It’s been a long time since I took a day and just went out to be a photographer.  Too long, evidently.  I drove up to the top of our local sky island to escape the oppressive record heat.  There is a nice loop trail up near the observatory.  I took my Sony a7R III, left the zoom in the car, and put the macro on.  I was going on what I like to call “Bug Safari.” I’ve done this a lot in the past with my Olympus OMD E-5.  It’s fun and I’ve gotten great shots.

Aside from the image above, which you will notice contains no bugs, the day was a spectacular failure.  The Sony’s menu is a rabbit hole of options, seven sub menus with several sub sub menus each.  Honestly, I have never even tried to master it.  I’m sure if I took the time, I could learn my way around and program the three presets available to me, but I bought this camera for a specific purpose, my Guatemala Abuelos project.  It served me well in low light, high quality video and portraiture.

It was the right tool for the job.  Now it is too much.  I frankly can’t be bothered to learn all the ins and outs of using this camera.  The payoff for all that work simply isn’t worth the effort.  I just want to take photos.  I’m not a point and shoot guy, although I do shoot on auto in some situations, but the complexity of this camera makes my entire photographic being glaze over. I am also moving to Oaxaca in the next couple of years, and I would much rather walk around with an unobtrusive, small image making device than this bulky Cadillac.

Anyway, not a single bug portrait came out. This is also due to my not learning how to operate the macro lens I bought last summer.  Olympus makes it all so simple.  I like simple. I’m going to sell the Sony. This also means my images will return to the 4:3 format I love.  Yay!