It’s been a ride. Being quite cost concious as well as re-use oriented, it was clear to me that I would buy a used or refurbished kit. So I went on Google to find articles on the best used cameras for 2024.
That was kind of a mixed blessing.
The articles focused a lot on quite old material like the Sony a6000, but they also included some good starting points to dig further. Soon it became clear to me that I wanted to go forward with a mirroless system. Now I needed to narrow the field down.
Which mirrorless brand to pick?
After digging through quite some material and resources, I fell for the Fujifilm X-S10.
What a gorgeous little gem. I love the retro looks, I think the usage of the funktion buttons is excellent and the specs looked great. The thing for me though were the images.
I have a hard time with the color pop and exaggerated colors from Fuji – at least for my eyes. But would that matter for me? My intention is to go for RAW shooting and my own postprocessing. There I would be able to tune the colors down. Luckily I was not able to find a well priced, used model in Sweden. So I continued to read on furher and wondered if the X-T3 or X-T4 could be an alternative. That research brought me to the excellent reviews by Ken Rockwell. I really like the way he neutrally describes his experiences and preferences. Also the way he talks about his use of color convinced me that Fuji probably would not be the ideal match for me. Don’t take me wrong. I am sure I would be happy with any one of them, but there was some doubt – also around another question.
Would I be satisfied with an APS-C sensor?
When thinking back to my earlier cameras and what I valued, portability was never the main issue. Of course I don’t want to lugg around the most bulky piece of equipment, but size was not the main concern. Neutral color rendition, dynamic range and possibility to operate in low light were my main concerns. So which models with a full frame sencor could be interesting and within budget?
I found a very intriguing possibility (again) on Rockwell’s site mentioning the Canon EOS RP. It sounds like a fascinating setup and he clearly is enarmored with it. I read about it and checked other eviews all evening and was extremely close to ordering one. But something was off. It dawned on me that all the enthusiastic reviews I had read were praising its performance and JPEG rendering. Most of these people, Rockwell included, relied on the in camera image processing and were satisfied with it. So I researched further about the RAW capabilities and especially the dynamic range. And finally I realized that this is not what I think I want either. Should I …
Going back to my roots
Should I consider going back to Nikon? The more I read about sensor tests, RAW quality, price/performance and others, the more I got interested in getting a used Nikon Z6 full frame mirrorless to get started again.
Yes, the Z6 lacks the fully articulated backscreen, it has fewer megapixels, it looks less cool and has some other drawbacks, but it checks a lot of boxes for me in this price range: High dynamic range, good low light performance, affordable glass, weather sealed body, excellent details in the RAW files. So tis is what I now will be looking for on the used market.
Restarting Photography 