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The Nikon D2Hs: Four Megapixels and Not a Damn Thing to Prove

cameras, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street

Old Photographer Series

There is something wonderfully absurd about using a Nikon D2Hs in 2026.

Four megapixels.

Not forty-four. Not twenty-four. Not even twelve.

Four.

In an age when photographers discuss resolution as though megapixels were ammunition, the Nikon D2Hs turns up carrying its little 4.1-megapixel LBCAST sensor and couldn’t give a damn.

And neither do I.

I have used enough cameras over the years to understand that specifications and photographs are not the same thing. They never were. Cameras have become astonishingly capable, but somewhere along the road we started confusing the ability to record more information with the ability to make better pictures.

The D2Hs is a useful reminder of the difference.

Nikon introduced the D2Hs in 2005 as an evolution of the D2H, aimed squarely at working professionals — particularly sports photographers and photojournalists.

Everything about it says professional camera. Pick one up and the first thing you notice is the weight. This isn’t some little mirrorless thing hanging politely from two fingers. The D2Hs weighs roughly a kilogram before you’ve attached a lens. Add a decent piece of Nikon glass and you’ve got something substantial hanging around your neck.

Personally, I rather like that. A camera should feel like a camera.

The D2Hs has a built-in vertical grip, proper controls and buttons you can operate without digging through menus. There is a solidity to it that modern cameras sometimes lack. It feels less like a consumer electronic device and more like a piece of equipment.

The sort of thing designed to be thrown into a press photographer’s bag, knocked against a doorway, dragged through miserable weather and expected to work when somebody presses the button.

And it does. That’s the thing about these old Nikon professional bodies. They inspire confidence.

The shutter has that wonderful mechanical authority older professional Nikons possess. Press it and the camera responds immediately.

No ceremony. No discussion. No asking whether you’d perhaps like the camera’s artificial intelligence to identify a human, animal, bird, vehicle, aeroplane or possibly a particularly photogenic garden shed.

You focus. You frame. You press the shutter. Photograph taken.

What a revolutionary idea.

The D2Hs can shoot at eight frames per second, which was seriously quick when it appeared and remains quick enough for almost anything most photographers are likely to encounter.

But I’m not particularly interested in spraying eight frames every second. Street photography isn’t machine-gunning people. I’m more interested in the responsiveness that accompanies that speed. There is very little sensation of delay between seeing something and recording it.

That matters enormously when photographing people.

Expressions disappear. Hands move. Eyes change direction. Somebody steps into the light and then steps out again. The photograph exists for perhaps half a second. You either recognise it or you don’t.

The D2Hs gets out of the way.

And then we arrive at the elephant sitting in the room.

4.1 megapixels.

By today’s standards that’s laughable.

Your telephone probably has considerably more resolution.

A modern Nikon D850 gives you 45.7 megapixels. You could fit the resolution of the D2Hs into the D850 more than eleven times over.

But here’s the question that matters: How many megapixels does a good photograph require? Nobody has ever given me a convincing answer. Because there isn’t one.

A photograph succeeds because of light, timing, composition, gesture, expression, atmosphere and subject.

Resolution comes considerably further down the list.

Give me four megapixels of something worth looking at over forty-five megapixels of absolutely nothing.

Every time.

There is another advantage to having only four megapixels.

You have to compose the bloody picture.

Modern high-resolution cameras provide enormous cropping freedom. With a D850 I can make a photograph fairly loose and discover another photograph hiding somewhere inside it afterwards.

That’s useful.

I’ve never subscribed completely to the purist nonsense that cropping is somehow cheating. If removing something from the edge makes the photograph better, I’ll remove it. The finished picture matters more than obeying somebody else’s rules.

But enormous resolution can make us lazy.

With the D2Hs, there simply isn’t much room for heroic cropping.

Four megapixels doesn’t leave enough meat on the bone.

So you move. You look. You decide what belongs inside the frame before pressing the shutter.

That is rather refreshing.

It encourages the photographer to work instead of expecting Lightroom to rescue the composition later.

And perhaps that’s why I still enjoy cameras like this.

They demand something from you.

Modern cameras are increasingly designed to remove difficulties. Autofocus finds the eye. Exposure finds the face. Stabilisation compensates for movement. Enormous dynamic range rescues exposure errors. Huge files allow drastic cropping.

All extremely useful.

But photography isn’t improved simply by removing every possibility of failure.

Sometimes difficulty teaches you something.

Sometimes limitations make you pay attention.

The D2Hs certainly has limitations.

High ISO performance isn’t remotely comparable with a modern camera. Dynamic range is limited. The rear LCD is tiny. Autofocus technology has moved several generations beyond it. CompactFlash cards now feel like archaeological objects.

And four megapixels means exactly what it says.

You cannot pretend this camera competes technically with modern equipment. It doesn’t.

But that’s precisely why comparing it purely through specifications misses the point.

A twenty-one-year-old professional camera doesn’t have to outperform a 2026 camera to remain useful. It merely has to make photographs. And the D2Hs does.

Beautifully.

There is also something about the files that I like.

I’m cautious about describing old sensors as having some mystical “film-like” quality because photographers have a terrible habit of romanticising old equipment.

But older digital sensors do have characteristics of their own.

The D2Hs files aren’t clinically enormous. They don’t invite endless pixel inspection. Used properly, particularly in decent light, they can produce colour and tonality that are extremely pleasant.

And for pictures of people, that’s enough.

More than enough.

I don’t need to count somebody’s pores.

I want the face. I want the expression. I want the relationship between the person and their surroundings. I want the moment.

That is photography.

For street work I’d happily put a modest prime on the D2Hs and walk for several hours.

A 35mm makes sense if I want something approaching the traditional normal perspective on its DX sensor.

A 50mm becomes roughly a 75mm-equivalent field of view and gives me something I have always enjoyed: a little distance without becoming completely detached from the person I’m photographing.

Nothing fancy. Camera. Lens. Feet. Eyes. That’s enough equipment.

After decades of photography, I increasingly find myself returning to that simplicity.

When you’re younger, equipment can become terribly important. You imagine the next camera might somehow unlock something.

A faster lens. A better sensor. More autofocus points. More resolution. Another body. Another upgrade.

Then, if you’re fortunate, somewhere along the road you realise something rather liberating.

The camera was never the difficult part.

Seeing is difficult.

Recognising a photograph among all the visual rubbish surrounding us is difficult.

Understanding people is difficult.

Knowing when to approach and when to leave somebody alone is difficult.

Learning how light changes a face is difficult.

Knowing when not to press the shutter is difficult.

Those things take years.

A camera can be mastered in an afternoon. Photography can take a lifetime.

That is why an old professional DSLR like the D2Hs still makes sense to me.

It doesn’t promise to make me a better photographer.

It simply asks me to be one.

Would I recommend somebody spend serious money on a D2Hs today?

No.

There are too many newer cameras available cheaply that are technically superior in virtually every measurable way.

But if you find a good D2Hs for sensible money? That’s different. Put a lens on it. Charge the enormous battery. Find a CompactFlash card. Ignore the megapixel count.

Then go outside. Because something interesting happens when you’re walking around with an old camera.

After twenty minutes you stop thinking about how old it is. After an hour you stop thinking about specifications. Eventually you’re simply looking.

And once that happens, the camera has done its job.

I have always believed that old cameras possess a certain character. Perhaps that’s sentimental. After all, they’re machines: metal, glass, plastic, electronics and rubber.

But photographers develop relationships with their equipment. We remember where cameras have been. The people photographed with them. The journeys. The failures. The pictures that worked.

A battered old professional Nikon carries something modern equipment cannot manufacture.

History.

Some D2Hs bodies will have spent their lives photographing football matches. Others covered elections, demonstrations, weddings, fires, accidents, wars or ordinary newspaper assignments that nobody remembers anymore.

Thousands upon thousands of shutter releases. Then eventually they became obsolete. The agencies upgraded. The professionals moved on. The cameras appeared in secondhand shops and online auctions for a fraction of what they once cost.

And twenty years later some old photographer picks one up. Charges the battery.Looks through the viewfinder. Presses the shutter.

CLACK.

Still works.

There is something rather satisfying about that.

Photography has spent the past two decades racing forward. More pixels. More dynamic range. Better autofocus. Electronic shutters. Computational photography. Artificial intelligence.

And I’m not against any of it.

Technology moves forward. It should.

But photographers don’t have to throw away everything that came before simply because something ‘better’ has arrived.

Sometimes yesterday’s camera remains perfectly capable of making today’s photograph.

The Nikon D2Hs is one of those cameras. Four megapixels. Twenty-one years old. Heavy. Noisy. Technically obsolete.

And still capable of producing a photograph that can stop somebody in their tracks.

Because the important component was never inside the camera.

It was standing behind it.

The Nikon D2Hs has four megapixels and not a damn thing to prove.

Neither does the old photographer carrying it.

The Nikon D850 Is Better. So Why Do I Still Prefer My D700 for Street Photography ?

cameras, Lenses, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street

The Old Photographer Series

There shouldn’t really be much of an argument.

Put a Nikon D700 beside a Nikon D850 and start comparing specifications and the D850 wins almost everywhere.

It has 45.7 megapixels against the D700’s 12.1. It has vastly greater resolution, considerably more cropping room, a more sophisticated autofocus system, better high-ISO performance, better dynamic range, faster processing, video, live view that is actually useful, and files capable of making enormous prints.

The D850 is quite simply one of the finest DSLRs Nikon ever made.

I own one. I like it enormously.The pictures it produces can be bloody magnificent.

And yet, when I’m going out specifically to photograph people on the street, there is another camera I still find myself wanting to pick up.

The Nikon D700.

That doesn’t make much sense on paper. Fortunately, I don’t take photographs on paper.

The D850 is a camera I can admire. When I open one of its files on the computer, particularly a properly exposed RAW file made with a good lens, there is an extraordinary amount of information sitting there. You can go into the photograph. And then go further. And further still.

Details appear that I barely noticed when I pressed the shutter. Skin, hair, fabric, signs in the distance, little elements within the scene — they’re all there.

If I’ve composed slightly loose, I can crop. Sometimes I can crop brutally. There’s enough resolution available to effectively discover another composition inside the original photograph.

For printing, the D850 is wonderful. There is a richness to a good D850 file that reminds you just how far digital photography developed during the DSLR era. This isn’t an old camera that is merely “still good enough.” It is an exceptionally capable camera. Full stop.

But there is another side to photography that specifications don’t measure very well. What does the camera feel like when you’re actually making the picture? That’s where the D700 comes back into the argument.

The D700 arrived in 2008.

By modern standards, 12.1 megapixels sounds almost comical. Phones advertise more. Modern full-frame cameras routinely offer 24, 33, 45, 60 megapixels and beyond. But here’s the awkward question. How many megapixels does a good photograph need?

Twelve megapixels didn’t suddenly become worse because 45 megapixels arrived. A properly exposed D700 file is still capable of producing a lovely print. It is more than adequate for the web, social media, magazines, photo essays and most of the ways photographs are actually viewed.

And for street photography, I’ve never found myself walking home thinking: If only that moment had another thirty-three million pixels. I have certainly walked home wishing I’d reacted half a second faster.

That’s different.

The D700 feels like a street camera to me. Not because Nikon designed it specifically for street photography. They didn’t. It is big. It is heavy. It is conspicuous. Nobody is going to mistake somebody carrying a D700 for an invisible photographer.

But invisibility has never been the whole point of street photography anyway. The important thing is familiarity. Pick up a camera often enough and eventually your hands know it better than your conscious mind does. That’s when a camera becomes useful. I don’t want to look at the controls. I don’t want to wander through menus. I don’t want to think about which clever autofocus mode the camera has decided I should use. I want to see something, raise the camera, frame it and press the shutter.

The D700 encourages that kind of photography.

There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about it.

Perhaps the 12-megapixel sensor is actually part of the attraction.

The D850 makes me aware of precision.

Forty-five megapixels notices everything.

Slightly missed focus?

There it is.

A little camera movement?

There it is.

A lens that isn’t quite as sharp in the corner?

There it is.

The D850 is capable of enormous quality, but it also invites inspection. And inspection can become a disease.

We enlarge photographs to 100% and start examining eyelashes. We compare corners. We worry about microcontrast. We discuss whether one lens resolves slightly more detail than another.

Meanwhile the photograph itself is sitting there asking:

Is anybody actually going to look at me?

The D700 takes some of that nonsense away. Twelve megapixels. That’s what you’ve got.

Now make a photograph. I rather like that bargain.

And then there are the files themselves.

I am wary of romanticising old digital cameras. There’s an increasing tendency to talk about early DSLRs as though their sensors contained some mystical ingredient that modern manufacturers have forgotten how to produce.

They didn’t.

A D850 file gives me far more information to work with than a D700 file.

But information and character aren’t necessarily the same thing.

There is something about the D700 files that I continue to enjoy.

Particularly photographs of people.

Particularly monochrome.

The files aren’t enormous. They don’t encourage endless manipulation. I can work them, certainly, but I don’t feel compelled to excavate every last piece of information from the shadows and highlights.

Sometimes a photograph benefits from having limits.

Street photography certainly does. The street isn’t a studio. Things aren’t perfect. People move. Light changes. Backgrounds are messy. Somebody walks into the frame. Someone else walks out. The expression disappears. The decisive moment turns out to be indecisive.

That’s precisely why I love it.

Street photography is imperfect because life is imperfect.

The D700 somehow feels comfortable in that world.

The D850, meanwhile, is the camera I would choose when image quality becomes the overriding consideration.

If I know I’m going somewhere specifically to make photographs that I may want to print large, the D850 makes enormous sense.

If I’m photographing portraits where I have some control over the situation, D850.

If I’m working carefully with good light and want every scrap of detail available, D850.

If I suspect I’ll need serious cropping room, definitely D850.

It is an extraordinary photographic instrument.

But street photography asks something slightly different of me. It asks me to react. To anticipate. To watch. To become interested in people rather than equipment. And strangely, the older D700 helps me do that.

There is also something else that becomes important after you’ve been taking photographs for decades.

Confidence.

Not confidence in the sense of believing every photograph you take is brilliant. Most aren’t.

I mean confidence in the equipment. The feeling that when something happens, the camera will respond in exactly the way you expect. That matters enormously.

New cameras are impressive.

Familiar cameras are fast.

Not necessarily fast in frames per second.

Fast between the eye and the finger. That’s the speed that matters on the street.

When I know where everything is without thinking, the camera effectively disappears.

The D700 can do that for me.

And once the camera disappears, I can concentrate on the photograph.

Would I claim the D700 is a better camera than the D850?

No. That would be silly.

The D850 is objectively superior in almost every measurable photographic specification.

But I think photographers sometimes confuse better camera with better camera for me, for this particular job.

Those aren’t the same thing.

A Formula One car is considerably faster than an old Land Rover.

I’d still rather have the Land Rover if the road disappears.

Tools have purposes. And photographers have preferences.

After enough years, those preferences become more important than specifications.

There is a tendency in photography to assume that buying something newer automatically means abandoning what came before.

I have never really understood that.

My D700 didn’t stop working when the D800 appeared.

The D800 didn’t suddenly become incapable when the D810 arrived.

And none of them became useless when Nikon produced the D850.

Cameras don’t deteriorate because another camera receives a better review.

They remain exactly as capable as they were the day before.

What changes is expectation.

And expectation is largely manufactured for us.

Every few years we’re told that the camera we’ve been happily using has somehow become inadequate.

Not enough resolution. Not enough dynamic range. Not enough autofocus points. Not enough frames per second. Not enough technology.

Perhaps.

But enough for what?

That’s the question an old photographer eventually learns to ask.

For me, the D850 and D700 don’t really compete.

They complement one another.

The D850 is the camera that reminds me just how extraordinary digital image quality has become.

The D700 reminds me that extraordinary image quality isn’t the same thing as an extraordinary photograph.

One gives me enormous files.

The other gives me enough.

And enough is one of the most underrated words in photography.

Enough resolution.

Enough autofocus.

Enough dynamic range.

Enough camera.

Once you’ve got enough, everything beyond that becomes optional.

Then the responsibility comes back to the photographer.

Where it belongs.

So tomorrow, if I were walking out specifically to photograph the streets, which one would I take?

The D700.

Not because it’s better. Not because I’m nostalgic. And certainly not because I believe 2008 technology possesses some magical quality that Nikon subsequently lost.

I’d take it because I know it.

Because I trust it.

Because 12 megapixels is enough for what I’m trying to do.

Because I like what comes out of it.

And because when I’m carrying it, I tend to think less about the camera and more about the people in front of me.

The D850 makes photographs of astonishing technical quality.

I wouldn’t willingly give mine up.

But the D700 still has something the specification sheet cannot quantify.

It feels right.

And after more than four decades of making pictures, I’ve learned not to dismiss that feeling.

There is a difference between the camera you admire and the camera you reach for.

The D850 is the camera I admire when I look at the photograph.

The D700 is the camera I love while I’m making it.

Perhaps that’s why the old Nikon keeps finding its way back into my hands.

The D850 may be the better camera.

For the street, the D700 is still my camera.

— The Old Photographer Series

JPEG vs RAW: Finding Balance in Photography: Old Photographer Series.

cameras, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street, Travel

After more than four decades of making photographs, I have come to the conclusion that photographers can turn almost anything into an argument.

Nikon against Canon. DSLR against mirrorless. Prime against zoom. Manual against autofocus. Film against digital. And somewhere among all this noise sits one of the old favourites:

JPEG or RAW?

Mention JPEG in certain photographic circles and somebody will look at you as though you have just admitted to putting ketchup on a Michelin-starred dinner.

“You shoot JPEG?” Yes. Sometimes I do.

And the world continues to turn.

I have shot RAW for years. I understand exactly why it exists and what it gives me. A RAW file contains considerably more information than a JPEG. It gives me greater latitude with exposure, white balance, highlights and shadows. If I have slightly cocked things up when I pressed the shutter, RAW gives me a better chance of rescuing the photograph afterwards.

That is useful.

But somewhere along the road, photographers began confusing useful with essential.

It isn’t.

The question isn’t whether RAW is technically superior. It is. The question is whether that technical superiority matters for the photograph you are making. Those are two very different things.

When I started taking pictures there was no RAW file waiting patiently for me to change my mind. You chose your film. You chose your exposure. You made decisions before pressing the shutter because those decisions mattered.

Kodachrome was Kodachrome. Tri-X was Tri-X.

If you got the exposure badly wrong, you didn’t pull a little slider marked “Highlights” and congratulate yourself on recovering two stops. You had a badly exposed photograph.

That taught discipline.

Digital photography has given us extraordinary freedom, and I wouldn’t willingly surrender it. But freedom can make us lazy. RAW files can encourage the idea that exposure is merely a rough suggestion to be sorted out later.

I’ll fix it in post.

Possibly the most expensive five words in modern photography.

JPEG asks something slightly different of the photographer. It asks you to make more decisions at the time of exposure. White balance matters. Picture settings matter. Exposure matters. You are allowing the camera to take the information coming from the sensor and produce something close to a finished photograph.

There is something rather refreshing about that.

You take the picture. You look at it. You like it. Finished.

No enormous file. No twenty minutes staring at Lightroom wondering whether the shadows should be +17 or +23. No making six versions and eventually deciding that the first one was better.

Just a photograph.

And perhaps that is why I have become more sympathetic towards JPEG as I’ve become older.

I don’t need every photograph to be a technical excavation.

Sometimes I simply want to make pictures.

Walking around Phnom Penh with a camera, I am far more interested in the man crossing the road, the expression on someone’s face, the shaft of afternoon light falling through a doorway or the brief collision of people and background that lasts perhaps half a second.

That is photography to me. Nobody looking at the finished picture is going to lean forward and whisper: “Magnificent. I can really see the 14-bit colour depth.” They either respond to the photograph or they don’t.

That doesn’t mean RAW is pointless. Far from it.

If I am photographing something important, working in difficult or rapidly changing light, dealing with extreme contrast, or simply know that I am going to want maximum control over the finished image, I will shoot RAW without hesitation.

RAW is insurance.

And sometimes insurance is bloody useful.

A slightly underexposed face can be recovered beautifully. White balance can be corrected without destroying the file. Highlights that appear gone may still contain information. A difficult image can be worked carefully until it resembles what I saw—or, perhaps more accurately, what I remember seeing.

For serious printing, particularly large prints, I like having that information available. But there is another side to it. RAW creates work.

Big files. More storage. More backups. More processing. More decisions. More time sitting in front of a computer instead of walking around with a camera.

After 45 years, I know which side of that equation interests me most. It isn’t the computer.

Photography has gradually become extraordinarily good at persuading us that everything must be maximised.

Maximum dynamic range. Maximum resolution. Maximum bit depth. Maximum sharpness. Maximum editing latitude. Maximum everything.

Except, occasionally, enjoyment.

And that is where JPEG deserves another hearing.

A properly exposed JPEG from a good camera can be astonishingly good. Modern cameras are remarkably sophisticated at processing their own files. Even some of my older cameras produce JPEGs that need very little attention.

Get the exposure right. Get the light right. Get the moment right.

There isn’t necessarily much left to do.

And here’s the uncomfortable part.

If a photograph only becomes interesting because I spent forty minutes dragging sliders around, perhaps the problem wasn’t the file format.

Perhaps the photograph wasn’t very interesting.

RAW cannot rescue a boring picture.

It cannot put expression into a blank face. It cannot improve timing. It cannot move your feet three steps to the left. It cannot clean up a dreadful background. It cannot make you notice what you failed to notice. And it certainly cannot give a photograph soul.

Those things still belong to the photographer.

There is also something to be said for limitations. Photographers often regard limitations as problems to overcome, but I’ve increasingly come to think they can be useful. Limitations force decisions.

One camera. One lens. One focal length. One file format.

Suddenly you stop thinking about possibilities and start looking at what is actually in front of you.

JPEG can be part of that.

Set the camera properly. Trust your meter. Watch your highlights. Pay attention to the light. Press the shutter when something happens.

Move on.

There is a lovely simplicity to it.

Of course, there is an obvious compromise, and I have used it plenty of times:

RAW + JPEG.

It gives you the finished JPEG immediately and keeps the RAW file in reserve.

Perfect, surely?

Well, almost.

Except now you have two files for every photograph, twice the clutter and another excuse never to delete anything.

Photographers are already terrible hoarders. Give us a 4TB hard drive and we will somehow convince ourselves that the 17 nearly identical photographs of a bloke waiting for a bus are historically important.

So these days I prefer to make the decision according to the job.

If the light is difficult, the photograph matters particularly to me, or I expect serious editing or printing, RAW makes sense.

If I am wandering the streets making pictures for pleasure and the light isn’t causing problems, JPEG can be more than enough.

Neither choice makes me a better photographer.

And neither makes anybody else one.

That’s the bit that tends to disappear from these arguments.

A photographer shooting JPEG who understands light, timing and composition will make better pictures than somebody shooting enormous RAW files who understands none of them.

Every time.

The file is not the photograph.

It is simply the container in which the photograph arrives.

After all these years, I have become increasingly suspicious of anything in photography that demands allegiance. I don’t want to join Team RAW or Team JPEG. I don’t particularly want to join Team Nikon, Team Canon, Team Fuji, Team DSLR or Team Mirrorless either.

I want to make photographs.

If RAW helps me make the photograph I want, I’ll use RAW.

If JPEG does the job, I’ll happily use JPEG.

And if somebody tells me that a “serious photographer” must always shoot RAW, I’ll probably smile, nod politely and carry on doing exactly what I’ve been doing for the last 45 years.

Because one of the privileges of becoming an old photographer is discovering how many rules weren’t really rules at all.

They were just opinions repeated loudly enough.

So JPEG or RAW?

Use the one that gets out of your way.

RAW gives you more information.

JPEG gives you more immediacy.

Both can produce wonderful photographs.

Both can produce rubbish.

And when a photograph really works—when the light, moment, expression and instinct all come together—nobody worth worrying about will ask which one you used.

They’ll just look at the picture.

And that, after all, was the whole bloody point.

— Notes from an Old Photographer

The $380 Nikon D850: When Shutter Count Stops Mattering

cameras, Lenses, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street, Travel

The Old Photographer Series

There comes a point in a photographer’s life when numbers begin to matter less.

Megapixels. Frames per second. Dynamic range. Autofocus points. Shutter counts.

I’ve spent more than 45 years taking pictures, and I’ve lived through enough generations of cameras to know that we photographers have a peculiar ability to worry about things that aren’t actually stopping us from making photographs.

And then I bought a Nikon D850 for $380.

There had to be a catch.

There was.

The shutter count was north of 300,000.

For some photographers, that number would be enough to put the camera straight back on the shelf. Nikon rated the D850 shutter mechanism for 200,000 cycles, so 300,000 sounds rather like buying a car with 300,000 miles on the clock.

Except cameras aren’t cars. And shutter ratings aren’t death sentences.

The camera was sitting there looking almost ridiculously good. Externally I’d describe it as A1. It hadn’t been knocked about, the body wasn’t scarred from years of abuse, and nothing immediately suggested a camera that had already made more than 300,000 exposures.

I picked it up. That familiar Nikon solidity was there. Then I pressed the shutter. It sounded good. Not tired. Not hesitant. No strange metallic noises or anything suggesting the mechanism was preparing to throw itself across the room. Just that wonderfully purposeful D850 shutter. Clack.

A photograph. And suddenly I wasn’t terribly interested in the number anymore.

I’ve owned and used enough cameras over the years to understand that mechanical things eventually wear out. A shutter can fail at 50,000 exposures. Another can carry on well beyond its manufacturer’s rated life. Two hundred thousand actuations doesn’t mean that the D850 shutter self-destructs at exposure number 200,001.

It is a durability rating, not an appointment with the undertaker.

My camera has already proved the point rather convincingly. It’s passed 300,000.

The interesting question isn’t how many photographs the camera has already taken.

It’s how many photographs it still has left in it.

And nobody knows. Perhaps the shutter will fail next week.

Perhaps it will make another 100,000 exposures. That’s the gamble. But at $380, it’s a gamble I’m perfectly comfortable taking.

There was a time when I might have thought differently.

When you’re younger and buying equipment represents a substantial investment, you tend to protect it. Every scratch hurts. Every little mark on the baseplate feels like a personal tragedy. You buy protective screens. Protective filters. Protective cases.

Then you put your expensive camera inside an expensive bag designed to protect the protective things protecting the camera.

Eventually you realise something.

Cameras are supposed to be used.

That’s particularly true of the Nikon D850.

When Nikon introduced the D850 in 2017, it was one of those rare cameras where almost everything came together.

The 45.7-megapixel full-frame sensor delivered extraordinary detail. Dynamic range was superb. Autofocus was inherited from Nikon’s professional D5 generation. It could shoot quickly enough for serious action photography while simultaneously producing files capable of enormous prints.

It wasn’t really a specialist camera. It was a camera that could do almost everything.

Landscape photographers loved it. Studio photographers loved it. Wedding photographers used it. Wildlife photographers used it. Photojournalists used it.

And people like me discovered that despite its size, it could make a formidable street camera.

Nearly a decade later, none of those abilities have disappeared.

That’s something we sometimes forget.

A camera doesn’t become worse because something newer has appeared.

The photographs coming out of a D850 today are every bit as good as the photographs that came out of one when photographers were queuing to buy them new.

Technology moves forward.

Image quality doesn’t move backwards.

And 45.7 megapixels is still an enormous amount of information.

In fact, for most of what I photograph, it’s far more than I actually need.

The great advantage of my particular D850 is that I don’t have to worry about it. That’s worth more than people realise.

I didn’t spend several thousand dollars on it. I spent $380. If I put another scratch on the bottom plate, I won’t lose sleep. If the rubber gets polished from my hands, good. If the paint eventually wears around the edges, even better. That’s what cameras are supposed to look like. They’re tools.

I’ve always had a fondness for old cameras precisely because they develop character. A camera that’s been used carries something of its history with it.

And this D850 certainly has a history. Three hundred thousand photographs.

Think about that for a moment. I have no idea what those photographs were. Perhaps weddings. Perhaps portraits. Perhaps products photographed in a studio. Maybe somebody used it for time-lapse work. Perhaps there are thousands upon thousands of photographs of things completely forgotten now.

I’ll probably never know.

But somebody pressed that shutter more than 300,000 times. Now it’s my turn. There’s something I rather like about that.

The obsession with shutter count has grown alongside the used-camera market.

Mention that you’re looking at a used DSLR and one of the first questions you’ll hear is:

“What’s the shutter count?”

Fair enough.

It’s useful information.

If two otherwise identical D850 bodies are sitting beside each other at the same price and one has made 20,000 exposures while the other has made 300,000, I’d take the 20,000-exposure camera.

I’m an old photographer. I’m not completely daft. But price changes everything. At $380, I’m not comparing this camera with a pristine low-mileage D850. I’m asking a different question.

How much photography can I get for $380?

And the answer is potentially quite extraordinary.

For less than the cost of many modern lenses, I’ve got one of the finest DSLRs Nikon ever produced.

A professional-grade body. A magnificent sensor. Excellent autofocus. Superb handling. An enormous optical viewfinder.

Files with enough latitude to take considerable punishment in processing.

And, perhaps most importantly, a camera that makes me want to go out and take photographs. That’s the bit specifications can’t measure.

I’ve reached an age where I’m increasingly uninterested in owning cameras simply because they’re new.

I’ve watched photography travel from film to early digital cameras, through the DSLR revolution and now into the mirrorless age.

Every generation arrives accompanied by claims that everything before it has suddenly become obsolete.

It never quite happens.

My old Nikon D700 can still make wonderful photographs. So can a D800. So can a D810.

So can the professional Nikon bodies that once sat in newspaper offices and photographers’ bags around the world.

And the D850 sits very close to the summit of that entire DSLR era.

Perhaps it is the summit.

It arrived when Nikon had decades of experience building professional SLRs and nearly two decades of experience making serious digital SLRs.

Everything Nikon had learned seemed to end up inside it. The ergonomics. The viewfinder. The autofocus. The metering. The sensor. The durability.

It feels like the final flowering of a particular philosophy of camera design.

Put your eye to the viewfinder and you’re looking through the lens. Not at a tiny television.

At the world.

There’s still something wonderfully direct about that.

I don’t know when the shutter in my D850 will eventually stop. That’s part of the deal.

If it happens, I’ll make a decision.

If replacing the shutter makes financial sense, I’ll replace it.

If it doesn’t, I’ll have had my money’s worth. But I’m certainly not going to spend whatever life remains in the shutter worrying about its death. That would be rather ridiculous. Imagine buying an old Leica and refusing to use it because operating the shutter might wear it out. Or buying a classic car and never driving it because the engine has already done too many miles.

Objects designed to work should work. Cameras designed to take photographs should take photographs. So this D850 is going into the bag. It’ll walk the streets. It’ll get hot. It’ll get dusty. It’ll probably acquire a few marks. And every time I press that shutter, the supposedly frightening number will increase.

300,001.

300,002.

300,003.

Good. Keep going. Because after all these years, I’ve realised that the shutter count that really matters isn’t the number already on the camera. It’s the number of photographs still inside the photographer. That’s the count I’m interested in now.

And at $380, this battered-in-spirit but beautiful-in-the-hand Nikon D850 and I have made a rather simple agreement.

I’ll keep looking. It’ll keep clicking.

And we’ll see which one of us gives up first.

Old Photographer Series

Photography as Life: Lessons from 45 Years Behind the Camera: Old Photographer Series

cambodia, cameras, fujifilm, homelessness, Lenses, nikon, opinons, thoughts, philanthropy, photography, pictures, street, Travel, voluntary, war

I have been making pictures for around forty-five years. Put like that, it sounds faintly ridiculous. Forty-five years of carrying cameras, buying cameras, selling cameras, regretting selling cameras, walking miles with cameras that were too heavy, and occasionally wondering why on earth I was still doing it.

And yet I am.

Photography has changed beyond recognition during those years. I started in a world where every press of the shutter cost money. Film had to be bought, processed and printed. You couldn’t look at the back of the camera to see whether you’d got the picture because there was nothing there to look at. You learned to trust the meter, the camera and, eventually, yourself.

Today I can put a memory card into a Nikon D850 and make more photographs in an afternoon than I might once have made in a month.

But strangely, the reason I make pictures hasn’t changed very much at all. I make pictures because I notice things. That may be the simplest explanation I can give.

Photography has trained me to look at the world differently. I notice the old man sitting alone outside a café. I notice the expression on somebody’s face when they think nobody is watching. I notice two people talking across a market stall, a shaft of afternoon light falling across a wall, a child staring curiously at a stranger, the hands of an elderly woman, the tired face of somebody finishing a day’s work.

Most people walk past these things. I stop.

Not always physically. Sometimes the stopping happens entirely inside my head. Something catches my attention and that little photographic instinct, developed over decades, whispers: There’s something there. After forty-five years, that instinct is almost impossible to switch off. I don’t think I would want to.

Photography has become less about cameras as I have grown older. That might sound strange coming from somebody who still enjoys old cameras enormously. I love them. I love the solid lump of a Nikon D700, the wonderful excess of a professional DSLR, the simplicity of a fifty millimeter lens and the satisfying clunk of a proper mechanical shutter.

Old cameras have character. But I know perfectly well that the camera isn’t the reason I go out. The camera gives me an excuse. It gives me permission to wander.

That is one of photography’s great gifts, and perhaps one we don’t talk about enough.

Give an old photographer a camera and suddenly walking around without any particular destination becomes perfectly reasonable. I can disappear down a side street simply because the light looks interesting. I can stand beside a market for twenty minutes watching people come and go. I can sit somewhere with a coffee and watch the theatre of ordinary life unfolding in front of me.

Without the camera, perhaps I would feel I should be going somewhere. With the camera, I already am. And after forty-five years, I have realised that these apparently insignificant wanderings have formed a considerable part of my life.

Thousands upon thousands of little journeys. Some produced photographs I still care about. Many produced absolutely nothing. That doesn’t mean they were wasted.

Because photography has never really been about collecting successful pictures. It is about being present while life is happening. That matters more to me now than it did when I was younger.

When you’re young, photography can become competitive. You want sharper lenses, better cameras, stronger pictures, publication, recognition, compliments. You compare yourself with other photographers. You worry about whether your photographs are good enough.

Age has a useful way of knocking some of that nonsense out of you. I still want to make good pictures. Of course I do. There would be little point otherwise. But I no longer need every photograph to prove something.

That is enormously liberating.

A photograph can simply say: I was here. I saw this. This person existed. This moment mattered to me. That is enough.

Perhaps that is also why pictures of people have always mattered so much to me.

Buildings change. Streets disappear. Shops close. Cars become old-fashioned. Entire neighbourhoods can be transformed almost beyond recognition.

But people make photographs breathe. A face gives a picture its humanity.

When I look through older photographs, it is rarely the technical perfection that interests me. I don’t sit there thinking, Wonderful corner sharpness.

I look at the people. Who were they? What happened to them? Where are they now?

Sometimes I remember everything about making the photograph. The weather. The conversation. The camera I was carrying. The walk home afterwards.

Other times I remember almost nothing. And that is when photography becomes slightly magical. Because the photograph remembers for me. That small rectangle of paper or collection of pixels has preserved something my own memory has lost.

After forty-five years, I increasingly understand that I have not simply been making photographs. I have been building an archive of a life. Not deliberately. Nobody begins photography at twenty or thirty thinking, I shall now document the next forty-five years of my existence. You simply keep taking pictures. One year becomes five. Five becomes twenty.

Then one day you look behind you and realise that the photographs have become breadcrumbs scattered along the road you travelled.

Cameras I once carried. Places where I once stood. People I once knew. People I loved. People I met for thirty seconds and never saw again. Cities before they changed. Streets before they disappeared. And versions of myself that no longer exist.

That is powerful stuff.

It also explains why printing photographs still matters to me. A photograph on a screen exists, certainly, but a print has presence. You can hold it. Put it on a table. Stick it on a wall. Find it unexpectedly twenty years later.

A print becomes an object. And objects survive us in peculiar ways. I sometimes wonder what will happen to all these photographs eventually. Every photographer who has worked long enough probably thinks about it. Will anybody care?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’ve become surprisingly comfortable with that.

I didn’t make most of these pictures for an imaginary audience fifty years in the future. I made them because something in front of me made me raise the camera.

That’s enough. Photography has given me something far more valuable than a collection of images. It has given me curiosity.

Even after forty-five years I can walk down a street I have walked down a hundred times and still wonder whether today there might be a photograph there.

That possibility gets me out of the door. And some days, particularly as we get older, getting out of the door is no small thing. The camera provides purpose. Not some grand artistic purpose. Nothing quite so pompous. Just a reason to walk another street. Look around another corner. Talk to another stranger. Wait another five minutes because the light might change. Photography keeps me engaged with the world.

And the world, for all its madness, cruelty, stupidity and noise, remains endlessly interesting when viewed through a camera.

There are still faces I haven’t photographed. Still streets I haven’t walked. Still moments I haven’t seen. And perhaps somewhere tomorrow afternoon there will be one of those tiny combinations of person, expression, gesture and light that lasts for half a second and then disappears forever.

I’ll raise the camera.

Click. Gone. Except it isn’t. I caught a little piece of it.

After forty-five years, I think that is why making pictures remains so important to me.

Photography has been a companion for most of my adult life. Cameras have come and gone. Film became digital. Darkrooms became computers. Thirty-six exposures became memory cards holding thousands. Autofocus became astonishing. Cameras became capable of things we couldn’t have imagined when I started.

None of that is really important. The important part happens before the shutter is pressed. You notice. You care. You decide that this tiny fragment of ordinary life deserves to be remembered.

Then you make the picture.

Forty-five years later, I’m still looking. And I’m still curious about what might be around the next corner. As long as that curiosity remains, I’ll keep carrying a camera. Because somewhere along the way photography stopped being something I did. It became part of the way I live.

And perhaps that is the real privilege of being an old photographer.

You eventually understand that all those years you thought you were making pictures of the world. But quietly, picture by picture, the world was making a photographer out of you.

Nikon D850 + AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G

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One Camera One Lens

The Old Photographer Series

There is a peculiar disease among photographers. I have suffered from it myself for years.

We convince ourselves that we need another lens.

A 24mm for when things get tight. A 35mm because it is supposedly the perfect street lens. A 50mm because everybody ought to own one. An 85mm for portraits. A zoom because changing lenses is inconvenient. And perhaps a telephoto because, well, you never know.

Before long we’re heading out to take photographs carrying enough equipment to document the invasion of a small country.

Then, after walking around all day with several kilos hanging from our shoulders, we get home and discover that most of the pictures were taken with one lens.

Eventually an old photographer begins to see the absurdity of it.

So here is my alternative.

One Nikon D850. One AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G. Nothing else.

Well, perhaps a spare battery.

I’m old, not stupid.

The Nikon D850 is hardly anybody’s idea of a small camera. It is a substantial DSLR, built in that wonderful Nikon tradition of cameras that feel as though they could survive considerably more punishment than their owners.

And I like that.

I’m not looking for a camera that disappears into a jacket pocket. I want something that sits properly in my hands. Something with a real grip, proper buttons and dials, and an optical viewfinder through which I can simply look at the world.

The D850 gives me that, together with a 45.7-megapixel FX sensor capable of producing quite extraordinary files.

But here’s the important bit.

I don’t need to think about any of it.

After enough years using Nikon DSLRs, the controls become familiar. Aperture. Shutter speed. ISO. Focus point. Exposure compensation.

Everything else can largely bugger off.

The camera is there to make photographs.

Then we put the little 50mm f/1.4G on the front.

And suddenly this enormous photographic machine becomes beautifully simple.

The AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G is an interesting lens because it isn’t one of Nikon’s modern optical monsters.

It dates from 2008. It has eight elements in seven groups, weighs only about 280 grams, focuses down to 45cm and uses a nine-bladed rounded diaphragm. Its Silent Wave Motor provides autofocus, while M/A mode allows immediate manual adjustment.

In other words, it is refreshingly ordinary.

And I mean that as a compliment.

On the D850’s FX sensor, 50mm gives us that classic normal perspective. Not dramatically wide. Not compressed like a telephoto.

Just 50mm.

You look. You frame. You photograph. There is nowhere to hide.

Your feet are the zoom

The first thing that happens when you spend an entire day with a prime lens is that you stop thinking about lenses.

At the beginning you might see something and think:

I wish I had the 35mm.

Twenty minutes later:

An 85mm would be handy here.

Ignore it. Keep walking.

Something rather interesting eventually happens. Your brain begins adjusting to 50mm.

You start seeing pictures in 50mm before the camera reaches your eye.

You know roughly what will be in the frame. You know how close you need to get. You begin moving instinctively.

Want the person larger? Walk closer.

Want more environment? Walk backwards.

Can’t walk backwards because there’s a wall behind you?

Good.

Find another photograph.

That limitation is part of the exercise.

Modern photography has become obsessed with eliminating limitations. I increasingly think limitations are good for us. They make us think.

And 50mm makes you participate

This is particularly important when photographing people.

With a long lens, I can stand well away from somebody and photograph them almost anonymously.

With a 50mm, I can’t.

If I want somebody to occupy a significant part of the frame, I have to get reasonably close. I have entered their world. That changes the photograph.

There’s an intimacy to 50mm street photography that I like. I’m not right under someone’s nose, as I might sometimes feel with a very wide lens, but neither am I standing across the road pretending I wasn’t there.

I’m part of the scene.

For the sort of photography I enjoy — people, faces, gestures, little human moments and the environment around them — that feels right.

About that f/1.4

Naturally, the great attraction of this particular 50mm is written around the front of the lens.

1:1.4.

That’s fast.

It means I can keep working when the light begins to disappear. It means I can isolate somebody against a distracting background. And that rounded nine-blade diaphragm can produce very pleasant out-of-focus areas. Nikon itself positions the lens for low-light work, portraits and general photography.

But here’s something I’ve learned. Just because I’ve bought an f/1.4 lens doesn’t mean I have to photograph everything at f/1.4.

There seems to be a modern fascination with obliterating backgrounds.

Eyes sharp. Ears blurred. Nose blurred. Background transformed into expensive-looking soup.

Very impressive.

But sometimes I actually want to know where the person is.

For street photography especially, the background frequently provides the story.

So I’ll happily use this lens at f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6 or f/8.

I want the aperture that makes the photograph work.

Not the aperture that proves what is engraved on the lens barrel.

The D850 will expose your mistakes

There is another reason I like this combination.

The D850 doesn’t flatter sloppy technique.

That enormous resolution records an extraordinary amount of detail, which means that when focus is right and the camera is steady, the results can be beautiful.

But miss focus slightly? You’ll know.

Use a shutter speed that’s a little too slow? You’ll know.

Get lazy with technique? Oh, you’ll definitely know.

And I rather like that.

A camera should occasionally remind the photographer that he is still involved in the process.

The D850 is capable of extraordinary image quality, but it doesn’t magically create good photographs.

Neither does the 50mm f/1.4G.

That’s still my job.

Leave the bloody camera bag at home

This might actually be the most important part.

Don’t put the D850 and 50mm into a bag containing another four lenses.

Because then the temptation remains.

Take the D850. Attach the 50mm. Put a spare battery and memory card in your pocket. Walk out of the door. That’s it.

For the next few hours, 50mm is the only focal length in existence.

It is remarkably liberating. No lens changes. No sensor dust. No wondering whether the photograph might look better at 35mm. No staring into a bag while the interesting human moment happening three meters away disappears forever.

Just photography.

One camera, One lens changes the way you work

The longer you use the combination, the less you notice it. And that’s when things become interesting.

The camera stops being the subject. You start noticing light.

A face appearing through a doorway. Someone sitting alone at a café.

A child running through a shaft of afternoon sunlight. Two people arguing. Someone laughing. A hand resting on a shoulder. A tired face on a bus.

The ordinary theatre of the street. These are the things that matter. Not whether Nikon has released something newer. Not whether another lens resolves another hundred lines on somebody’s laboratory chart. Not whether my autofocus system contains the latest artificial intelligence.

Did I see the picture?

That’s the question.

Could I really live with just this?

Photographically?

Yes.

The D850 and 50mm f/1.4G could cover an astonishing amount of what I enjoy photographing.

Street. Portraits. Environmental portraits. Travel. Documentary work. Family. Night photography. Details. Even landscapes, if I stop believing landscapes must automatically be photographed with wide-angle lenses.

Would there occasionally be photographs I couldn’t make?

Of course. That’s life. I’ve missed photographs while carrying three lenses as well. Usually because I was fiddling with the bloody equipment.

After decades around cameras, perhaps the greatest luxury isn’t owning more equipment. It’s needing less.

When I was younger, another lens represented another possibility. Now I increasingly see it differently. Every additional lens is another decision. And every second spent thinking about equipment is a second I’m not looking at what is happening around me.

So give me the Nikon D850. Put the AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G on it. One battery in the camera. Another in my pocket. An empty memory card. Good walking shoes. And send me out onto the street.

No zoom. No second body. No bag full of alternatives.

If the photograph is too far away, I’ll walk towards it.

If I’m too close, I’ll walk backwards.

And if neither works, I’ll wait for another photograph. Because there is always another photograph. You just have to be looking.

One camera. One lens. One photographer.

After all these years, perhaps that is enough.

Perhaps it always was.

— The Old Photographer Series

One Camera, One Lens: The Simplicity of the 35-135mm: Old Photographer Series.

Lenses, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street

There is a particular pleasure in leaving the house with one camera and one lens.

No bag stuffed with primes. No second body. No agonising over whether I might need a 24mm, an 85mm or something longer. Just a full-frame Nikon with an old AF Nikkor 35–135mm f/3.5–4.5 attached.

Then I go for a walk.

The 35–135mm AF comes from a very different period of Nikon photography. Introduced in the late 1980s, it belongs to the first generations of Nikon autofocus lenses, when AF was still something rather exciting rather than something photographers simply expected.

There is no AF-S motor inside it. On compatible Nikon DSLRs, autofocus is driven mechanically by the motor in the camera body — the famous Nikon screw-drive system.

It isn’t silent.

It isn’t particularly elegant.

You can actually hear the bloody thing focusing.

I rather like that.

Put it on a full-frame Nikon DSLR with a built-in AF motor — something like a D700, D800, D810, D3 or similar body — and you’ve got an autofocus combination that may be old-fashioned but remains thoroughly capable of taking photographs.

More importantly, on full frame the focal range makes enormous sense.

35–135mm.

Forget specifications for a moment and think about what those numbers actually mean when you’re walking around with a camera.

At 35mm you’ve got a proper documentary focal length.

It is wide enough to photograph the street, markets, cafés, buildings, groups of people and environmental portraits without the dramatic perspective of an ultra-wide lens.

Thirty-five millimetres is also wide enough to give a person somewhere to exist. That’s important to me.

Street photography isn’t always about isolating a face. Often the surroundings explain the person. The shop they’re sitting outside, the food they’re selling, the people around them, the light falling through an alleyway — these things can be as important as the subject.

At 35mm I can include that information.

Turn the zoom ring a little and I’m around 50mm.

Now things become quieter. Perspective feels natural. I’m looking rather than announcing that I’m using a wide-angle lens.

Keep going.

Seventy millimetres. Eighty-five. One hundred.

These are wonderful focal lengths for photographing people.

And then there’s 135mm.

Now I can stand back. Not hide. Not photograph people from half a mile away pretending I’m invisible. Just give somebody a little breathing room.

That makes the 35–135 particularly interesting as an everyday lens for the sort of photography I enjoy.

I have always liked photographing people, and I have never believed that street photography requires sticking a 28mm lens eighteen inches from a stranger’s nose.

Some photographers work brilliantly that way. Good luck to them. It isn’t a rule.

At 85mm, 105mm or 135mm I can watch relationships developing between people without immediately changing those relationships simply because I’ve walked into the middle of them.

Then, five minutes later, I can zoom back to 35mm and photograph the whole street. That flexibility is what makes this old Nikkor such a useful walkabout lens.

Of course, somebody will immediately point out the obvious problem.

“But 35mm isn’t very wide.”

No, it isn’t. And I’m not sure I care.

Modern photographers have become accustomed to zooms beginning at 24mm. A 24–70mm feels normal. A 24–120mm seems almost ideal as a general-purpose full-frame lens.

On paper, a 24–120mm is certainly more versatile.

But photography doesn’t happen on paper.

For the way I tend to see photographs, 35mm is wide enough most of the time.

And the price I pay for losing 24–34mm is that wonderful reach out to 135mm.

For photographing people, I’ll happily make that exchange.

There is another reason I like this focal range on full frame.

It makes me move.

If 35mm isn’t wide enough, perhaps I need to take three steps backwards.

If 135mm isn’t long enough, perhaps I need to get closer.

Zoom lenses sometimes make photographers lazy. We stand in one place and compose entirely by twisting a ring.

A limited zoom range doesn’t completely remove that temptation, but it reminds me that my feet remain part of the photographic equipment.

The lens itself is unmistakably from old Nikon. It feels like a lens.

Metal, glass, mechanical movement and enough weight to remind you that you’re carrying something built during an era when Nikon expected its equipment to spend years being knocked around by working photographers.

Nobody would mistake it for a modern lightweight plastic kit zoom.

On a substantial full-frame Nikon DSLR, though, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Put it on something like a D700 or D810 and the combination feels balanced. Neither camera was designed around the idea that photographic equipment should disappear into a coat pocket.

These are proper cameras. The 35–135 feels at home on them.

Optically, I’m not going to pretend an old zoom from this period magically defeats thirty-odd years of optical development. It doesn’t.

Modern lenses can be sharper, particularly towards the edges. They can control flare, chromatic aberration and distortion better. Modern autofocus is faster and quieter. Modern stabilisation can rescue shutter speeds that would have been risky when this lens was designed.

All true.

But here’s the question that matters:

Does the 35–135mm make good photographs?

Yes. Absolutely. Especially stopped down a little, it is capable of producing perfectly respectable sharpness, contrast and colour.

And there’s something else.

Older lenses sometimes render photographs differently from modern optics designed to pursue technical perfection. Contrast can be gentler. Out-of-focus areas can have their own character. The transition between sharp and unsharp isn’t necessarily the same as the latest computer-designed lens.

I hesitate to call that magic, because photographers use that word far too easily.

Let’s call it character.

I like lenses with character.

The variable f/3.5–4.5 aperture is hardly spectacular by modern standards, but neither is it terribly slow for a general-purpose zoom.

At the wide end, f/3.5 is perfectly usable.

At 135mm, f/4.5 still allows some useful subject separation, particularly when you’re reasonably close to the subject and the background is further away.

And remember what we’re putting it on.

A full-frame digital Nikon. With modern ISO capability, even on an older DSLR, losing a stop or two compared with a fast prime isn’t the disaster it once was.

If the light drops, raise the ISO. That’s what the bloody button is there for.

There is no VR, of course. Photographers managed for decades without it.

Watch your shutter speed. Hold the camera properly. Brace yourself when necessary.

Take another frame. It’s remarkable how much photographic technique can compensate for technology we haven’t got. That may sound like an old photographer grumbling about modern conveniences.

It isn’t. I like modern conveniences.

VR is excellent. Modern autofocus is extraordinary. Eye detection borders on witchcraft compared with what we used years ago.

I’ll use any technology that helps me make the photograph. What I won’t accept is the idea that because newer technology exists, older equipment somehow stops working.

It doesn’t.

A lens doesn’t know what year it is.

The 35–135mm was capable of making good photographs thirty years ago. It’s capable of making them now.

And today it has another enormous advantage. Nobody wants the thing. Well, almost nobody.

(I picked up my perfect copy from Japan for $38 US plus postage)

The photographic world constantly chases the latest lenses, which means older AF Nikkors can sometimes be bought for remarkably little money.

That makes lenses like the 35–135 fascinating.

You’re getting a genuine Nikon full-frame zoom covering some of the most useful focal lengths in photography for the sort of money that barely buys a modern camera accessory.

It isn’t fashionable. Good. Fashion has never taken a decent photograph.

For me, the real appeal remains simplicity.

Imagine an ordinary day walking through Phnom Penh.

At 35mm I photograph a tuk-tuk driver sitting beside his machine, but I want enough of the street around him to explain where he is.

A little later I see two people talking across the road.

Maybe 85mm.

Further along, somebody is sitting alone in beautiful light.

135mm.

Then I turn a corner and suddenly the whole street opens in front of me.

Back to 35mm.

I haven’t changed lenses once. I haven’t opened a camera bag. I haven’t exposed the sensor to dust. More importantly, I haven’t interrupted the process of looking.

That matters enormously.

The older I get, the more I think good photographic equipment is equipment that gets out of the way.

Not necessarily physically.

A D700 or D810 with a 35–135 attached isn’t exactly invisible.

I mean mentally.

When I don’t have to think about which lens to use, I can think about what I’m photographing.

Light. Faces. Gesture. Distance. Background. Timing.

The little moment when somebody’s expression changes.

The second when two unrelated elements suddenly line up.

That’s photography.

Not the lens.

The lens merely needs to let me get there.

And 35–135mm gets me there surprisingly often.

Would I recommend it to somebody who wants the fastest autofocus available?

No.

Would I recommend it to somebody photographing professional sport?

Probably not.

Would I choose it for architecture where I desperately need 24mm?

Obviously not.

Would I tell somebody that it is technically better than Nikon’s best modern zooms?

Of course not.

But as an inexpensive everyday autofocus lens on a full-frame Nikon DSLR?

Now we’re talking. It covers the heart of the focal lengths I actually use.

Thirty-five for context. Fifty for normality. Eighty-five for people. One hundred and five for a little distance. One hundred and thirty-five for observation.

That’s a remarkably useful toolbox inside one old lens.

There was a period when I thought having the right equipment meant being prepared for absolutely everything.

I’ve gradually reached the opposite conclusion. Being prepared for everything often means carrying too much. Too many lenses create too many decisions.

And every decision about equipment is a few seconds when I’m not watching what’s happening in front of me.

So give me one full-frame Nikon. Put the old 35–135mm AF on the front. Maybe one spare battery in my pocket. And leave the rest at home.

If I miss a photograph because I didn’t have a 20mm lens, so be it.

If something is too far away for 135mm, I’ll walk towards it.

There will always be another photograph.

That’s perhaps one of the great advantages of becoming an old photographer. Eventually you realise you don’t have to photograph everything. You just have to be ready for the things that interest you. The AF Nikkor 35–135mm f/3.5–4.5 gives me enough.

Enough width. Enough reach. Enough speed. Enough sharpness. Enough autofocus. Enough versatility. And enough character.

Put it on a full-frame Nikon, sling the camera over your shoulder and walk out of the door.

No lens charts. No internet arguments. No wondering whether you should upgrade.

Just walk.

Look.

Wait.

And take photographs.

Sometimes the best everyday lens isn’t the newest, sharpest or most expensive one.

Sometimes it’s simply the lens you can leave on the camera all day.

And after all these years, that’s increasingly what I want.

One camera. One lens. One walk.

Everything else is photography.

Antony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon): The Photographer Who Changed Royal Portraiture

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Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones (7 March 1930 – 13 January 2017), later known as Lord Snowdon, was one of Britain’s most influential portrait photographers of the twentieth century. Although many people know him primarily as the husband of Princess Margaret, his reputation as a photographer stands firmly on its own. His portraits helped redefine celebrity photography by making famous people appear psychologically complex rather than simply glamorous.

Early Life

Armstrong-Jones was born in Belgravia, London, into an affluent but emotionally complicated family. His father, Ronald Armstrong-Jones, was a barrister, while his mother, Anne Messel, came from a distinguished artistic family that included the celebrated stage designer Oliver Messel.

His childhood was marked by instability after his parents divorced. At the age of sixteen he contracted polio, which left him with a permanent limp. The illness forced months of rehabilitation and profoundly shaped his determination and independence. Friends later remarked that he rarely discussed the experience, but it influenced both his resilience and his sensitivity toward disability.

Discovering Photography

Although he briefly studied architecture at Jesus College, Cambridge, Armstrong-Jones discovered that photography suited both his artistic instincts and his fascination with people.

After leaving university without completing his degree, he apprenticed with society photographer Baron Nahum before opening his own London studio. Rather than merely recording appearances, he quickly developed a reputation for revealing personality.

By the late 1950s he was working regularly for:

  • Vogue
  • Tatler
  • The Sunday Times Magazine
  • The Sunday Telegraph Magazine
  • Vanity Fair

His portraits stood apart from conventional studio photography because they often relied on unusual compositions, dramatic lighting and genuine interaction between photographer and sitter.

The Royal Connection

Their relationship was kept secret until their engagement was announced in 1960.

Their wedding became one of the first royal ceremonies to be televised worldwide, watched by an estimated 300 million people.

In 1961 he was created Earl of Snowdon, becoming Lord Snowdon.

The marriage produced two children:

  • David Armstrong-Jones (later the 2nd Earl of Snowdon)
  • Lady Sarah Chatto

While the marriage initially appeared glamorous, both partners were known to have extramarital relationships. Increasing strains eventually led to divorce in 1978—the first royal divorce in generations.

His Photography

Snowdon photographed almost everyone who mattered in British cultural life.

His sitters included:

  • David Bowie
  • Elizabeth Taylor
  • Laurence Olivier
  • Marlene Dietrich
  • Princess Diana
  • Queen Elizabeth II
  • Harold Macmillan
  • Members of the British Royal Family
  • Leading artists, writers, actors and politicians

Unlike many celebrity photographers, Snowdon avoided excessive glamour.

He wanted to uncover character. Many portraits feel conversational rather than staged. His subjects often appear thoughtful, vulnerable or quietly powerful.

His style combined:

  • simple backgrounds
  • strong directional light
  • careful attention to gesture
  • natural body language
  • psychological intimacy

More than 280 of his photographs are held by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery.

Beyond Portraiture

Snowdon never wanted to be seen solely as a society photographer. He photographed people with disabilities long before disability was widely discussed in mainstream media. His images treated disabled people with dignity rather than pity. He also produced award-winning television documentaries exploring disability and social issues. These projects reflected the empathy that grew from his own experience recovering from polio.

Designer and Inventor

Remarkably, Snowdon’s creativity extended well beyond photography. He co-designed the famous Snowdon Aviary at the London Zoo, an innovative tensile structure completed in the 1960s. He also helped develop improved electric wheelchairs and other accessibility devices for disabled people. These engineering projects reflected his lifelong interest in practical design rather than simply aesthetics.

Working Method

Fellow photographers often remarked that Snowdon could establish rapport within minutes.

His sessions were relatively relaxed. Rather than spending hours adjusting lights, he preferred conversation. He watched for fleeting expressions. Many of his strongest portraits depend on tiny moments of hesitation or contemplation. He believed photography was less about technical perfection than observation.

His pictures frequently use:

  • available light
  • subtle expressions
  • unconventional framing
  • clean compositions
  • restrained printing

The result is work that remains contemporary decades later.

Influence on Portrait Photography

Snowdon helped shift portrait photography away from rigid formality.

His influence can be seen in later photographers such as:

  • Annie Leibovitz
  • Platon
  • Nadav Kander
  • David Bailey (a contemporary with a different style)

He demonstrated that portraits could reveal psychology instead of merely documenting appearance.

Personal Life

After divorcing Princess Margaret, Snowdon married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg (née Davies) in 1978. They had one daughter before divorcing in 2000. He also fathered children outside his marriages, reflecting a personal life that was often complicated and widely reported. Despite his public profile, he remained intensely committed to photography throughout his life.

Death

Lord Snowdon died on 13 January 2017, aged 86, at his home in Kensington, London, after a period of declining health.

Tributes came not only from the Royal Family but from photographers worldwide, many of whom regarded him as one of Britain’s greatest portraitists.

Legacy

For photographers, Antony Armstrong-Jones deserves to be remembered first as an image-maker rather than as a royal figure. He transformed portrait photography by proving that elegance and honesty could coexist in the same frame. Whether photographing royalty, rock stars or ordinary people, he searched for something deeper than appearance. His finest images still feel remarkably modern because they are less about status than about humanity.

Old Photographer Series: The Fujifilm X-E2 Reminds Me What Matters

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Every few years the camera industry tells us that everything has changed.

More megapixels. Faster autofocus. Better tracking. Artificial intelligence. More video features than most of us will ever use. The message is always the same: if you want to make better photographs, you need the latest camera.

Then I pick up something like the Fujifilm X-E2.

Suddenly all of that noise fades into the background.

The X-E2 is not a modern camera by today’s standards. It doesn’t have image stabilisation. It won’t recognise birds, trains, aeroplanes or your neighbour’s cat. It isn’t built for shooting thirty frames a second. It certainly won’t impress anyone who measures cameras by specification sheets.

Yet somehow it reminds me why I picked up a camera in the first place.

As an old photographer, I have reached the point where I no longer confuse technology with photography.

That sounds obvious, but it took me years to understand.

When I was younger, every new camera felt like the answer. If only I owned that body. If only I had that lens. If only autofocus was a little quicker or the sensor a little cleaner at high ISO. I convinced myself that the next purchase would somehow improve my vision.

It never did. Experience did. Failure did. Walking the streets for thousands of hours did. Meeting strangers did. Getting things wrong over and over again did.

The Fujifilm X-E2 fits beautifully into that way of thinking. It asks very little of you, except that you pay attention.

Its sixteen-megapixel sensor is still capable of producing wonderful photographs. The colours are rich without being exaggerated. Skin tones have warmth. Black and white conversions possess a gentle tonality that reminds me why I fell in love with monochrome in the first place.

Most importantly, the files simply look like photographs rather than digital demonstrations. There is a softness to the experience that modern cameras often lack. The autofocus isn’t lightning fast, but then neither am I. Perhaps that is why we get along.

Instead of spraying hundreds of frames, I find myself waiting. Watching. Anticipating. Pressing the shutter when something actually happens rather than hoping one frame in fifty will rescue me later.

Funny enough, that is exactly how I learned photography.

There is another thing I appreciate about the X-E2. It disappears. The camera is small enough that people stop noticing it after a few moments. I stop thinking about it too. That matters more than many photographers realise. Every ounce of attention you spend worrying about equipment is attention taken away from the person standing in front of you.

Street photography has never really been about cameras. It has always been about people. Their faces. Their gestures. Their loneliness. Their laughter. The split second when something ordinary becomes unforgettable.

The X-E2 understands this. It never tries to dominate the experience. It quietly gets out of the way.

Older photographers eventually discover that this is one of the finest qualities any camera can possess.

Could I buy something newer? Of course.

Would it autofocus faster? Without question.

Would it make me notice that elderly couple holding hands on a Phnom Penh street? Would it encourage a nervous stranger to smile back at me? Would it teach me patience? No. Those lessons cannot be purchased. They have to be lived.

Photography has given me many cameras over the years. Nikon workhorses that survived impossible conditions. Heavy professional DSLRs that felt like extensions of my hands. Tiny mirrorless bodies that slipped unnoticed through crowded markets. Every one of them taught me something.

The Fujifilm X-E2 belongs comfortably in that company. Not because it is the best camera ever made. Because it reminds me that “best” was never really the point.

As photographers grow older, our priorities begin to change. We stop chasing perfection and start searching for meaning. We care less about clinical sharpness and more about emotional honesty. We become less interested in proving ourselves and more interested in understanding the world around us.

That is the gift age can bring. It slows us down. It teaches us to see before we shoot. It reminds us that a photograph is not an exercise in technical achievement. It is a conversation between ourselves and the world.

The X-E2 is old enough now that many photographers dismiss it without a second thought.

That’s their loss.

There is something quietly rebellious about carrying yesterday’s camera through today’s streets. It says that you have confidence in your own eye rather than confidence in the latest marketing campaign.

And perhaps that is what being an old photographer is really about. Not resisting change. Not pretending the past was better. Simply understanding that good photography has never depended on owning the newest machine. It has always depended on curiosity. On patience. On kindness.

On being willing to walk one more street, wait one more minute, and speak to one more stranger.

The Fujifilm X-E2 cannot give you those things. But every time I pick one up, it gently reminds me not to lose them.

In Praise of Program Mode: The Setting Too Many Photographers Ignore

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Photography has always had its share of myths. One of the most persistent is the belief that the more control you exercise over your camera, the better photographer you become. Somewhere along the way, Manual mode became a badge of honour. If you weren’t adjusting shutter speed, aperture and ISO yourself, some would have you believe you weren’t taking photography seriously.

I have never bought into that idea. The camera is a tool. Nothing more. If it helps me make the picture I saw in my mind before the moment disappears, then it has done its job. The photograph is what matters—not the mode dial.

For years I have walked the streets with cameras ranging from old Nikon D2Hs bodies to the D700, D300S and D810. They are cameras I know almost instinctively. Yet one of the settings I return to time and again is Program mode. Yes, Program mode.

Mention it in some photography circles and you’ll almost hear the sharp intake of breath. “That’s for beginners,” they’ll say. It isn’t. It’s for photographers who understand that timing often matters more than technical perfection.

Street photography rarely gives you a second chance.

The woman laughing with her friend won’t repeat the gesture because your shutter speed was set too low. The child looking directly into your lens won’t wait while you decide whether f/5.6 or f/8 is the better artistic choice. The old man stepping into the shaft of afternoon light certainly won’t freeze the moment while you adjust your exposure.

Life moves. Your camera should move with it.

Program mode is often misunderstood. People assume the camera makes every decision. It doesn’t. It simply chooses a sensible combination of shutter speed and aperture based on the available light. You still decide almost everything else.

You choose the ISO. You choose the autofocus mode. You choose the metering pattern. You choose white balance. You choose exposure compensation. Most importantly, you choose where to stand, when to press the shutter and why the picture matters in the first place. Those decisions are infinitely more important than whether the aperture happened to be f/4 or f/5.6

One of the great strengths of Nikon’s implementation is Program Shift. Turn the command dial and the camera cycles through different shutter speed and aperture combinations while maintaining exactly the same exposure.

Need a faster shutter speed because someone has started running across the street? One click. Want a wider aperture to soften a distracting background? Another click. The exposure remains correct, but you influence the way the image is made. It is an elegant compromise between automation and creative control.

For street photography, I often pair Program mode with Auto ISO. I set a sensible upper limit—usually ISO 3200 or 6400 depending on the camera—and specify a minimum shutter speed around 1/250 second. If people are moving quickly, I may increase that to 1/500 second.

The result is a camera that quietly manages changing light while I remain focused on people. And people are why I carry a camera.

I have never gone into the street hoping to photograph an aperture.

Photography isn’t a competition to see who can remember the exposure triangle under pressure. It is an attempt to notice something that everyone else walked past.

The expression. The gesture. The hesitation. The connection between strangers.

These moments last fractions of a second. Miss them, and no amount of technical brilliance can bring them back.

Some photographers will argue that Manual mode offers complete consistency. They are absolutely right—in situations where the light remains constant. In a studio, during portrait sessions, or while photographing landscapes at sunrise, Manual mode can be the perfect choice.

But streets are not studios. Clouds move. People step from bright sunlight into deep shade. Buses reflect light. Shop windows throw highlights across faces.

You are constantly adapting. Let the camera shoulder part of that workload.

There is another advantage that rarely gets discussed. Program mode reduces mental fatigue. Every photographer has only so much attention available. Every second spent thinking about exposure is a second not spent watching expressions, anticipating movement or noticing the relationships unfolding around you.

I’d rather spend my concentration reading people than reading the light meter.

The older I become as a photographer, the more I value simplicity.

When I first started, I wanted to control everything. Every dial. Every setting. Every technical variable.

Experience teaches a different lesson. The camera should become almost invisible.

When that happens, photography stops being about operating machinery and starts becoming about observation.

Some of my favourite photographs were made without me remembering what settings I used. I remember the person. I remember the conversation. I remember the smell of the street after rain or the sound of traffic disappearing behind laughter.

Those memories matter. Whether the picture was taken at f/5.6 or f/6.3 does not.

There is an unfortunate culture within photography that equates complexity with skill. It is the same mindset that insists expensive cameras automatically produce better photographs or that only prime lenses create meaningful work.

Reality is much simpler. Good photographers make good photographs because they see. Not because they twist more dials.

Program mode won’t make anyone a better photographer. Neither will Manual mode. Neither will Aperture Priority. The mode dial has never created a memorable photograph. The photographer has.

So if you’ve ignored Program mode because someone once told you it wasn’t “serious,” perhaps it’s time to ignore that advice instead.

Take your camera into the street.

Set it to P.

Use Auto ISO.

Keep an eye on your exposure compensation.

Trust Program Shift when you need it.

Then forget about the camera.

Watch people.

Wait.

Observe.

Because in the end, nobody looking at your photograph will ask what mode you used.

They’ll only ask whether the picture made them feel something.

And that has always been the only setting that truly matters.