China 2014 - from a bridge camera to a Canon 700D

Last year I made the leap to DSLRs after teaching myself photography with compact cameras (especially my trusty Panasonic FZ150). It was a jarring transition at first, as I was also making the transition from editing JPEGs to Raw files, hence it taking me this long to return to the forums.

Here is my last post using a bridge camera: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54213983

At first I was not impressed. I couldn't get used to the OVF, the 18-55mm kit lense (which is all that I could afford) was very limiting compared to 25-600 on the Panasonic, Raw files were a B**** to edit and the thing was heavier. It was also still easy to find noise. I sold it after a month.

Then I figured out that the colour-space in CameraRaw was Adobe and Photoshop was RGB. I changed CameraRaw to RGB, was finally able to properly edit the photos that I had taken during that month and compared them to my bridge camera output. There was definitely a difference. At the time I was looking at other options in M4/3 and Sony, but the Canon 700D was being offered with the 18-135mm STM for much cheaper so I decided to give it another go. Below are my results:

In conclusion, I'm not looking back for now. Being able to take out my memory card and battery without taking the camera off of the tripod (and getting more useable shots without a tripod) is also nice. There are still some types of shots that I can't get as easily as with an EVF, but I am still learning and honing my craft.

Certainly the Raw files from the Canon are much more malleable than those from the bridge camera, though I'm still proud of how much I got out of that tiny sensor. For most people, that's all they'll ever need unless they need an SLR to get nice isolated subjects (their children, for example). For me, the DSLR was the next step in my photography and there are a lot of shots that I couldn't have gotten with the Panasonic FZ150. It wasn't as big of a step up at first, but after my growing pains, I wouldn't have it any other way.

(Note: The reason that a large percentage of these shots were B&W is because the winter lighting here leaves much to be desired. I hope that you all enjoyed the ride.)

Next up, 2015 shots.