100,000 Photos: Reflections on life with a Dedicated Camera
My photo library just crossed 100,000 photos shot with a dedicated camera, not with a phone. That’s only counting the ones I kept, the actual number I’ve shot is much higher.
Looking back through my library, one thing stands out: the photos I shot with a real camera are the ones I cherish most. They’ve stood the test of time in a way phone photos haven’t.
What Makes Them Special
Don’t get me wrong: phones today take impressive photos. But they are missing something. Maybe it’s that they are oversharpened, have too much contrast, or they are missing the creamy bokeh that a larger lens can produce.
Or maybe I cherish the photos shot on dedicated cameras because they were more intentional. I had to bring the camera with me, it wasn’t available anytime in my pocket.
The Experience of a Physical Camera
Shooting on a dedicated camera is a different experience. You have knobs and dials you can tweak. It feels faster from the moment you turn it on (with a physical button!) to the half-press of the shutter (to focus) all the way to snapping the photos.
The autofocus on Sony cameras nowadays is amazing. Paired with a good lens it’s basically instant and precise. I remember back in the DSLR days being frustrated at how many photos were ever so slightly out of focus. Gone are the days of placing a focusing point on the eye and re-composing!
Marry the Lenses
In photography there’s a saying that you should date the bodies and marry the lenses, meaning you should spend more of your budget on lenses than on bodies because they make more of an impact on the quality of your images.
I mostly agree with this, as long as the autofocus on the camera is good enough to keep up with the subject of your photos.
Looking at my library, most of the photos are taken using primes. I’ve also use zoom lenses, but I prefer primes for their light-gathering and background-separation abilities. Plus they tend to be lighter and feel more balanced on a camera.
The Editing Effort
Part of the reason photos shot on a camera feel more special to me is because I spend time editing each one (with some copy & paste of course). I end up analyzing each one longer, first by culling the ones to keep and then by tweaking the white balance, contrast, etc.
I’ve shot RAW for as long as I had a camera that could support it. It’s amazing how much detail there is in RAW files, especially in modern ones. Pro tip: generally it’s best to underexpose to preserve the highlights, like the sky. Detail in the shadows tends to be more easily recoverable than in the highlights.
However, as a parent of two small kids, I don’t always have the time to edit every photo. That’s where AI comes in.
Actually Useful AI
What has genuinely saved me so much time in my editing workflow is Lightroom’s AI features. The Adaptive color profile and subject selection tools are top-notch. They’ve made editing so much faster without feeling artificial. The fact that you can copy & paste the subject or background selection is a huge win.
The AI-powered denoise is also great, however I only use it sparingly since it’s pretty slow. Pro-tip: edit everything else and apply denoise to all the photos that need it at the end.
I don’t use any of the generative-fill tools. Sure, I would love to remove distractions in some of the photos, but it feels less genuine, and in the few examples I tried it the results were not great. The filled in areas were sharper than the rest of the image (did they train it on phone photos?). Or the fill was not consistent between burst shots.
Moving Forward
My goal going forward is to shoot more video with my camera. I’ve been capturing stills for years, but video adds another dimension to preserving these moments.
100,000 photos down. Here’s to the next 100,000.