A BRAND NEW WEAPON
Photography has always been my thing. By no means am I a “professional”, but I am a stickler for GREAT quality photos. Unless it’s a story on Instagram, I pretty much refuse to post shitty quality pics. This love for good looking photos started back in 2009, when a couple snagged a picture of me dressed as the Joker at the Halloween Parade in NYC. It looked like a movie still, and since that day, I needed all my photos to look that good.
Since then, I’ve had a few cannon cameras. If I’m not mistaken, they’ve all been Cannon Powershots, with my latest camera being an SX-40 HS model. Though I mostly used that camera in auto mode for photos and videos, because I was afraid of manual settings, it was my go-to for a VERY long time. Most of the videos I posted on SUCCESSFULLY FAILING TV (YouTube) was shot with that bad boy. I probably should’ve gotten familiar with the manual settings, but auto just made my life a lot easier. We did own a DSLR somewhere in between, but I can’t tell you where the hell it is now… It also didn’t shoot video, so it wasn’t something I would’ve used as much as the Powershot.
I always wanted to get a newer DSLR, but I either didn’t have the money to get one, or when I did have the money, I had other things I needed/wanted. A few years ago, that changed. I was finally able to make the move, but I was torn between getting a bitchin’ new camera, or a new iPhone. I must mention, it was 2020 and I was still rocking an iPhone 7… so yeah. One of my brothers brought up the fact that the newer iPhones took AMAZING photos and videos, and I’m surprised that never dawned on me before. So, ultimately I ended up getting myself the iPhone 11 Pro Max. I had done a lot of research on what the phone’s camera was capable of and I was sold. I found out a lot of cool things you could do with the iPhone camera and some apps that allowed you to use manual settings to give your footage a more cinematic feel. For the passed 2 years or so, from unboxing figures and records to little adventures to the city with Kayla to our trips to Disney, I’ve been able to capture some amazing photos and videos. Content that I am very much proud of. You can check out a lot of that on my Instagram or TikTok (@iamdannydarko) and SFTV (YouTube).
One of my biggest hurdles over these few years with my iPhone has been low light situations. That’s no knock on Apple. With smaller sensors comes video and photography shortcomings. Remember, the iPhone is a phone first and a camera… like 3rd. Granted the newer iPhones work better in low light situation because their sensors are slightly bigger, but there’s still limitations. The iPhone 13 (or eventual 14) is something I feel I’m going to need to upgrade to, but at the end of the day, I think it’s about time to get an actual camera. Especially if I wanted to get those sick shots of Kayla at Disney at night when we leave “Be Our Guest” late and the park is virtually empty.
Getting a camera is something that me and Kayla have been discussing for a while, and with two BIG trips coming up, she finally pulled the trigger.
One of her late night research sessions when I fall asleep led her to looking at some cameras, where she found something that caught her eye. I believe she originally showed me a white Cannon mirrorless camera. For her, nothing mattered other than it being white and she wanted it… VERY similar to her making decisions about things because they’re pink. I helped her look into things a little more. We started out with Cannon but eventually ended up going with the Sony ZV-e10 mirrorless camera… which, yes, they had in white. I’d normally go with Cannon, but when I saw that you were able to use more lenses with the Sony camera at the moment, I figured we’d go with the ZV-e10. We went mirrorless because compared to mirrored cameras, they’re much cheaper and not as massive. Because at the end of the day, Kayla is small and we need something that she won’t lose her arm trying to lug around… Even though I’d be the one taking the pictures and videos.
I’m not going to get too deep into the part of this story where we were trying to get the camera, because that kind of warrants it’s own blog post, but we got the camera and I’m absolutely loving it so far.
We haven’t gone out into the world to take the ZV-e10 for a test drive, but I’ve been putting it to work at home. Thankfully, the same day I picked up the camera, we had some new things to test out the camera with. The Killer Klowns from Outer Space vinyl came in the other day, and the Godzilla from the 1970s animated series was delivered while I was running out to pick up the ZV-e10 from B&H Photography. So not too long after I got home, I went to work. I got some video footage and took some pics and I was super happy with how it all came out.
Throughout the week, I was able to pick up some figures and we actually got our Greta San Diego Comic Con exclusive figure in the mail, so I was able to mess with the ZV-e10 more. I’m still learning and still watching videos for more tips, but I feel like I’m getting the gist of this bad boy. I think all I’ll need is one little adventure to the city with Kayla and a second (or third) lens, and I’ll be good to go for our trip to Disneyland in Cali this October. This will be my first trip to California and my first trip to Disneyland, so you can imagine how excited I am to be going on this trip with a brand new camera and how excited I am to take professional-ish photos of Kayla.
This is not where the Sony ZV-e10’s story ends…
Next year seems to be filled with a lot of BIG trips. Our trip to Vancouver, Canada and Alaska, possible trips to Seattle for Emerald City Comic Con, Chicago for C2E2 and San Diego for San Diego Comic Con, and I’m sure we’ll make our way back to Philly again. So that just means more chances to take this camera out and capture some beautiful moments!
If you want to see some of the shots I’ve captured with the Sony ZV-e10 so far, CLICK HERE!