Over the past 2 years, 9 months and something days, my Canon EOS 200D hasn't left my side. My first proper DSLR camera was a banger. I had done my research and I was set on buying a Nikon D3400. Every shop I had been into I had seen the price of this camera be between £350 and £500. I even thought about buying it from Dixons Travel whilst at the airport before my family holiday to Dubai but I decided that I would save my money and buy some nice clothes.
Coming to the end of the holiday, I had scoured through every Dubai mall to try every camera inside and outside of my budget. I told my Dad I was going to buy it. The camera to start my Film and Photography venture. He couldn't stay with me as I went into the shop. As I approached the salesman, ready to hand him my bank card, he walked me over to a different camera. I was surprised to find a new, just announced camera with very good specs (who am I kidding, I didn't care about the specs, I just wanted something that would take photos and would make me look cool in front of girls). The Canon EOS 200D was presented to me, and I fell in love straight away. The fantastic Canon colours, the (basically) unlimited amount of lens options and the tilty, flippy screen sold me. I walked out of the store and into the Canon showroom and found the same camera without the accessories for £100 more. And my decision was made.
For just over £500 (2300 Dirhams), the camera came with the kit 18-55mm lens (surprisingly useful and underused), a 16gb SD card, a cheap plastic tripod and an extension cable. To this day, I don't actually know why an extension cable should be included in a starter camera kit. Maybe it was just a sick joke that the salesman wanted to play on me as I approached airport security and then stopped to open and swab check my suitcase and to my surprise, an extension cable wasn't allowed on my hand luggage...
After getting to know the camera for about 4516 minutes, I thought what better way to test my skills than at a family party with relatively sh*t lighting and older relatives (or just any relatives for the matter)* jumping into MY shot. Going in blind, I found myself in the deep end with no armbands.
*This hasn't changed over the last 3 years, it has just become a part of the process.
My first couple of photos were out of focus, underexposed and blurry (Not that this has changed in the present, it just happens less frequently). As I wandered around the venue with my camera, one of my cousins grabs me and shoves his camera into my hands.
"You're going to be the photographer for this event Arjun," he said.
This was my moment, I was prepared. Albeit, a little inexperienced. With a wry smile on my face and an ounce of overconfidence, I gave his camera back to him and proclaimed "I brought my own".
That's how my journey started.
My first lens purchase was a vintage Pentacon 50mm f1.8. I don't actually remember using this lens too often. It was really another lens that had really made me go crazy about vintage lenses. Although I was first impressed with the Pentacon lens, I found that the images were always a little too zoomed in. This is when I encountered the dreaded Full Frame vs APSC debate. After watching dozens of videos and asking my lecturing whether size matters or not, I decided to look into speed boosters. And I was talking about sensor sizes to clarify... Turns out that no one has made a speed booster for Canon EFS APSC cameras!
Cutting to the chase, it doesn't matter what size sensor you have. As long as you have the means to move or orient the subject, the ability to move forwards and backwards and a wide enough lens, the only thing limiting you isn't the sensor size, it's your own creativity.
Enter my second vintage lens. The Helios 44-4 58mm f2. This is by far, one of my favourite lenses. I actually bought it by accident. It was an easy mistake to make in my opinion. I was saving up to buy a textbook at uni so I could enter into an exam and I stumbled onto a video about the best b-roll lens ever made. The video sent me down a rabbit hole of different Russian made lens, UV radiation and fungus.
The video I had watched was for the Helios 44-2 58mm f2 lens. One of the earlier versions of the lens that I had bought. The lens family is known for its swirly bokeh when photographing wide open, and each revision set out to fix the bokeh "issue". Over the last 40 years, the lens has gathered a cult following. The 1.6x APSC crop that the 200D has, has meant that the 35mm film focal length equivalent is around 93mm, a perfect lens for taking portraits or very narrow landscape shot. And it is because of this, I have kept the lens as my main lens.
Over the summer of 2018, I wanted to do something practical. I wanted to use the skills and techniques that I had gained at uni on a project which I had sourced myself. So I offered to create a short promotional video celebrating Partnership Day, a day for dedicated to thanking the Partners working in the company for my Waitrose store. Equipped with my 200D, kit and 58mm lens, a cheap tripod and my new Rode VideoMic Go, I started to go around the shop and film. To say the experience was easy would be lying. Imagine walking into a place where only about 10 people of 600 know who you are and asking someone to talk about a business they either don't know about or care about.
It was legit scary. I didn't know where to start, what to do or when to do it.
I only knew how to do it.
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