It was partly flooded here. I think the water was coming down from the mountain slope as there was a temporal water fall on the right side of this frame. It was a horrible storm lasted like 4 days. The heavy rain never stopped for 3 days and the final night with heavy thunder roaring sounds all night.
I was really frightened although my area (the city area of Fukuoka) was not affected by the heavy thunderstorms.
The cult of lenses 57 (Is so-called mirrorless system lighter than the so-called DSLR was?)
Now I am contemplating the idea that replacing all interchangeable lens system cameras with a Ricoh GR3 or similar Leica, I think I never use anything longer than 100 mm for my personal photography, so I may be fine with one of these big sensor truly compact cameras. I realize that as long as it is a ILC system, it would always big. If you truly want to save some weight for travel or walking, then you should ditch the idea of SYSTEM CAMERA. And go compact.
The ILC system is getting really on my nerves these days, many times I could not fly because of them. If I cannot use it where I really need to use, then what is the point of having such an annoyingly huge system camera with me all the time?
It is becoming too (actually way too big) big now, and it is extremely annoying or even embarrassing to carry a big sensor system camera these days. It really freaks out people around me or turns them into my enemies. Many people who are completely decent people in normal life just get freak out or even super paranoid about me when they see me with a big sensor dinosaur-like camera with a couple of huge lenses.
And that sometimes actually hurts me.
The huge Sony zooms and Sony or Samyong primes I sometimes use on my camera attract cops or some bad people, and so I can even say the A7RX system robs my freedom away from me while I am traveling with either a train or an air, or even just walking around in a city area of this relative tiny nation.
One of the biggest promises Sony proposed to us in 2013 when they went Fully mirrorless was that they would make the new (back then) FE FF system small enough to be a really inconspicuous system.
And that was one of the most important reasons for many of us (of course including me) to ditch our trusted -D-SLRs or Nikon, Canon or sometimes the Leica Range finder system.
But, as we recall it now, we might have to ask this very often discussed question about so-called FF ILC honestly to ourselves: Is that so-called FF mirrorless system really a smaller system than say the A99 based Sony A mount system was back then? I think the obvious answer is no. The E mount system is not smaller than the A or F or the EF based system, let alone the M mount system was at their heydays.
The Sony bodies may be a tiny bit smaller than a good decent Fullframe D-SLR from 2013, but the total system or kit (the carrying weight of the system) is now bigger than ever before due to the extremely big lenses the so-called Sony Mirrorless system forces us to use to optimize their bodies. All their bright and sharp primes are super big and super heavy.
Also, the body size has been steadily increasing every iteration. The Original R was the smallest, then the R2, after that, they are all just as big as any D-SLRs..........to be very honest.
So, there is no practical merit of removing the annoying noisy mirror unit from the SLRs.........if our main goal is having an uncompromising image quality in a compact camera system.
So, Sony, Nike and Canon all lied to us, and they do not care about the minority kind of camera users who actually value some sort of tilt and shift lenses, or manufacture's own 5X macro lenses or all full manual lenses or bodies. They just listen to the Fred Miranda and DPR guys who do not really care about the size of their camera systems if their choice of the camera system actually provides the feature set and IQ that they demand. I don't know what or who Sony has been listening to, but I think it is so-called sports photographer's community or wildlife pros association, or maybe the wedding community.
I really miss Samsung NX1. The NX 1 was the most technologically advanced camera system ever invented by any manufacture, and maybe still is. I think if Samsung or anyone understands both camera sensor and the latest computer techs retry a real inventive camera system with real powerful CPU like the A2 chip sets in my phone or something better, then they will win definitely blow any of the current FF camera system out of this planet. The Japanese camera industry is so conservative and never tries to push the envelope hard enough......all what they make are huge and bulky technologically super conservative outdated camera systems, and every iteration a few new gimmicky features like Animal tracking AF or smile AF or some really lousy useless features thrown in....and use that as an excuse to make the system even bigger every iteration. Honestly, none of the current FF systems are very interesting to me and anyone who wants the system to be inconspicuous and more travel friendly. They should be able to accept us to send a few images directly off the camera, it is in the third week of July 2023, not in 2013 anymore. Even my tiny phone makes quite decent images out of the camera and able to send it to my friends and colleagues without any PC or Photoshop works involved. Sure, the current phone image quality is still not good enough for me, but for most people who get my images directly from my phones, love them. And to me it is more important than what I think about my images made with my own phones.
We really need some sort of smart cameras, the Sony system really sucks now, and I honestly think it is the most boring FF mirrorless system we can buy today.
That said, the saddest part of this industry is there is nothing actually great in this slow-moving super anemic market. The Canon R is really bad, as big or even bigger than Sony FE, but for me it was much easier to use and much simpler to navigate through, so I may get that system before leaving for Europe in 2024, still debating about it, though.
The Canon seems to have a bit more accurate AF system, a much better finder to normal human eyes, and their touch screen actually works (unlike the Sony ones). Also, the upcoming R5 MK2 and similar cameras seem to be a lot tougher than my A7R2, 3 and R4. But their lenses are expensive and huge. So, I am still debating about their system.
The Nikon Z seems to be the best-balanced system right now (at least IMHO), I think they did most of things much better than Sony in a much shorter time, like in 4 years since the first Z7? And now they even get some nice Voigtlander and Samyang primes, and you can easily adapt your Sony lenses to Nikon Z if needed.
So, now only one serious issue with the Nikon Z (in my case) is the Z still requires the CF Express card, which I do not want to buy any time soon. But then most of New Sony bodies also use that crap card anyway.
I like the Leica cameras and Panasonic ones, but they are just too big for me, the L system requires a dedicated camera bag that I do not really want to use anymore unless I know I will drive or just walk to get to the place where I shoot something. I think people here get really freak out when they see a person with a dedicated camera bag or a huge lens like a 70-200mm zoom or even an 85mm f1.2 prime.
So, honestly nothing existing already is great, I was hoping Apple or Samsung to take over the industry, but it will never happen anymore, as they both have lost any sort of interest in dedicated camera system. Maybe I have to get the Ricoh GR4 when it is released and also downsize my ILC to APS-C or something similar from either Fuji or Nikon (probably Nikon).
I just do not trust Sony and do not want to feed that company with my own money. Many Westerners and internet camera geeks do not know or never want to talk about this fact, but Sony is an insurance company and not a tech company anymore.
The best scenario is Samsung or Apple or someone really serious to take over the industry from CNS, but it will not happen, so I guess what I can do now is waiting for the next big camera tech breakthrough and move to the system that provides the best or most interesting lens system at the time of the next big camera tech breakthrough. And I bet that will be Nikon as their system can use all existing lenses from other legacy camera systems.
Until that actually happens, I think I will never buy any new camera related things. And just use my current cameras and lenses. I think the A7R2 and R3 are still one of the best cameras in terms of pure imaging making ability. Nothing after that seem to be really better than the R2.