Photography Part 1 : Image Capturing Device

Well.. not particularly the history of cameras, just those i was born with =)

It started off with a very humble one, which my mom owned, a Yashica film roll camera. It was typically a point and shoot camera. Insert battery, pull the film across, slide open the lens protector and you are good to go. It doesn't require any settings, light compensation, white balance or stuff, focus (focus-free), just aim with the viewfinder, press the button, ka-chak! and the film rolls. Is the picture good? wait until you finish 24 or 36 shots, and wait again for it to develop.

For quite some time, it was the only camera i used throughout, from snaps of me in playschool uniform until end of my secondary school.. almost 12 years of service before it's motor died out. (Digital camera was introduced at year 6 of the camera life) Never thought of any new camera that time as we don't seem to need it.

Yashica Film Camera (Similiar but not exactly the same)

Secondary School Project

Just after secondary school, finally i owned a digital camera, well sort of, its actually a phone VGA camera, sony ericsson K310i. With resolution boost up to 1280x960 pixel, in a 15mb phone, i thought it was enough to serve as camera and was so satisfied with it, until being exposed to a standard 2.0 mp camera with focus capabilities. VGA cams are just crappy cameras ><

SE K310i (right) But there are some "effects" only a crappy camera could take (left)

After a 1.5 year, I finally get to persuade my parents for a new phone, and 2.0mp is too mainstream.. not enough! I went for one the highest mp count for SE phones that period, the SE k810i with a 3.2mp camera, carl zeiss lens with a built in flash! A badass camera mobile phone for that time. Used it as main camera for almost a year and slowly get annoyed with grainy pictures ( which is called high noise ) and a very weak flash. It still served good enough as a 'emergency, compact and okay-good' camera until the buttons start to jam and taking pictures became harder than before

With flash on and Grainy picture (Left) SE k810i (right)

All the while i am just taking pictures just for the sake of putting that object into a form which i can look back later, something to preserve as memory, pose at some background and reminds you of the scene.

After Hui Xiang at 2010, i was finally exposed and get my hands on a DSLR camera. It was a Pentax dono which model with a 50mm lens so called potrait lens, and from that moment, my mindset towards taking picture changed.

I started to realize the power of photos. A well timed, composed shot could tell a better story and are far more better than what you can remember. A good photo itself tells the story to everyone, not just those who knew what had happened.

Like this picture below, you can probably tell what do the kid thought about us upon our visit. 

And this one.. someone seems to be working too hard eh?

Just like what Kai from DigitaRev said, a 50 mm lens just make everything else look better. Both of the photos above are taken by a 50mm lens which blurs the background giving a soft feel and focused on the subject.