Tuesday Thoughts: Do You Hate Your Camera?

by | Aug 29, 2023

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

“More smiling, less worrying. More compassion, less judgment. More blessed, less stressed. More love, less hate.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

A friend and neighbor of mine liked my Olympus E-M5 Mark I so much that he decided to purchase a Mark II model that had been introduced around the time we were talking. He really loved that camera until…one month after it was out of warranty, the EVF failed. When Olympus—not OM Systems, this was before the change—decided that one month was outside the warranty period (it was) and charged him $300 to repair the camera, he was not happy, His next camera was a Panasonic Lumix.

My own crazy camera story

I received a Panasonic Lumix GH4 as a birthday gift from Mary shortly after it was introduced in May 2014 and I was happy with it as far as handling and image quality went until… A couple of years ago when photographing a model during a studio session, the camera made a loud beep and essentially crashed after making about 100 exposures. But the photos I just made were OK. To correct the problem, a Panasonic rep suggested I update the firmware; which I did with no improvement. He then suggested switching memory card brands. I did that with no improvement.

How I Made this Photograph: One camera that I would love to own is the Olympus E-1MX but even after being discontinued, they are expensive. OM Systems refurb page, which is typically on the expensive side, lists a refurbished body at $1,799.99,  KEH offers a used one in EXC+ condition for $927.99, which is getting closer to my budget,

The Infinite Monkey Theorem states that a monkey hitting random typewriter keys for an infinite period of time will type the complete works of William Shakespeare. That perfectly describes my attempts to photograph motocross riders in the rain. Here, the brave rider is airborne and I am below him. With the help of the E-1MX’s Intelligent Subject Detective AF settings I managed to catch him mid-flight. Lens used was the 40-150mm f/2.8 and MC-14 1.4X teleconverter (at a nominal 112mm). Exposure was 1/500 sec at f/4 and ISO 200.

So What Happened…

After looking around on line I discovered that I wasn’t the only one having these problems not that it made me feel any better. But the problem was kind of benign. The workaround was turning the camera off then back on and it would keep working but once it started doing this it would continue to crash sporadically. Then one day, the camera started doing something worse; it would shut down and this time I lost the photo I just made. Turn it back on and it would only work for a few exposures before crashing again. Now here comes the weird part:

A friend of mine who worked at Panasonic had a GH4 body in his garage he wasn’t using and suggested we swap cameras. I did this for a few years and after a while the replacement GH4 started having different kinds of (non-fatal) problems but I lived with them. Then my friend lost his job and we swapped cameras again, with him getting his original camera body and me receiving my original problematical one. And now the story gets weirder…

After I received my old camera back that had been siting in his garage for several years—read my take on leaving cameras sitting unused hereI had no problems. And it’s been a year and still no problems. Did the camera need a rest, were my problems what my pal Kevin Elliot of calls an “Incident” and not an “event.” Who knows? I wish I knew but I will let you know if that ever changes.

Here are my camera plans starting sometime after Labor Day: If you look at the Gear section, you’ll see that, even though I recently sold my Lumix G9 and another Panasonic camera, I have too many cameras. So my plan is to have a shoot out with what should be the most capable Canon, Olympus and Panasonic cameras that I own and share the results with you. I will do a series of shoots and then compare and post the SOOC images here and on Instagram along my impressions. No favorites will be played.

And so, do I hate my cameras? No, not by a long shot. I love photography and cameras to darn much.


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