My journey with DSLR cameras #1

Hi! I will be writing a series of blog posts where I will share my experience with DSLR. It will be somewhat journey for cheap. I do not like spend a lot of money, but all hobbies becomes expensive as some level. Since I do not have a lot of disposable income, I’m using second hand stuff. Hopefully you will find interesting or just good for binge scrolling of photos (I will try to add many photos from many places around the world).

My journey of DSLR cameras started with me buying few years ago, already at this time old, Canon 400D. Having in mind that this is just a beginner camera. It was good deal at that time due having a full working set with 3 lenses and few extras.Since that I've been able to travel around a world with this camera.

I believed that the photos from DSLR are made by optics mostly and then maybe some post editing. So this old camera would be fine for me. I’ve started taking pics immediately , but the effect was to be honest not good. I was really struggling with doing any goods photos. After few bad experiences I did not used it much.

Then I went in India, trying to capture as many photos as possible. As this would be a great learning ground and experience there.

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This photo was not done in ‘90 but in 2020.

Real big grief happened when during the safari friend borrowed me the Canon 70D, which compared to my 400D seemed like a night and day comparison. Photos where much more vibrant, better captured. Almost better in all directions. Here is super quick comparison :

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400D example of safari.

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70D for the same safari.

This is no competition this is one sided win :D But I’ve never upgraded and kept using my 400D. Generally camera was able to create great pics:

However majority of photos coming out of my camera had this old post card vibe that sat for years at some cheap tourist shop. Photos made in Mallorca in 2021. but like really old photo. I’ve tried my best with the software at hand to make it look better (I used some free software on my Linux desktop)

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Really this could be sold at tourist shop as a postcard from early '90.

I was really struggling with post fixing those raw images. I’m no raw photo editing expert. Maybe I’ve better set the white balance on camera it self photos would be better. But I cannot relay on camera’s LCD screen as it’s color profile is way off. Due to wrong WB unfortunately I’ve have so many photos screwed… Maybe If had skills and time to fix all of them maybe . Here is example:

Almost 90% of photos from my trip to Mallorca are unusable. Some photos my friend was able to fix, but cannot ask him to fix all my photos ;-)

But the longer I kept using this camera I was learning how to achieve goods results. Here are few photos from Italy :

Last year I would say it was good for me, I was able to not fuck up photos in my summer vacations. Unfortunately Mallorca photos are in dire need of post editing (old vibe + white balance) . But for this year I’ve decided to upgrade the camera to enable me to record videos. I always wanted to try record videos for Youtube, maybe I will try involve myself in creating friends channel or create my own. But this is a story for another post, which i do not know when will happen.

This is my one of the first blog I've created here. So please share tips how to better format by post.