Author: The Overrated Photographer

I am a forty something year old Melbourne based photographer covering a broad range of genre’s from sports to portraits and travel. My introduction into photography started with doing some kitesurfing photos, but with the arrival of my first daughter, my focus shifted to family and the vast majority of my photos are either family or street. I still try to get extreme sports when I am not kitesurfing myself. My current non-personal photography work is confined to charity and not-for-profit engagements where I am engaged in photography for a number charity events to give back to the community and help support fund raising for these organisations. These include the homeless and cancer events. I do not currently do any paid commercial work as I run a successful non-photography business and this allows me to explore my personal creativity with photography.
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The Sony A7iii vs Fujifilm X-T3

The Overrated Photographer

I caught up with a good mate over the weekend. As a Fujifilm user, he had the latest X-T3, so we decided to swap cameras to allow us to play around and get our thoughts. He’s already penned his thoughts here so feel free to have a look at the different perspectives.

It was an excellent opportunity to see where the camera designs were going, and I put together my thoughts on the two. This isn’t a feature comparison, just some ideas comparing where the two cameras are in their life cycle.

Some of these photos are snapshots, the review wasn’t intended to showcase the best of these cameras, it was a casual outing with a friend and our kids in bright midday sunlight, not exactly ideal conditions, but I have thrown in some other samples as well.

My knowledge of shooting video is somewhere between zero and nothing, so please don’t expect any video related comparisons.

Continue reading “The Sony A7iii vs Fujifilm X-T3”

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Is it any surprise female photographers feel uncomfortable?

The Overrated Photographer

I had a mystifying experience on the Sony A7iii group run by SonyAlphaRumors.

Someone posted a photo of some ladies dressed in sailors outfits. The photo and pose weren’t to my taste but it was “safe for work” from a photographic perspective so the photo itself wasn’t the problem. What I found insane was the responses to the photos from the so-called amateur and professional photographers in the group, some of which run photography businesses. Continue reading “Is it any surprise female photographers feel uncomfortable?”

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How to get Fujifilm classic chrome with a Sony A7iii or other Sony Cameras

The Overrated Photographer

When I first made the shift to Sony, one of the concerns I had was about the loss of Fujifilm’s Classic Chrome, one of my favourite film simulations and probably the only one I use on a regular basis. It wasn’t a show stopper, but I really like the subdued colours for days where I am shooting in midday sun and can’t avoid it.

Fortunately, moving to Sony doesn’t mean the end of Classic Chrome, or many of the other simulations, which can be replicated in some form. Obviously it’s not a perfect science, but I thought I would would put out something so other people don’t don’t through the process as well: Continue reading “How to get Fujifilm classic chrome with a Sony A7iii or other Sony Cameras”

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Please spare us the “born again camera users”

The Overrated Photographer

There is an annoying breed of camera user and they’re everywhere no matter how hard you try to avoid them. This is officially the age of the ”born again camera user.”

To avoid offending all photographers, I do want to be clear that it’s not all photographers who switch systems, there are many pleasant switchers, but it does seem like the Facebook has a much larger volume of these problem users than I have experienced with other platforms. It similar to the people who get behind the wheel of a car and act like idiots endangering other users because they know better…in Australia we call them hoons, but every country has them. Whilst they drive every kind of car, more often than not they are confined to one or two brands, and specific styles of cars like utes (small pickups). In todays technology world, it would seem that Facebook has become the modern platform of choice for the photography hoon, and they are officially becoming a very annoying group. Continue reading “Please spare us the “born again camera users””

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Goodbye Fujifilm

The Overrated Photographer

Yeah, I know, it’s a shock. If you’re a Fujifilm user and you got here by accident, have a look at http://www.myfujilife.com for a backup of all the articles.

I was a happy Fujifilm user, so I haven’t departed because the grass is green on the other side. I’m not going to be negative about Fujifilm gear, I still love it. I like the retro styling, I like the aesthetics, I like the quality, I like the controls. I probably would have bought the 8-16mmF2.8 and 200mmF2. Continue reading “Goodbye Fujifilm”

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I was wrong and I get it now – The instagram dilemma

The Overrated Photographer

I wrote an article previously about why I wasn’t planning to split my Instagram accounts. The logic was simple, “I don’t care about what other people think about my accounts because it’s a reflection of where I am at as a photographer”.

In theory it sounds great, and as someone not worrying about ever taking an account down a commercial path but there was one minor issue with my plan. After discussions with a friend is who an Instagram guru, there are times when you want to constrain your account and it’s not about followers and what people think of your account, it’s something different which is the value you get out of your account. Continue reading “I was wrong and I get it now – The instagram dilemma”

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Shimoda Backpack Review

The Overrated Photographer

A mate and fellow photographer, Greg Cromie, offered help me get some photos as obviously it was hard for me to get photos of myself wearing the bag. A big thank you to Greg for taking the photos of me, you can follow him on WordPress. He has some great articles and regularly posts to this site.

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Photo by Greg Cromie

In doing this review, I haven’t posted some of the more detailed product shots of the inserts or interior of the bag. You can get decent quality version in perfect light from Shimoda’s website, so if you want to check out every nook and cranny of the bag, I suggest you do it there. Continue reading “Shimoda Backpack Review”

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Artisan & Artist ACAM-77 Soft Leather Pouch Review

The Overrated Photographer

As usual, I tend to incorporate a long introduction to explain my buying process and why I picked something specifically over the 100,000 alternatives on the market. If you’re not into longwinded introductions and don’t care why I picked this specifically, feel free to skip over this section.

The challenge with the X-E3 is that if you want to carry it around in your laptop bag, there isn’t the availability of hard cases you can find for the X100. Even the X100 series is not without its problems the moment you add a hood, thumb rest or grip as this has the potential to complicate the options. Continue reading “Artisan & Artist ACAM-77 Soft Leather Pouch Review”