Random tangent (blog)
Ameel Khan's personal blog. This is a blog about life, technology, the internet, science, skepticism, feminism, books, film, music, and whatever other random stuff I come across or happen to be interested in today.
Do vaccines even work if you don’t take a selfie afterwards? :)
Selfie of a man sitting in a car outside a Chemist Warehouse branch. The man has his t-shirt sleeve rolled up to show a piece of cotton wool stuck to his upper arm using a strip of medical paper tape.
Nadia and I took three weeks off to go visit friends and family in Pakistan. Naturally I took several photos as we travelled from one place to the next :)
We had an almost-10pm flight out of Melbourne, so we had dinner at Melbourne Airport right after we checked-in.
Selfie of a man and woman, both wearing black t-shirts, backpacks, and face masks, standing in an airport terminal.
Neither of us minds having seats near the bathroom and neither of us minds sitting right at the back of the plane, so we picked seats in the second-last row of this Boeing 777 since that row has just two seats on the window side :)
Selfie of a man and woman, both wearing black t-shirts and face masks, seated in an aircraft. The two are giving a thumbs-up to the camera.
Abu Dhabi Airport’s brand new Terminal A is quite roomy (having been built for future growth) and is a surprisingly comfortable place to hang out for a ten-hour layover.
Selfie of a man wearing a bright orange jacket standing in the middle of a long terminal corridor, between gates C28 and C29.
Yay Karachi!
Selfie of a man and a woman, both wearing black t-shirts and face masks, standing next to their luggage at the international arrivals gate of an airport.
It took us almost forty hours to get back from Islamabad to Melbourne (via Karachi and Abu Dhabi). This was the start of our first leg.
Selfie of a man and a woman, both wearing black t-shirts and face masks, seated inside an aircraft cabin during boarding.
This was the start of our second leg, waiting in the international departure lounge.
Selfie of a man and a woman, both wearing black t-shirts and face masks, seated in a departure lounge at an airport.
This is towards the end of our twelve hour layover in Abu Dhabi.
Photo of a woman, wearing a black hoodie and face mask, leaning on a restaurant table in an airport. Behind her is a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out onto and airport terminal apron.
We’re making sure to stretch our legs and stand as much as we can before our non-stop, thirteen hour flight to Melbourne.
Selfie of a man and a woman, both wearing black tops and face masks, standing in a departure lounge at an airport.
All aboard and ready to boogie (aka sleep) on this lovely Boeing 787 (yay!).
Selfie of a man and a woman, both wearing black t-shirts and face masks, seated inside an aircraft cabin during boarding.
We hadn’t been back to Pakistan since late 2019, so this trip was very much overdue and it was a great way to start the year.
On 1 February 2004, Nadia and I got married at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Twenty years later we went back there to take a couple of selfies :)
Selfie of a man and a woman in their forties standing in a nook in a hotel lobby.
Selfie of a man and a woman in their forties standing outside a large hotel.
Later that day we celebrated with food and, importantly, with cake.
Photo of a man and woman in their forties standing in a dining room along one corner of a large, rectangular dining table. In front of them is a caramel cake with “Happy Anniversary Nadia & Ameel” written on it. The woman is holding up the large knife with which she is going to cut the cake.
That cake, while delicious, wasn’t quite as fancy as the one we cut at our actual reception.
Photo of a man and a woman in South Asian wedding attire surrounded by their families on their wedding day. The couple are in the process of cutting a large, fancy cake that’s been placed on a table in front of them.
Nor did we make a meme out of the cake-cutting, like we did for our tenth anniversary :)
Photo of a man and a woman in South Asian wedding attire surrounded by their families on their wedding day. The couple are in the process of cutting a large, fancy cake that’s been placed on a table in front of them. The couple and several of their family members are laughing at a joke that’s just been told by someone off-camera. Written in Comic Sans font across the photo in a seemingly haphazard fashion are several phrases in broken English that represent a kind of inner monologue. This type of internet meme, known as Doge, was popular in 2013 and 2014. These phrases are “so marriage”, “much decade”, “giggle”. “wow”, “many love”, “very bliss”, “caaaaake”, “10/10 would marry”, and (bizarrely) “once even flow alive why go black jeremy oceans porch garden deep release” (which is the song list from Pearl Jam’s debut album, ‘Ten’, in case you’re wondering).
The last time we were at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad we were dressed, well, a little differently :)
Collage of two photos, on above the other. The first photo, dated 1 Feb 2004, is of a man and a woman seated on stage and dressed in traditional Pakistani wedding outfits. The second photo, dated 1 Feb 2024, is of the same man and woman taking a selfie in a hotel lobby.
Happy 20th wedding anniversary Nadia!
Here’s what I’ve learned after owning a mirrorless, interchangeable-lens camera for just over one year. (I got my camera on Boxing Day 2022 but didn’t start taking any decent photos will it till at least the middle of January 2023.)
This is based on the 438 share-worthy photos I uploaded to Flickr in 2023.
Aside from typical life and event/travel photos, I seem to like taking photos that tell micro stories of people and places. I do this mainly through three types of photos…
These are photos looking up, down, and around at things you stop noticing when you live somewhere for a long time. These are architectural photos, photos of objects, or photos of people going about their lives doing things I find interesting.
Looking up along light tower 5 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Photo looking straight up along the side of a large, white, stadium light tower on a partly cloudy day.
These are photos that make you wonder what the person/people in the photo are doing, thinking, or talking about.
Tourists checking out Melbourne’s office-building architecture. Photo of a couple standing on the other side of the road from the photographer. They have their arms around each other and are looking up at the top of a building across the street from them. A green-and-white tram is about to cross in front of them.
These are photos that (hopefully) communicate the vibe of the place in which I took the photo or maybe what I was feeling when I took it.
I want to touch the nose again! (Avalon Airshow 2023). Photo of a man at an airshow carrying a little boy in his lap (presumably his son). The man is standing next to the nose of a military transport aircraft. Next to the man is a little girl (presumably his daughter) who wants to be picked up so she can touch the nose of the aircraft again.
When I wasn’t doing my ‘one focal length at a time exercise’, my favourite focal lengths were 27mm, 85mm, and 345mm. These represent both extremes of my two zoom lenses: 27-85mm for my main lens and 80-345mm for my second lens. The 85mm bar in the chart below covers the 80-85mm range where my two lenses overlap, and so that’s why this bar is the longest.
Graphic titled ‘Focal length usage 2023 (full-frame equivalent)’. Below this is a chart titled ‘Normal zoom-lens usage’ that shows a bar chart with bars ranging from 27mm to 300-345mm. The three longest bars in this chart are for 85mm (28% of all photos), 27mm (23%), and 300-345mm (11%).
What have I learned from this?
27mm end: I like taking architectural photos (the wide angle helps you capture more of the building/location) and I often like taking photos that capture the context around my primary subject (eg their location or where they’re headed). Also, in the early days I was still getting used to composing good shots with my new camera, so I would do a looser composition while taking the photo and then crop-in later during editing.
The other ends: I like to zoom in on specific parts of architecture (like the tops of buildings) and I like to simplify my photographs by isolating my subjects within the frame (so it’s easier to focus on the specific object or the person I’m photographing).
Part of the point of the ‘one focal length at a time’ exercise I did over October-December 2023 was to force me to get away from these extremes and try the most popular intermediate focal lengths instead.
Graphic titled ‘Focal length usage 2023 (full-frame equivalent)’. Below this is a chart titled “‘One focal length at a time’ exercise” that shows a bar chart with bars ranging from 27mm to 85mm. The two longest bars in this chart are for 27mm and 40mm (both at 27%). This is followed by 50mm (19%), 85mm (18%), and 35mm (9%).
Aside from all the creative learning I did during my ‘one focal length at a time’ exercise, I learned that 27mm and 40mm are the focal lengths at which I am the most successful (and comfortable shooting). That’s why, when I do buy an everyday-carry prime lens, those are the two I’ll get first (starting with 40mm).
The end of the year is a good time for reflection and learning, and it’s been fun going through all the photos I’ve taken this year. Importantly, I noted how I improved as a photographer over the last twelve months and what I still need to get better at.
In 2024 I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing right now: taking regular photo walks in and around Melbourne and photographing life, events, and travel. I have a lot of experience to gain and still plenty of incremental improvement to do before I start to plateau both creatively and skill-wise.
So here’s to another fun year of photography!
Since moving to Australia in 2006, this is only the second time that Pakistan has played Australia in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG.
Nadia and I attended day three of the last test match, back in 2016.
Photo of the grounds at a massive cricket stadium, taken from an under-cover seat some distance away from the field.
This year I attended day one of the match with a bunch of family friends.
Selfie of four people seated in a row at a cricket match, three of whom are wearing Pakistan cricket team gear.
Here are some of the photos I took while I was there.
Photo of a sign post at the Melbourne Cricket ground showing the walking time and distance (in kilometres) from this post to Jolimont Railway Station, tram routes 48 and 75 along Wellington Parade, Flinders Street Railway Station, tram route 70 along Swan Street, and Richmond Railway Station.
Photo taken through a wire mesh fence of half a dozen train tracks running between where the photographer is standing and several buildings and sports centres on the other side. A blue-and-yellow Metro train is running along one of these tracks. A covered, elevated walkway runs above the tracks.
Photo of an entry gate at Melbourne Cricket Ground, which about two dozen people waiting in short queues to get through security and ticketing. A large digital sign above the gate reads, in all capital letters, “Welcome to the boxing day test”.
Photo of three rows of young women, all wearing an identical uniform of black shoes, black pants, and cream coloured tops, standing in choir formation inside a massive cricket stadium.
Photo of three rows of young women, all wearing an identical uniform of black shoes, black pants, and cream coloured tops, standing in choir formation inside a massive cricket stadium. On the other side of the large ground are the cricket players standing next to their respective country flags.
Photo of a male cricket player, wearing an all-white kit, jumping in the air as part of his warm-up routine.
Photo of a male cricket player, wearing an all-white kit, standing at the crease and ready to face ball that is being bowled to him.
Photo of a young boy in a while t-shirt and a green coloured Pakistan team hat watching a cricket match.
Photo of a male cricket player, wearing an all-white kit, about to release the ball he is bowling.
Photo of four tiers of cricket stands, each with a café, bar, or corporate suites behind them. A large sign on one of these seating tiers reads, ‘Melbourne Cricket Club’.
Photo of a male music DJ standing at his console while he chats to a man dressed in a bright, multi-coloured ‘Squad Pakistan’ shirt with a large dhol slung across his back.
Photo of an outdoor food stall set up in a large garden. A sign above the stall reads, in all capital letters, ‘Karachi street food’. There are several people milling around the food stand, and a line to the food stand extends off-camera.
Photo of an outdoor food stall set up in a large garden with picnic tables placed around it. A sign above the stall reads, in all capital letters, ‘Karachi street food’. A stall in the background has a sign that reads, ‘Sugarcane Juice’. There are several people standing in the garden, and a long line of people queuing at the food stand extends off-camera.
Maggie is enjoying the return of summer. She has arthritis so she needs to be warm, and she she’s always loved soaking up the sun. I think her bones also appreciate the memory-foam dog bed we have for her our living room.
Photo, taken through a window pane, of a red/brown dog in a residential garden. The dog is twisting around in the garden, all four legs up in the air, while she scratches her back on the dirt and grass.
Photo of a red/brown dog fast asleep in a large grey coloured dog bed on the floor of a living room. The dog's face is smushed into a blanket lying on one side of the dog bed.
Photo of a red/brown dog in a large grey coloured dog bed on the floor of a living room. The dog is looking blearily into the camera because she has just been woken by her photo being taken.
Photo of a red/brown dog lying on her side, with her head right in front of an open bathroom door. The photo is taken from inside the bathroom.
When we got Maggie all those years ago, we’d take her for hour-long walks every day and she’d still have an endless supply of energy afterwards.
As she got older, she’d start to get tired after forty-five minutes of walking, so we dropped her walk time down to thirty-ish minutes.
These days she still has the mental enthusiasm for half-hour walks, but if we walk for too long in one go, her body pays for it the next day. So we’re now down to fifteen-ish minute walks every morning; with maybe a five or ten minute walk in the evening if she’s up for it.
Not that she minds. She still loves walking through our neighbourhood and foraging for whatever she can eat. But she’s become a lot more chill as she’s gotten older, with fewer fucks to give about the world. And, as long as she knows where we are, she’s no longer in a mad rush to follow us from room-to-room as we move around the house. Unless it’s nearing her walk time or dinner time, of course, in which case she’ll make her presence know no matter where we are and what we’re up to! But otherwise she’s content with her slower pace of life.
In all of 2023 I think Nadia and I went out to brunch maybe just three or four times. The last time we went, I took a couple of photos :)
Selfie of a man and a woman standing by the side of the road. Both are wearing wide-brimmed hats and both are smiling at the camera. The woman is wearing sunglasses and a blue dress. The man is wearing a black t-shirt with blue lettering on it.
Photo of a woman seated at a café, looking down at a menu that is lying on the table in front of her. The woman is wearing a blue dress and has her sunglasses pushed back onto the top of her head.
Photo of a woman seated at a café, with a menu lying on the table in front of her. The woman is wearing a blue dress and has her sunglasses pushed back onto the top of her head. She is looking up at the photographer because she has just noticed that he had his phone up to take her photo.
Here’s to more bunches in 2024!
When we adopted Maggie in 2016 we were told she was probably two-and-a-half to three years old. And since we needed to nominate a date of birth for her registration, we ended up picking 5 December 2013.
So, at least according to that guesstimate, our now-not-so-little Maggie is ten years old today. Happy birthday!
Here she is making the most of her middle-agedness:
Photo of a red/brown dog fast asleep on her side in a round, fuzzy, orange dog bed. One back paw and one front paw is sticking out over the edge, and the dog’s head is also resting on the edge. The bed is lying in the corner of a carpeted room.
Red heelers like Maggie tend to have a 12-15 year lifespan, though healthy, well cared for, non-working heelers can easily live for 18-20 years. So we have many, many years with her yet.
That said, here’s a side-by-side comparison of how much greyer her muzzle has gotten over the years. ❤️
Nadia and I have gotten greyer over the last decade too, of course, so we’re all a happily middle aged family now :)
We celebrated a friend’s birthday with a picnic at Kingsford Smith Ulm Reserve in Glenroy.
I haven’t looked up the history of this place, but given it is located just north of Essendon Fields Airport in Melbourne, I’m guessing they named it after pioneering Australian aviators Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm.
Here are some of the photos I took while I was there.
Photo of the top of an airport control tower peeking out from behind a low hill, in the background of the photo. In the foreground is the rise of a grassy hill, which is part of a reserve, with a road running through it.
Photo of the top of an large water tower above a series of industrial buildings at the top of a low hill. In the foreground of this photo is the rise of a grassy hill, which is part of a reserve.
Photo of a railway viaduct built across a creek’s valley and flood plain. The viaduct comprises steel girders supported by steel-framed towers. Behind the viaduct is the residential suburb of Gowanbrae.
Photo of a railway viaduct built across a creek’s valley and flood plain. The viaduct comprises steel girders supported by steel-framed towers. Behind the viaduct is the residential suburb of Gowanbrae, and you can see several blue paint and red brick houses behind the rail line.
Photo of a brown park bench in the shade of a few large trees in a park.
Photo of a low, wooden, green-and-brown frog sculpture in a play area at park. In the foreground of the photo are two park benches and several vertical logs that little children can climb over and walk on. A nearby tree is providing shade to this area.
Photo of a low, wooden, green-and-brown frog sculpture in a play area at park.
Black-and-white photo of a drinking fountain, with some blurry shrubs visible in the background.
Close-up photo of a tree stump embedded vertically into the ground. There are visible tree rings and several large cracks running through the cross-section of the stump. On the ground around the tree stump are wood chips, placed to soften the fall of children when they’re climbing on or over these stumps.
Close-up photo of a tree stump embedded vertically into the ground. There are visible tree rings and several large cracks running through the cross-section of the stump. On the ground around the tree stump are wood chips, placed to soften the fall of children when they’re climbing on or over these stumps.
Photo of a magpie on the ground next to a picnic table that has a few food bags placed next to it. The bird has a bit of fallen food in its mouth.
Photo of a two magpies on the ground next to a picnic table.
Photo of a two magpies on the ground next to a picnic table. The magpies have their mouths open, mid-song.
I guess it’s particularly appropriate to be publishing a photo of two singing magpies, given the Collingwood Magpies won the 2023 AFL Grand Final today :)
Selfie of a man and a woman at a park/reserve. The man has a mostly-white beard, and is wearing glasses and a straw hat. The woman is wearing a small necklace and sunglasses. Both are smiling at the camera.
Nadia’s book, The Djinn Hunters, has officially been launched!
Photo of a poetry book lying on a wooden table. Next to this is a metal-and-glass lantern with a lit candle inside it.
The turn-out was excellent, and a lot of our friends and Nadia’s colleagues attended.
Nadia was thrilled about it :)
Photo of a woman standing in an event space. The woman has long black hair and is smiling at the camera. She is wearing wearing a blue dress; black jumper; and round, gold coloured jewellery.
Instead of the speeches and readings you’d see at a typical book launch, in this one the publisher and editor (Jessica Wilkinson) asked Nadia and Will — the two authors whose books she was launching — a bunch of insightful questions. She also got them to read some of their poems that helped illustrate their answers. It was good format and it worked really well.
Photo of two people seated on wicker chairs in an event space. The man on the left is speaking into a wireless microphone that he is holding in one hand, while in the other hand he holds a folded-over book. The woman on the right is looking at the speaker. In her lap she has a book with several sticky-notes sticking out of it.
A whole bunch of people bought Nadia’s book.
Photo of two piles of books lying on a table, with a portable payment card reader and a tumbler of lemon, lime, and bitters lying next to the books.
And there was a long line of people who wanted her to sign their copy :)
Photo of a woman sitting in a wicker chair and leaning over to sign her name in a book that she is holding open on top of a table next to the chair. A small lamp shines a pool of light over the table top.
All told it was a fantastic evening, and then a bunch of us made our way to the pub down the street to have dinner :)
Nadia’s book, The Djinn Hunters, is out!
You can buy it online and, if you’re in Melbourne, you can join us at the book launch on Tuesday, 26 September 2023 at Crystal Palace in Carlton North. The event is free, but you do need to RSVP.
This is poet Kevin Brophy’s blurb from Nadia’s book:
‘Nadia Niaz dances worlds into being. Hers is a rich and heady poetry, unafraid to play with form, spun for us across contrasting worlds, languages, time, customs. It’s a poetry to savour, gasp and marvel at for its spirit of sustained and generous observation.’
—Kevin Brophy
Hope to see a bunch of you at the launch!
I slept in and delayed Maggie’s daily morning walk. She was not amused.
Close up photo of a red/brown dog sitting on a bed next to the photographer, who is lying in the bed. The dog has a resigned expression on its face as it stares into the middle distance.
She was even less amused after I took that first photo :P
Close up photo of a red/brown dog sitting on a bed next to the photographer, who is lying in the bed. The dog is looking at the photographer, and is not looking particularly pleased that the photographer took her photo instead of getting out of bed.
June is chock full of family birthdays and this year Eid-ul-Azha also fell in that month. So I took out my apron and got to work :)
Collage of four photos. In the top left is a chocolate cheesecake with a chocolate cookie base and a chocolate ganache top. In the top right is a tall, plain looking cake with yellowish/white frosting. In the bottom left is a bowl full to the brim with seviyan (vermicelli) kheer. In the bottom right is an apple pie with a lattice pastry design on top.
The no-bake choc ripple cheesecake (top left) was for Nadia’s birthday, and it is based on Gemma Stafford’s no-bake Oreo cheesecake recipe. This was both gluten and lactose free.
The funfetti (aka sprinkles) birthday cake with lemon buttercream frosting (top right) was for my niece’s birthday. This is based on two of Gemma’s recipes: one for the cake and one for the frosting. I didn’t decorate the cake because the kids wanted to decorate it themselves.
The seviyan (vermicelli) kheer (bottom left) was for Eid-ul-Azha, and I made it using my mother’s recipe (which is a pretty standard recipe, tbh). This was lactose free.
The apple pie (bottom right) was for my older sister’s birthday. The pie is based on an SBS apple pie recipe and the crust is based on Sarah Howell’s gluten free shortcrust pastry recipe.
Maggie’s tooth extraction went well, but she was on ketamine not too long ago so the poor thing is still a little out of it!
Photo of a red/brown dog with an orange crepe bandage on its foreleg. The dog, who looks like it’s dissociating quietly, is sitting on a brown towel that’s been spread out on a dog bed on the floor of a living room.
The folks at Fawkner Veterinary Hospital in Melbourne are both lovely and excellent at their jobs, by the way. 10/10 would recommend.
Photo of a red/brown dog that’s fast asleep with its face smooshed against the wall of a dog bed that has been covered with a brown towel. The dog itself has been covered with a small, fuzzy blanket.
Nadia’s publication, the Australian Multilingual Writers Project, was invited to present a session at the 2023 Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne.
I went along and took a few photos :)
Photo of a woman standing on a stage and leaning out from behind a tall, blue pull-up banner that reads “Australian Multilingual Writing Project”. Next to this is another tall banner, this one green, that reads “Emerging Writers’ Festival”.
Close-up photo of a black microphone mounted on a podium. In the background, and out of focus, is a large, empty exhibition space bathed in pink light. The room is built in the Italianate revival style of Victorian-era architecture, with tall Ionic columns and a very high ceiling.
Photo looking down at a pair of white sneakers that are bathed in pink light. The floor is a pattern of black, white, and red terra cotta tiles.
Photo looking down towards a terra cotta tiled floor. From the left of the frame you can see the legs and feet of a person seated off camera. This person is wearing a yellow skirt with bright patterns on it, light blue socks with flower patterns on them, and slightly darker coloured light blue shoes with a different flower pattern on them. Another person is standing on the tiled floor with pink coloured trainers with blue lines on them. This person is also wearing white coloured ankle warmers and light brown coloured pinstriped shorts.
Photo looking through a doorway at a large event space that is bathed in pink light. There are people seated on plastic chairs that have been set out in rows in front of a stage. On the stage are two pull-up banners. The smaller blue coloured banner reads “Australian Multilingual Writing Project” while the larger green banner reads “Emerging Writers’ Festival” and “14-24 June 23”.
It’s my last teen anniversary with Nadia :)
Selfie of a man and woman standing outdoors. There is a large number “19” added to the corner of the photo. The man has a black-and-white beard and is wearing a black printed t-shirt and black baseball cap. The woman has long black hair and is wearing a black leather jacket. The woman is resting her head on the man’s chest.
How time flies when you’re having the best years of your life.
It’s time for of our annual Australian Open selfie :)
Selfie of a man and a woman in a tennis court. They are both wearing wide-brimmed straw hats, face masks, and black t-shirts. They have bright blue lanyards around their necks.
Here are some other nice photos I took at the Australian Open this year.
Though this one is probably my favourite :)
Black and white photo of a child watching a tennis match. The child is leaning back in his chair and has his feet up against the railing in front of him.
It’s a Fujifilm X-S10 and it’s really cool.
Face-on photo of a Fujifilm X-S10 camera.
I’ve been wanting to get an interchangeable-lens camera for years, but I wasn’t buying one because these types of cameras are:
Inconvenient: they’re bulky, heavy, expensive, and they have a learning curve
Unnecessary: I wasn’t being limited creatively by the camera I already had
I’ve bought one now because both those things have changed…
Mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras (MILCs) came onto the market several years ago and they’re smaller, lighter, and cheaper than DSLRs. They do still have a learning curve though.
The best part is that all the top camera brands now make mirrorless cameras, so there are lots of models to choose from at different price points.
Screenshot of the digiDirect camera store website showing all the mirrorless cameras they have available for sale. In the left column of the website is a list that shows how many mirrorless cameras each brand has for sale. These numbers range from 1 (ILFORD) to 65 (Nikon).
My current camera is a Pixel 6 Pro smartphone. It is a highly capable camera and is something I have on me at all times. However, it has a relatively small imaging sensor, and the capabilities of its lenses are limited by the thickness of the phone itself.
Google’s computational photography does let you take some truly excellent photos, of course, but I’m now at the stage in which I want both higher quality images and more precise, manual control over my photo taking. That’s not something any smartphone camera can offer.
That said, for a while I did extend the capabilities of my phone’s camera by using external lenses designed for smartphones. The telephoto, wide-angle, and macro lenses from Moment let me take some really cool photos, likes the ones below. But using these lenses was only ever a steppingstone to where I want to go to now.
Collage showing photos taken from primary, macro, tele, and wide angle lenses.
I will continue to use my phone camera, of course. As they say, “the best camera is the one you have with you” and I do have my phone on me literally all the time. So I expect many of my everyday photos will still be shot using that.
That said, the whole point of getting a small and light mirrorless camera like the Fujifilm X-S10 is that I can carry it with me pretty much everywhere I go. I almost never leave home without my backpack and this new camera will now be added to my everyday carry.
Close-up photo of a Fujifilm X-S10 camera lying on a table, party wrapped in a protective pouch.
Once I made the decision to get a mirrorless camera, the question was: which one?
That then led to four other questions:
What’s my budget? This was between $1-2k for the camera body, kit lens, and maybe one additional prime lens.
What do I intend to do with my new camera? Mostly take non-professional photos of my life (ie family, pets, events, travels, streetscapes, landscapes) and occasionally a few short videos. Even more occasionally use the camera as webcam (eg when I’m presenting remotely at a conference).
Which camera system (ie body and lenses) do I want to buy into? I wasn’t particularly fussed. That said, I wanted to invest in a mirrorless camera system that I could grow into and evolve my photography with.
What else is important to me? A camera that I can carry in my backpack with me everywhere, so something that’s small and light. A camera with a good auto mode and good auto focus. A camera that colour-grades the photos the way I like them, so I won’t have to tweak the colours of most of the photos I want to share with people. And, ideally, a camera with weather proofing and built-in image stabilisation.
After a great deal of research – which I thoroughly enjoyed doing, by the way – I concluded that I needed to get an intermediate ($1,000+) or midrange (~$2,000) mirrorless APS-C camera.
Beginner level cameras (ie point-and-shoots) and budget mirrorless cameras (ie entry level mirrorless ones) didn’t meet my functionality and capability requirements. While more professional cameras (ie mirrorless full-frame ones) were both too large and very much beyond my budget.
I’d have preferred a midrange camera – all models of which seem to have weather proofing and in-built image stabilisation – but I was happy to settle for an intermedia level camera since most midrange cameras are out of my price range (unless you can get them second hand or during a really good sale).
This was the initial shortlist I came up with:
Sony Alpha A6400 (announced Jan 2019)
Sony Alpha A6600 (Aug 2019)
Nikon Z50 (Oct 2019)
Fujifilm X-S10 (Oct 2020)
Canon EOS R10 (May 2022)
I had two Sony cameras on my list because the A6400 is an intermediate level camera that I could afford first-hand and the A6600 is a midrange level camera that I might have been able to get second-hand (if I got lucky).
Photo of a digiDirect shop storefront, a digital camera store. On the display window next to the entrance is a large poster that reads “Boxing Day” and “Our biggest sale of the year is back”.
Each camera in my shortlist had its pros and cons but, ultimately, these are the things that got me to pick the Fujifilm X-S10 over the other options.
I prefer the out-of-the-box photo colours you get from Fujifilm and Canon cameras over the colours you get from Nikon and Sony cameras. Had I got the Sony A6400 – which was my very close second choice – I would have had to manually tweak the colours of many of the photos I took and then wanted to publish.
(This is what I have to do with my Pixel 6 Pro right now, by the way. In the world of Android smartphones, I prefer the photo colours you get from Samsung phones over those you get from any other Android phone camera. But since I very, very much prefer everything else about Pixel phones, photo colours end up being what I compromise on. As a result I have to slightly tweak the colours of most of the photos I take with my Pixel phone before I share them or publish them online.)
Fujifilm and Sony both have a fantastic lens selection (including third-party lenses) and they both have a great camera upgrade path (ie more capable camera bodies you can upgrade to over time).
There are many more third-party (and therefore lower cost) lenses you can buy for Sony cameras versus Fujifilm cameras. But the Fujifilm lenses you use on their APS-C cameras bodies are the same ones you use on their full-frame camera bodies. So if I was to upgrade to a full-frame Fujifilm camera body in the future, I’d get to keep all my existing lenses. With Sony I’d have to switch to a different type of lens and so all my existing lenses would be useless to me.
Not that I’m looking to upgrade to a full-frame camera any time soon, by the way. But who knows where I’ll be in ten years and what I’ll think of past-me if I do decide to make that change.
You generally only get IBIS in midrange cameras. The Fujifilm X-S10 is the only intermediate level camera body with IBIS. Like the Swiss flag, that to me is a big plus.
I don’t expect to be shooting much handheld video (which is what IBIS is great for) and I don’t expect to be shooting professional-level landscape photos (for which a tripod is recommended anyway) but I’ll take any extra edge I can get to take sharper photos.
Another thing you only get in midrange cameras is a headphone port that lets you monitor your audio while you’re videoing something. The Fujifilm X-S10 is the only intermediate level camera that has a USB-C port that you can plug your headphones into (via a provided adapter) to monitor live audio.
I don’t expect to be shooting much video with this camera, but that audio monitoring capability is definitely good to have.
Oh, and as a bonus, this USB-C port can also be used to power the camera. This is great for both charging your battery and for when you want to use your camera as a webcam.
Black and white photo of a woman just before she bursts into a smile.
For all its features and capabilities, the Fujifilm X-S10 also has a few limitations.
Sony cameras have the best auto-focus and face detect capabilities, and they do a great job with burst-mode photos as well (ie taking several high-quality photos per second). The Fujifilm X-S10 isn’t as good at either of those, so I don’t expect fantastic results when photographing sports and action. I’m okay with that. I don’t take many sports or action photos anyway.
This camera has a thirty-minute limit on recording 4K video in-camera. (There’s no limit if you’re using an external recorder.) That also doesn’t bother me because I’m not buying this camera for its video capabilities. If I was going to be doing more videography than photography, then I would probably have bought one of the Sony cameras instead.
No intermediate level cameras are weather sealed. That means I can’t take this camera out in the rain. And I need to be careful when using it around sand or water as well; or when its super dusty outside. But that’s okay because I didn’t expect to be doing (much of) that anyway.
Photo of a stuffed toy version of a webcomic panel that shows a dog with a hat holding a white coffee mug that reads ‘This is fine’.
Now that I’ve finally got my hands on this camera, it’s time to learn to use it properly. I’ll publish another post later in which I list all the useful learning resources I’ve used so far.
For now let me leave you with a comparison that shows the quality of photos you get from the Google Pixel 6 Pro smartphone camera compared to the photos you get from the Fujifilm X-S10 mirrorless camera. I should note that the objective of this photo was to focus on the fence, and only on the fence. It’s cool to see what you can achieve with the Fuji without even trying too hard.
Collage of two photos of the same scene taken by two different cameras: the Google Pixel 6 Pro and the Fujifilm X-S10. The collage is titled ‘Focus on the fence’. In the foreground of the scene is the ornamental top of a metal fence. Behind that is a garden with some bushes, more of the fence, cars parked on the road, and several trees. In the Google Pixel 6 Pro photo the fence is focus while everything else is slightly out of focus, but still very much recognisable. In the Fujifilm X-S10 photo only the fence is focus, while everything else behind the fence is pleasingly blurred and out of focus.
That comparison above highlights the two specific things I’m most looking forward to right out of the gate with my new camera (versus my smartphone camera), which are its ability to:
do precise focusing on your subject
shoot photos with a narrow depth of field (in which everything in the foreground and in the background are pleasingly out of focus)
So onwards and upwards! Let the learning and then the photographing begin.
I thought this was a nice, shady spot for a 1 Jan 2023 selfie…
Selfie of a man wearing a t-shirt, sunglasses, and straw hat walking a red/brown dog on a residential street. The dog is sniffing around in the grass of the nature strip.
Evidently she thought this was a nice, grassy spot where she could scratch her back :)
Selfie of a man wearing a t-shirt, sunglasses, and straw hat walking a red/brown dog on a residential street. The dog next to him is upside down and is rubbing her back on the tall, scratchy grass that's on the nature strip.
Win-win!
This is personal website of Nadia Niaz and Ameel Zia Khan. Here we document our lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
