Photography chronicles

This page is sort of a chronicle on my adventures in photography over the decades.Currently, I do not do much in photography, apart from the usual family stuff, and some interesting things I find, such as flowers, nature scenes, and the like.The first camera I owned was a 35mm Minolta Uniomat II from around 1960, which I inherited from my late father. It was a range finder type, with a match needle exposure meter built in, and of course nothing automatic. Sadly, this sentimental value camera was stolen in a break in a few years ago.Of course, for any serious photographer, a single lens reflex (SLR), preferrably with Through The Lens (TTL) metering is in order. For a while, I had to make do with the Russian Zenit line of cameras, which I bought used at first, then a new Zenit E, which had an external exposure meter. These were built like tanks, and can take the abuse, but did not have any of the fancy stuff that the Japanese cameras had. They also had surprisingly good lenses, from East Germany (Carl Zeiss of Jena if I recall correctly). The Zenit TTL was out and I longed for one, but could not afford it.Then I stumbled on a used Nikon F2A set with a 28mm wide angle and 70-200mm zoom, which cost me 200 L.E. (a semi-fortune at the time). What a superb camera that was! Very well built with care and precision, and takes abuse quite well, whether it is banged accidentally on concrete, or standing up to the desert sand without a hiccup. The design of the Nikon F2 system was really amazing, where even the viewfinder and the focusing screen was interchangeable! Something we do not see anymore today.I was interested in trying wild life and nature photography, and took many slide rolls of that, including a sequence of a pied wagtail eating an earthworm, and almost choking on it.I was also very interested in photomicroscopy, and so had a custom microscope adapter made. Check my section on photomicroscopy for more details.In the early 1990s, I bought a Minolta Dynax 7000i, which had everything I was looking for, including auto focus, auto exposure and everything else. I gave this camera to my brother, and susequently it was stolen in yet another break in!I went exclusively digital a few years ago, namely from April 2001, with the FujiFilm FinePix 2400 Z. You can check the details here.What next? Well, I hope I get a better digital camera soon. I am looking closely at the Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ family, originally the FZ2, then the Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ10 and later the FZ20. They have an amazing 12X Leica lens. The new prosumer low cost DSLRs from Canon and Nikon are also tempting, but I do not feel like spending that much money, nor having the bulk of a full 35mm SLR like camera.