My journey into the world of photography started in 2007 with a Canon Powershot SD1000 point and shoot taking pictures of dung Beatles in Mexico. This newfound joy of taking pictures of insects led me to buy my first Nikon. I bought a Nikon D90 with an 18-105 f/3.5 Lens in early 2008 and quickly started taking many flower and insect macro photos.
Shortly after that, a friend of mine who was a realtor asked if I could take photos of homes, I said no, that I had no experience in taking pictures of houses and he replied "that houses shouldn't be that much different than flowers" and that's what started my career in real estate photography.
Pleased with my Nikon camera, I upgraded to the D300 with a wide-angle lens for the increasing amount of real estate photos that I was doing in 2009. This was still during the housing crash of 2008 and the real estate market was slow. This gave me a chance to work on product and food photography.
By the time 2012 rolled around the real estate market started to boom, I jumped into a new Nikon D800 with an expensive 14-24 f/2.8 Wide angle lens. Business was good and I was spending most of my time taking real estate photos which left me little time doing what I liked most, nature photography.
Over the years both my professional and nature photography expanded. Real estate photography grew to include commercial, land, virtual, and aerial photography. As for nature photography, it grew to include landscape and wildlife, and I by far enjoyed it more than real estate photography. With the expansion of work, the need for new cameras continued with the Nikon D810 and Nikon D850.
There's a camera in my hands every day and over the years I got tired of holding the heavy DSLR with the large lens. With the birth of mirrorless cameras and new lighter smart lenses, the setups are half the weight and produce much sharper images. In 2020 I went mirrorless with the Nikon Z7II and a Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens for my real estate photography and a Nikon Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR for my wildlife photography. For real estate photography, the camera was perfect, but it had autofocus issues with fast-moving wildlife. My patients grew short taking numerous shots of "active" wildlife hoping some of them would be in focus and sharp.
YEAR | CAMERA | TYPE | FORMAT | MP | FOCUS | F/RATE | ISO |
2008 | Nikon D90 | DSLR | DX | 12.3 | 11-Point | 4.5 | 200-3200 |
2009 | Nikon D300s | DSLR | DX | 12.3 | 51-Point | 7 | 100-6400 |
2012 | Nikon D800 | DSLR | FX | 36.3 | 51-Point | 6 | 100-6400 |
2014 | Nikon D810 | DSLR | FX | 36.3 | 51-Point | 5 | 64-12800 |
2017 | Nikon D850 | DSLR | FX | 45.7 | 153-Point | 7 | 64-25600 |
2020 | Nikon Z7 II | Mirrorless | FX | 45.7 | 493-Point | 10 | 64-25600 |
2022 | Sony A7R IVA | Mirrorless | FX | 61 | 567-Point | 10 | 100-32000 |
I have always had an additional camera setup as a backup for my photography business. In case something happened I would have an extra camera and lens to work with. This system allowed me to go on adventures and know that if something happened to my camera or lenses I would still have something to go back to work with. I have used Nikon cameras and lenses for over 13 years and it wasn't easy to even think of going with another camera manufacturer, I had so much invested in Nikon gear.
So, the research began and everything was pointing toward Sony cameras for wildlife photography. People had great things to say about Active Focus tracking. Around this time Sony released the Sony A7R IVA with a whopping 61 megapixels, B & H was having a special of $600 discount when you purchase a camera and a lens together. Even with the discount, it was a pricey purchase. Now I had to research ways to sell my used camera gear to make this leap possible. See our post on What do I do with all my Old Photography Gear
I wasn't able to scrounge up enough money to buy the Sony A7R IVA with the 24-105mm lens outright but I did recover enough money from selling old gear on KEH and B&H to buy a Sony 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 OSS telephoto Lens. I will continue to use my Nikon Z7 II set up for real estate photography, but the Sony A7R IVA will now be my go-to for landscape, Wildlife, and Macro Photography. Stay tuned.
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