New camera gear for reformed landscape photographer!

After my cathartic ebay mega sale of all my old landscape photography camera gear, I have had to buy some more. Oh, the joys of being the impulsive artist!

I spent many wide eyed hours staring at the internet, reading reviews, scanning forums, thinking. Film or digital? Large format or medium format? Nikon or Canon or Sony? Occasionally I even thought about a budget. 

And really it is still not all that interesting, to me they are just a tool for making a picture. Although I did spend a long time thinking about it all! But just in case you are interested, here is a brief overview.

I was seriously tempted by film, I still miss the lovely transparencies sitting on a lightbox. And with the growth of film photography in China, the film market is once again vibrant. But I'm lazy so can't be bothered to scan. And I'm unhappy about all the chemicals for film processing. (The jury is still out on whether film or digital is worse for the environment. Please let me know if you have any info otherwise.)

Much as I would like a digital back on a medium format camera with movements such as the Arca Swiss F-Metric, neither my bank or my wife would be happy, and I would be terrified about dropping £30k of camera gear in the sea whilst shooting.

So, it's that old workhorse, the digital SLR. As for Canon or Sony or Nikon? The Sony A900 with 24MP, a superb user interface, and Zeiss prime lenses was a real temptation. But I really wanted tilt/shift lenses. I appreciate they are a serious compromise compared to a full view camera, but the extra control of perspective and the plane of focus is something that really intrigues me. Plus I like panoramas, which are very straightforward with a bit of shifting.  I don't want to criticise Canon who are a serious contender with 4 tilt/shift lenses and high resolution cameras, so I will simply say that Nikon cameras and lenses have served me faithfully through the best of weather and the worst of weather. They have never missed a beat. Not once.

A Nikon D3x was tempting, but large for carrying on a bike and I felt that the money would be better spent on good lenses. Eventually Nikon will bring out higher resolution full frame cameras for those of us with smaller budgets, and realistically, I've worked personally and commercially with 12MP cameras for quite a few years, so it will do. For the moment.

The final list is:

Nikon D700

Nikon 24mm PC-E lens

Nikon 85mm PC-E lens

And all the other paraphernalia that we need. I will also be adding in the Nikon 45mm PC-E lens when funds allow.

As for my first photo-shoot, well it all seemed very familiar. Same camera controls, same rain and cloud! Looking forward to my next weekend away!