After a life long of point and shoot experience I was forced into taking seriously good pictures due to a life situation, birth of my son, my first child.
So, after using two versions of Sony RX100 -M2 and M5, I finally had a good enough reason to get a high end camera as my son arrived. I felt I was missing out on getting quality images as he was growing so fast. Every moment was precious, needless to say. My little RX100 M5 was working as hard as it could in low lights in the evenings, turned dim so that the baby could be helped to sleep, and it was being pushed to the limit. There was no gas left in it even with its f/1.8. Its tiny one inch sensor, its engine, was just not good enough. One inch sensor on a point and shoot would be pretty big deal, and RX100 M5 commands a hefty price tag for it, A$1200 or over in Sydney. So its like the biggest cat, but in a small cat breed. So for a month I wandered around the Internet in search of an ideal camera, I was convinced by the camera Gods I had to have a mirrorless, not a DSLR Godzilla. My initial inclination was Fujifilm XT20, primarily because it is such a good package for its price, under A$2K. The net reviews were all glowing, except for occasional party poppers who would remark that its low light ISO performance was below par, that what is ISO values of 4-6k in Sony/Nikon/Canon worlds would be nearly 12k on it. True or not, lack of in body image stabilizer (IBIS) was a deal breaker for me.
Sony’s a6500, also with APS-C sensor like XT20, but with added strength of Sony’s unique 5-axis image stabilizer, gave me thinking and searching for a while but failed to really capture my imagination. I would have chosen Fuji over it easily in spite of lack of IBIS.
On Australia day I was going around town trying to find some celebrations, and hardly finding any. People were out and about and there was a water stage on the left of the Opera house where an army band was playing on top. There was the weekly market on the Rocks and the pubs were brimming with Chinese tourists. There was even an aborigines singer bellowing some sixties rocks blaring through his portable speakers. People were waving the only two flags they were being provided through a stall, the Australian and the Aborigines one. National day celebrations completed.
I decided to do some video live sessions for my family on Facebook messenger. At the same time, I was hoping I would go and buy Fujifilm XT20 at one of Sydney’s premium camera shop, The Georges, at George St. They were closed. I did not mind, thinking I could come back the next day, Saturday. Then while on the way back I thought I would pay a visit to another camera shop at Pitt St, Ted’s Cameras. There I explained to Zoe, the retail girl what I was looking for, and about Adrian too. She showed me a camera that I had never seriously contemplated, Sony a7ii, a full frame mirrorless beast. While on their shelf, it had a massive lens attached to it, and felt like lifting a dumbbell rather than a camera when I held it to try it. But she twisted off the one kilo lens that was attached to it, and put the body in my hand, that is when I felt it was normal. Her suggestion was, a full frame and a prime lens would give me the performance I was looking for, to take Adrian’s pictures at home in typical low lights of a typical suburbia flat in Sydney. I was sold and wanted to buy it, although a bit of niggle stayed at the back of my mind, I was so hung up on Fuji. I offered to buy as I felt she gave me a good price, A$2040. Sadly she did not have the lens, it would take a week to get it from Sony. So I left.
On the way back down the escalators, there is a JB HIFI shop, I thought I would check it out at the retail giant’s. There it was, sitting on display, nearly A$300 more expensive. I had a chat with a sales girl there and asked if she had the camera body and the prime lens, she fumbled around at the back and came back with a yes. She gave me some discounts on her price, but I wanted a price match, which she agreed to after asking with her manager. Then there it was, I carried Sony a7ii home.
I found out later that the camera was actually on the way out of the market and upstaged by new versions, a7RII and so forth, but at nearly double the price tag. There was even a page about a7iii. So turned out, I had bought a camera whose price was on the decline. Regardless, I had a 30 day change of mind return at hand, so with nothing to lose, I began to unpack it and charge the battery which charges only attached to the camera, charger is not part of the purchase.
Then as i started to click around, my eye balls kept getting bigger and bigger as I started to see images of caliber I had never seen on my mac..it was a mind blowing experience. For someone who thought RX100 M5 was a beast, this was beyond comprehension. Then one after another, the camera would not miss a beat, inspite of its slow AF, the low light images it was delivering were beyond I could imagine. I did not give a damn it was not a forerunner in the camera world, I just thought it was what I needed, I am going to keep it.
Ravi Tandukar 