After snapped this scene with my phone I ran into my hotel....it was getting really hellish, scary rain , at this point I have collected 5 broken umbrellas here.
It was really windy and the rain was getting stronger and stronger. The sky was sometimes roaring loud..... I was wet and I had to put my camera into my waterproof camera bag and used my phone instead of my A7R3.
The current cameras are all too weak , cannot take much rain. My cheap phone could easily handle this kind of torrential rain with any issue.
I was really scared of the last typhoon called Haishen. A couple of days before the forecast expected its arrival date here , I took a bullet train N700 Nozomi to Himeji.
I thought the Haishen would actually kill us or at least cause an incredible amount of damage to our area.
The forecast kept warning us that the typhoon Haishen would become a super typhoon- probably would be categorized as category 5 or 5+ class super typhoon( which meant it may become a even stronger typhoon than the Typhoon Mina in 2013 that completely destroyed south coast of Philippines' main island).
This time many many people just booked a hotel in some where out of the expected course of the super typhoon ( it would actually never become super typhoon status though).
So all hotels in Himeji , Kobe area were extremely crowded this time, probably this was the first time many people forced to go out of their home town since the first COVID-19 pandemic warming.
I packed my stuffs very quick and just ran to the nearest big JR station in my area and hid myself in Himeji area for 5 days , subsequently I moved to Okayama area as it became safe and stayed there for about 6 days without my usual travel laptop or Tablet....it was actually quite fun.
This was my first trip (albeit just a short distance one) after the first report of the pandemic.
I think typhoons and COVID-19 crisis really changed my view and many like minded camera fanboys mind.
It woke most of us up and finally helped us realize that we would not need to chase the silly camera announcement all the time, there would be no real innovation or excitement in it anyway.
Have you ever seen any really game-changing camera since about the A7R2 or the A9? I think you haven't.
The R5 can be included in that list , but that cameras do not take or utilize any of my lenses.........and while it is a great camera for Canon people, I do not think it is game changing or exciting enough to force us to consider about another mount switching......let alone selling all my current lenses.
So I think there is no real game changing camera at all, but to hype chasers' mind it is a ground breaking camera, and in fact they claim most of new announcement is.
However, if these are so unique, so amazing , so ground breaking , why is the industry still suffering from the lack of new camera sells issue?
If the camera even used camera or APS-C market is suffering the same issue, then we can say the still cameras as we recognize as such are quickly becoming dying breeds that may go total extinct very soon.
But the truth is the camera market itself is GROWING as the smartphones have introduced to the art of photography to many young artists......but most of them never buy a new camera or new FF camera. Many of them are interested in both video making and photo making or some combined form of it, so they just get a compact versatile camera like the Sony A6400. I was really surprised to know how many of the local Cable TV guys use such a camera for filming their typhoon documentaries..
For me (without any assistant or like that) there was no way to use my real cameras to film the typhoon, I used my phone for that, and used my Sony for still images.
And much to my amazement , I saw many guys filming the amazing natural event with a Canon RF still camera....
None of those low budget productions now use a real expensive Red , Canon Cinema EOS or Sony Cinema cameras, let alone Arrie or like that kind of cameras.
In real world , especially for work or actual photo or video making , most of people have become more careful about camera related spending....our budget may have become a bit tighter since the first report of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now all my Thai colleagues use cheap Sony A6100 or Canon EOS M6 MK2 to film their lecture that they sell online or use for their online lecture. And shoot it themselves.
Here in Japan, we do not allow our students to come to our universities , we have been giving lectures , lessons and tests online.....and many of our students are not happy about that and boycotting or suing our university for it.
I kinda understand how they feel, they must pay the same amount of money for our online course as they would normally pay for their real university course...and they paid the money because they wanted to attend the school.
So it is unfair , but there is no other safe way to keep giving them decent quality lectures........courses,etc.
Therefore , we suddenly have to make many video lectures for our anthropology courses , and without a big budget of a big filmmaker we must shoot everything ourselves.
And by doing that we have learned a lot of things other wise we would never learn like an APS-C is easier or more like sweet spot for video. A FF provides a bit too shallow DoF for documentaries.......or any sort of scientific film materials.
The APS-C based system is much more practical and cost effective , and actually much smaller especially for those of us who love wide lenses. I never realized that before but it is really dramatically different.
The Sony E10-18mm f4 lens costs only 500 USD, while the Sony FE16-35mm f4 ZA costs about 1300 USD and much much bigger than the APS-C dedicated lens.
The Sony E50mm f1.8 costs only 150 USD and it is decently sharp for most type of real life works.
The FF equivalent lens Sony FE55mm f1.8ZA costs 800 USD and much bigger and heavier.
The Laowa 9mm f2.8 Zero D costs only 600 USD or less and it is a real hidden gen kind of lens, super sharp across the frame and super well corrected.
The FF equivalent to that may be the 15mm f2 , but the APS-C lens is sharper cheaper and smaller...Sure the FF lens is faster, but for normal people at wide angle it is not that important especially for documentary or landscape type of works.
I still use my FF as I only have FF and no plan to buy a new set of camera kit any time soon, but if I were starting all over this again, I would not choose FF.....especially now when we can expect a new Sony 44mp APS-C coming into one of their next APS-C releases very soon.
For me , the only one reason I still use FF is the FF provides better resolution. But once Sony gives us 44 mp or higher resolution APS-C body, I may down size my camera kit.
I think the size and portability of camera systems is really overlooked in most camera obsessed forums. But if they want to sell it to us normal people they should go back to 2013 and see why the original A7R has sold so well despite of all its known mechnical flaws and usability issues.
It is the size of it. It was tiny , super light. It may have felt super cheap looking or weak to most of fanatics, but it did not hurt it commercially. It has still posted one of the best sells records in the ILC business.
Many people who never owned it for a year or longer say it was a cheaply made crappy flawed camera. But we actual users of the A7R know it was a quite durable camera not necessarily well made, though.
I mean the perceived BQ of cameras do not often tell you the actual durability or longevity of them.
My A7R outlived my D810 and D800 E , my EOS5DMK2 that Nikon fanboys trashed for its relatively poor or cheap body construction quality lasted way longer than any of my D800 series bodies I had at the time.
My cheap D7000 lived 9 years. My NEX5N is still working although I never use it any more.
I think the industry wide excessive FF focus , and intentional crippling of the APS-C line is really hurting the industry and camera market.
No normal people want to carry the set of 6 primes or buy a set of 6 or 7 over 1k USD lenses for their tiny(supposed to be) camera system.
But FF cameras keep growing in size and weight regardless of systems or manufactures, and now all decent FF lenses are really huge, even my relatively small FE16-35mm f2.8GM (I only carried that one lens this time) seems to be really obnoxiously huge to most of people that see it on me or on my camera.
Many camera snobs cannot get this but what they think small is still very big and obnoxious to many of normal people.
And carrying that in a city crowded area means to me is like carry my camera stigma on me. I am always now embarrassed to take out my big lens........especially in a mall or in a station building. Nobody hits me or tells me go away or fuck off, but I feel kinda guilty of having that huge obnoxious thing on my shoulder all the time......and it is causing some unnecessary stress to many other people accidentally around me. I know many people got sued for using a lens like Sigma 85mm Art or even 35mm f1.2 Art in public places. Many people feel it a bit offensive or disturbing.
I kinda get it as I feel the same when obnoxious tourists point their huge lens on their huge camera towards or at me.
Also the reverse zooming system of the FE16-35mm f2.8 and f4 are a huge problem for us. As it stretches out when it zoomed out to the widest position, when I am shooting it at its widest 16mm setting many paranoid ladies think I am actually shooting close up of their faces..
I think if this FE16-35mm f2.8GM had been an internal zoom lens, it might have sold much better....many people are paranoid about zoom lenses and huge(unnecessarily) fast lenses like the Sigma 35mm f1.2 or 40mm f1.2.
But the industry and the all reviewers just ignore that very important usability aspect of lens quality, they are so partial to bokeh and speed. I think it is the biggest problem of the review and camera lens elitist groups like FM and Luminous Landscape.
So most of real camera buyers just get one or two generations older cameras at secret sell or in used camera market. I hope the COVID-19 will wake up the camera industry as it has been doing to street fashion and shoes industry.
