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SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (18mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, ISO200)

Exactly one year ago I started this blog. Before I started the blog I had a website for many years but it was very static and slow. It was slow and time consuming to update the galleries. Everything was handmade. At the end I didn’t update my galleries at all.

But I created a POM, picture of the month, folder where I posted my favorite picture of the month together with a short, behind the picture, story. It took me some time to understand that this is nothing but a blog. So I created a blog.

SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (24mm, f/4, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
 SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (55mm, f/6.3, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
 SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (18mm, f/7.1, 1/320 sec, ISO200)

Every blog needs a topic and a name. The topic wasn’t hard to find. Traveling and photography – Travel photography. The title was obvious: The Traveling Camera. Short and beautifully simple. Unfortunately there was a blog with that name. Back to the drawing board! A couple of other simple and beautiful names were also occupied by mostly equally beautiful websites and blogs.

Finally I found the perfect name: LittleBigTravelingCamera. Strangely nobody has decided to name his blog or website that way. So I found the name. OK maybe not the shortest name one can think of but it works perfectly well. LittleBig stands for small cameras with large sensors. Cameras like the Sony NEX 5 and the Fuji X100. Cameras that changed the way I take pictures.

Now I needed a blog program and design. But that was very simple and straightforward. WordPress seemed to be the standard and I loved one of it’s standard designs. Very plain and simple. Beautiful!

SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (26mm, f/6.3, 1/125 sec, ISO200)
   SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (18mm, f/8, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
 SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (18mm, f/7.1, 1/200 sec, ISO200)

The first little big traveling camera I owned ( and still own ) was the Sony NEX 5. I bought it in 2010 just before we left for our first three week vacation to the South West of the USA. I planned to use the NEX as a “side shooter” beside the two DSLRs I took with me. As a substitute for a compact camera. But it was far more than that. I shot almost 70% of all pictures with the NEX. The images can be found on this blog: August 2012.

It was a true game changer for me. I was used to lug around professional gear and before digital and image stabilized lenses also a big and heavy tripod. Now I had a small camera tucked away in a small cotton shoulder bag. Not even a camera bag! I felt like a tourist for the first time in my life and it felt good. “Roam like a tourist and shoot like a pro”. A Sony NEX ad of those days. It’s really rare that a commercial is true. This one is.

SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (18mm, f/6.3, 1/500 sec, ISO200)
 SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (55mm, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO200)
 SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (19mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)

It was a dream coming true. A small and light camera with no compromise when it comes to image quality. It was like my beloved Contax T2. My side shooter beside my Nikon SLR that gave me the same quality. But the Sony NEX was even better. It takes images in bright and in low light. At ISO settings unthinkable in the old days. And no need to worry about the white balance too. Regarding cameras we live in wonderful times.

Sony did not invent the mirror less camera. It was Panasonic. But Sony was the first that put a big sensor in a very small camera. Thank you Sony.

To celebrate this great camera I post only images I took during this awesome first trip.

SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (18mm, f/7.1, 1/400 sec, ISO200)
     SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (16mm, f/6.3, 1/400 sec, ISO200)

One of the great things about large sensor cameras is their high dynamic range but to be honest I’m still a color slide film person. A Fuji Velvia person. New digital cameras with their high dynamic range, their true to life colors and their fine tones are a good thing but most of the time I prefer deep blacks and better than life colors. I prefer Velvia for almost everything but portraits.

Now I can have that. VSCO released it’s 4th set of film presets for Lightroom. Now I can have these crazy Velvia colors again. Even better: I can have Fuji’s Velvia or Provia or Astia or Kodak’s Ektachrome 100VS. And best of all: I can choose the film after I took the shot.

So if you think that the colors in these shots are just crazy and over the top you are right. And yes they are not true to life. They are processed with VSCO’s Velvia setting. The Velvia 50 landscape+ setting which is the most extreme of them all. These colors are better than life and I’m loving it!

SONY DSCSONY NEX-5 (16mm, f/6.3, 1/200 sec, ISO200)