#17 New Gear

Oh boy, here we go again. My third Golden Week (often abbreviated as GW) in Japan, and this is definitely the longest one. It's 10 days of consecutive holidays. For those who are wondering why it suddenly got longer, well, we got a new Emperor. That means 平成 (Heisei) era is done, now we are in 令和 (Reiwa) era. I know Japanese calendar system can be confusing if you're not familiar with it. To put it simply, it's based on the reign period of an Emperor. The previous Emperor resigned (which is very uncommon) because of old age (apparently idk) and he got replaced by his son.

Anyway.. That's all for today's history lesson. Let's go to the main topic.

Two weeks ago, I bought a new camera (yeay). Why you asked? Somehow, I got the first place in my class so I got myself a present.  I contemplated between DSLR and mirrorless though. After a long consideration, I decided that mirrorless suits me more because of its portability.

However, here is the problem: I'm a student with, obviously, limited budget. Even though I want, I can't hope for a high-end camera with $2000 price tag. Just imagine me with a very expensive camera but shitty photography skill, I.. will be humiliated. Then.... why not start with a low-key one? After a little research on the internet, many people suggest to go with either Sony a6000 or Olympus OMD EM-10 Mark II (i know it's a long name).

A little tips from me, if you're living in Japan and looking to buy new electronics, go to second-hand stores. I have purchased multiple second-hand items with very great quality, it almost looks like a new one. There are many physical second-hand stores (e.g. book-off, GEO, etc) but since I'm a lazy person, I don't want to go outside, exposing myself to harsh sunlight to look for items. Instead, I prefer online stores and there are many choices. I think the most popular one(s) in Japan are Amazon, mercari, and Yahoo Auction.

And so I browsed through these 3 websites looking for a good offer. Until one day, a good friend of mine sent me a link to Yahoo Auction. There was an Olympus camera in mint condition for 50,000 yen. It also came with kit lens, memory card, and a screen protector. I was sold and there goes my 50,000 yen. FYI, that was my first time using Yahoo Auction and even though it's a popular website, I couldn't help but think "what will happen if it's a scam?". 

Turns out, it arrived really fast, like in 2 days. I didn't know this before but there is a chat function built into Yahoo Auction so that you can have a chat with the seller.  It worked surprisingly well too. The seller informed me when the package was sent and sometimes we even had a little chit chat. My only complain is that you have to have a Japanese Yahoo account to use Yahoo Auction. It sucks because I have tons of usernames and passwords and I would rather not add more into my collection.

The camera comes with this box. I expected something more flashy but yeah.. it does the job. There are actually 2 color variants: black and white (more like silver) and the one I got is the white one.

ta-da

When I first showed it to my mom, she said "It looks like an old camera". And well.. it might look like one but there is something charming about old cameras, I think.

Now, I've been using it for 2 weeks and I still know nothing hahaha. The problem is, for a beginner like me, all the settings can be overwhelming. If you decide to go completely manual, you need to know what ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focal length to use in different conditions. I tried to watch several youtube videos explaining this and they didn't help either. It's almost like they know naturally that if you use this setting in the dark, it will be brighter... if you use that one, the background will be blurry. I would like to look them in the eyes and say "How?".... but I guess that's what you call experience. While it's certainly a difficult task to do, I do find it very rewarding. The feel you get after you tried different settings and finally you got a very good result is veeeerry satisfying.

I don't know if you notice this but my blog has been lacking of pictures. If you are a person like me, reading without pictures is a boring thing to do. That makes reading my blog the equivalent of reading newspaper with not so trustworthy source (me). I think the main reason is that I don't feel I should take a photo of something until I try to post it on my blog. You don't know how many times I had this "Why didn't I take a photo of that?" moment. Hopefully, buying a camera "forces" me to take more pictures and maybe, just maybe, I can make this blog a little more... colorful.