R5

To cheer myself up a little, I have given myself an expensive ambition to the end of 2021. We call these "half-obtainable ambitions.". Basically, it means we are focused on something important unless something more interesting comes along. But mainly it is to distract ourselves. Like, in spring, we wanted to buy a new car to drive to my dad's funeral. So getting the car took up all of our attention. And then we had a beautiful new car to travel to the worst event of my life. 

          Being a tad more stressed than I usually am - the balance between my solo/exclusive existence and the enclosure of my family/a choker around me, which I deliberately often keep 50-50, has shifted, robbing me somewhat of my sleep and the nightmares are exhausting my waking hours. It happens. There's a reason and it will pass. I don't mind, I just ... can't sleep.) You know me; normally I have the cool factor of a landmine factory.  -  It goes perhaps hand in hand with my future, my sense of self being upgraded, my future travels and all those things which have lagged a little in the past two years since I started Etsy and then there was that thing with the Big Ol' Rona. What once was a goal to purchase a smartphone with the top-rated camera, and was instantly abandoned when I saw what sort of photos they actually take (the best so far ... for a phone), became an ambition to purchase that famed second camera I have always been avoiding. My love affair with Marki - who features prominently in all of my writing and blogging and whatnot, remains unparalleled to any machine I have ever owned. The very thought of replacing it is unseemly. There was always going to be the need for a backup and many, many MANY have been considered - from the most adorable hipster retro designs to make my heart tingle, to reliable workhorses - namely simply another Mark II. 

       Mark II has been discontinued, but after 13 years, it remains in popular demand and you can still get it, new from a box. It was, for its time, by far the most popular camera to have if you really, really loved shooting. There's an upgraded version - mark IV, which is everything II was, only .. you know, better. Same price, mostly the same design. A design I would be able to use in my sleep, blindfolded, in the dark, in a mine. It is a flawless design and Canon people have been busy. I mean, knowing they have a difficult job if they were going to continue combatting the smartphone market, they invested in the two key features any photographer considers, regardless of genre: it has to feel good and it has to work well. 

        Nobody looks at the 50.000 euro Hasselblad and thinks: it feels good in the hands. It doesn't. It just works as you would hope a 50.000 camera works. There are also a ton of bells and whistles that cameras have, like the Fujifilm's mode range, that makes the photos look how they would look if you were using film, or a LOT of video options, up to 8K, which not only overheats the cameras but has files so large Adobe can't run them, and so on. I am not a video girl. I probably should be, I should probably learn to peddle in that, there should be more movies that look like the Army of the Dead, but so far, I'm not. 

      So, restless and crying for two days, the General has instructed me, while I'm in LJ, to make a list of cameras and their pros and cons - price, obviously, and weight, what lenses fit, what I already have which I could use, what their reviews and opinions on YouTube say, so on. 

     And this one bunny kept hopping up. "Why I sold my Mark IV to get an R5", or "Comparing Eos-1D X mk III to an R5"....

    The fuck are you going on about? Eos-1D X Mk III is a 7.500 euro camera. How can you compare it to a mirrorless toy? It's like comparing a Lamborgini to a Mini Cooper. Like comparing Daniel Day-Lewis to Ben Barnes. And my budget's, like, 2 grand, if I can scrape them together till the end of the year - not to mention we're going to be needing winter tyres.

      Well. 

      Hello there.

      And so, after two days, making the lists and comparing the stats, I report back to G and he tells me - even though it is a little too hot for me to be outside, to cross the city, stretch my legs, and find a store - there is one store in the entirety of the country and it has that exact R5 I kept going on and on about. So that's what I do, and I ask to see it and ...

     MOTHERFUCKER. Instant *ziiing*!

     It is absolutely fucking perfect. It feels perfect, it looks perfect, it weights perfect, it performs precisely how I enjoy my cameras to perform and despite the endless beauty of Fujis and Nikons and Sonys and whatnot, it is the instantaneous rejuvenation of my love for photos, which has dwindled relentlessly over the years. I didn't even hear the seller describing the superlative resolution, stability, action focus, speeds and ISOs, uncropped bokeh, the excellent line of L6 lenses that come with, half as costly as the Ls - (Of course Canon was smart enough to make adaptors, so you can skip over the reservation regarding having to abandon all your hitherto gear.) 

     It is perfect. There goes my boob job.