Daily Archives: June 19, 2026

 

If you’ve come here before, you’ve no doubt seen some gear posts!  This year is my 56th year of being a serious photographer.  I’ve been super serious from the day I started, thus the Nikon, Nikkormat FTN above!  I was a high school teacher and football coach and decided I had always wanted a “real” camera so I went out and bought one, how was I to know that would change my life!  For the next 38 years I was mostly a Nikon shooter!  I had some flings with large format (4X5) Medium format cameras (Mamiya TwinLens Reflex and RB-67 and Pentax 645),  a short affair with Konica, but mostly a long happy marriage with Nikon!  The reason was simple; for almost all those years Nikon dominated the pro market and that is what I fancied myself as being, a Pro!  Nikon was reliable, had one of the very best lines of lenses,  both in diversity and quality and I learned on that system, was used to it and loved it!  I even ended up joining Nikon as a Pro Market Tech Rep and NPS (Nikon Professional Services) Rep for the Southern United States.

While working for Nikon I developed a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder that required surgery.  The full recovery took a couple years and I found it very difficult to carry Nikon’s full frame cameras and big lenses.  I needed a small, but high quality, camera to use while I got my strength back in my shoulder.  While at the Photo East  show in New York I slipped around to all the camera companies booths looking for what might work for that task!  Remember I’m working for Nikon, so had to be careful about this!  I found a very nice, very compact camera from Fujifilm and ordered one from B&H at the show!  Planning to keep it secret!

 

 

 

I fell in love with this little camera, it had everything I needed f0r the situation and I kept it a secret but learned a lot more about Fujifilm and really fell in love with what they were doing with their new camera line.  I was retiring from Nikon that summer and so I quietly started to invest in some more bodies and lenses from them.  The X10 caused me to simplify my photography and I produced some of the best images had made in years which led to more fascination with their system.  After retiring from my Nikon position I fully moved over to Fujifilm and have used it to this very day.  Two years ago had some dramatic health issues and sought, once again, a lighter smaller system, I invested in a bunch of Micro 4/3rds gear but have recently sold it off and  returned to using Fujifilm for all my work!

So that’s the history lesson, what have learned?!

 

1.  After a careful review of 56 years of my work I have come to the conclusion that mega pixels don’t matter as much as what we thought!  Some of my best images are from cameras from Fujifilm and Nikons with only 16 mega pixels or less!
2. Trading a complete systems is very costly, an seldom worth the trouble.
3. The best Nikon camera I ever used (based on close inspection of images in my files) is the D700 which had only 12 megapixels!
4. All quality made lenses,  if shot around f 8 are plenty sharp enough if shot off a quality, steady tripod!
5. If used properly, (great technique),  Even Micro 4/3rds works fine!
6. Are there advantages to full frame sensors, yes, but not as much as we are led to believe!
7. All of these are my opinions and you’re milage may vary!

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

Jack Graham – Fujifilm 18-55 Kit lens!

 

Nikon D700 –  200-400 Zoom

 

Fujifilm XE-1  –  18-55 Kit lens

 

Why we do this, the joy of making a photograph!