how technology evolves nowadays, I am not sure what is going to become the next big photography things. But, I am sure, there will be something that will cater to our everlasting crave for a good picture soon.

--

--