How I became a Fujifilm photographer
- Katharina Tedder
- Mar 14, 2024
- 5 min read
One of the hashtags I always use when posting a new image on my social media is, Fujifilm photographer because I am proud to be a Fujifilm camera girl and I look forward to meeting other Fujifilm people. But how did I become a Fujifilm photographer in the first place. I guess much like most things in my life, a bit of luck and meant to be.
From Auto to Oh oh
My first digital camera was a point and shoot Nikon which I choose solely based on it being one I could afford at the time. And I loved it! If my auto settings weren't giving me the moody black and whites, I was excited about creating, I would just use the exposure compensation dial to the max and I was happy. Until I met my little hummingbird friend and saw that my Nikon wasn't able to keep up. But because I was still usure about jumping right into, what to me looked like a scary "real" camera with settings that looked like a foreign language to me, I instead found my first Fujifilm camera that let me hold on to the security of the auto settings, while also slowly learning about manual settings. I signed up for a photography course and stared at it with complete confusement. But because I was lucky in being able to take my camera to work with me, I could try out what I thought the photo course was telling me, immediately see the result and then adjust and learn. Until I had also outgrown this Fujifilm camera and it was time to make the jump to my first DSLR camera. I choose a red Pentax. Red to kind of give myself a boost that I could do this. The Pentax because it said to be for more the rugged photographers, like me crawling around in the mud chasing bugs for their portrait photos and standing in the rain to talk to my hummingbird friends. And also, Pentax seemed to be a camera most people didn't seem to have as their first choice and I liked the idea of it being a bit different, like me.
From DSLR to Mirrorless
A bird photography contest somehow found me and invited me to participate. I knew I wasn't even remotely close to being ready to send in any of my photos for any contest, but I did like the idea of participating to learn. My nanny job with my hummingbird friend had ended so I went to the beach for seagull photos and instead met a pelican named Mohawk who I ended up enjoying a whole summer of photos with (and who will have his own blog here, as well as my little hummingbird friend as soon as I finish chatting up this blog).
I loved my Pentax! It taught me so much. But I started taking it out less. It was one thing to carry it to the beach and not really go that far. Taking it hiking however it just became heavy and big and not fun. And slowly I stopped taking photos all together. Until one day by total fluke, or meant to be, I saw a video on YouTube that mentioned this photographer having stopped going out to take photos as well until he found this new camera. Intrigued I watched the video and for the first time heard about mirrorless cameras. And at the time they really were still a very new thing, and I wasn't sure if someone like me, who already didn't really know yet what she was doing, should jump on something new like this. But my counter argument back to myself was that right now I wasn't taking any photos at all anymore, maybe this could get me back to enjoying what I loved again.
I decided on the Fujifilm XT2 because again, it seemed not everyone was choosing Fujifilm and apparently, I like to keep doing things differently and I loved the film look. But those were really my only reasons for my choice. It looks pretty and it is different, I'd say are good reasons for choosing a camera!
Fujifilm and Kat
After years of putting up with me, I gave my XT2 a break and upgraded to the XT3 for when I am out on my own and eventually added the XT20 for when I am out with a friend, and don't want to completely be that camera person, but still be that camera person because I can't help it. And it's also a bit easier to just pop into a backpack and take with me to the cat rescue and worry less about the kittens trying to take it out for their photo shoots.
I also went the refurbished camera route because I still hadn't quite won that lottery yet and I also wanted to treat myself to my dream lens for my XT3 that lives on it nearly 90% of the time and can capture just about everything I enjoy taking photos of, without having to take multiple lenses with me all the time.
I got very lucky in finding someone on eBay who loved his Fujifilm but had to let it go. He has already sold his camera but still had my dream lens. My XT3 I treated myself to for a birthday and was really nervous about going through the eBay route with it being quite some money. But I found a seller in Japan that took 20 photos of every camera. I could see every angle of the camera before buying it. And it arrived at my door in two days from Japan. I am still clueless how they did it, but they did, and the camera has been a complete joy ever since. So, for the next birthday I off course immediately went back to them for my XT20.
Fujifilm photographer mastery
Do I feel that I have now mastered my Fujifilm cameras? No! not even close! I am such a technical no clue person and still have to secretly look up the silliest things. But what I do know is that my poor XT2 survived me walking it into rogue waves, taking it out in the rain because I just had to say hi to my hummingbirds, it's been run over my kittens, ducks, squirrels and toddlers, seen mud up close and personal and had to endure a klutzy photographer period. Yet it still works and still looks beautiful, minus a loose screw here and there, of no fault to the camera. And more importantly, it gave me my love and joy for photography back and through that exploring new places, learning new photo things like my current, how bad am I exactly at being a videographer...more to follow as that journey continues....Where once I stopped going out at all, now I am out every chance I get to take my camera out and with that find new places to take photos of, places I didn't even know were there. Could another camera have given me that same experience? Maybe, and I for sure hope it will for anyone choosing any of the many other amazing cameras out there. For me it just happened to be the Fujifilm cameras and I love saying I am a Fujifilm photographer. Just don't ask me any complicated technical questions, lol.
Commentaires