When it comes to how cameras handle, its safe to say, we [togs] have a lot options these days. Keen followers of my blog and twitter stream will undoubtebly know that I’ve switched cameras quite often in search for that holy grail which only beckons the question ― Does the holy grail exists? Of course not, there is no perfect camera, but just our own often times self imposed thoughts about a particular piece of gear, after all, we are all humans and we sometimes love these kinds scenarios. As my father often says, “we don’t learn in someone’s elses head, only in our own” [it sounds way better in Spanish ― Nadie aprende en cabeza ajena].

I now have had my Weekly Photography project for 30 continous weeks and I’ve been shooting continously for 1.5 years [stricly digital] to be exact and I can say I’ve learned a few things along this journey.

 

 
My own tidbits
I feel totally confortable with my vision and my image creating process. I see imaginary frames and if I have a camera on hand, I’m on it, if not, well it goes into my imaginary Lightroom inbox of shots I wish I would’ve had a camera. Which brings me to another point ― having a camera on hand and ready to capture the moment.
 

 
Having a camera ready is only the beginning of the image making process which continues over in our digital darkrooms. It goes without saying that my digital darkroom is very much an integral part of my vision. Some photographers sometimes that agree with that idea but if you’ve ever processed in a real old school darkroom and developed your own film reels, mess up a few along the way, dodged and burned, fixer, developer, et al. then you really know that the darkroom is as important as our image creating process.
 

 
Now with that said, that ever ready camera for me these days is my little ole Ricoh GRD 3. Its ready, its capable of producing beautiful tones, and most importantly it fits in my pocket unobtrusively, it simply, just is an ubiquitoous tool.
 

 
Now for my other stuff and when I want to carry something a bit more capable [senor size now, I can see some of you already getting all happy this] I use a dslr. I recently made the jump back to the dslr world because I found something that fits right into my workflow. I needed a small dslr with great IQ(image quality) and a very capable lens, also preferably very small. As you may remember, I was shooting with what it is probably the best micro four third lens ― the panasonic lumix 20mm 1.7 pancake which for some is their only prime lens as it was for me as well.
 

 
That said, I found what I was looking for, actually I couldn’t believe I had missed it before ― a Canon 450D. I decided to step in as usual buying used to get a feel for what the new system is and going or growing from there. So then the next step was finding a pancake similar in size to the Panny 20mm and guess what. Canon just recently announced the first ever pancake the awesom 40mm 2.8 STM lens. Not only is it tiny but its IQ is simply outstanding, some folks even saying its got “L” like quality and those are big words indeed. So I decided I would order that lens(B&H) new and kick off a new chapter.
 

 
So far, my experience with the 40mm has been simply outstanding it pairs with my 450D almost like the Panasonic G2/20mm and that my friends its freaking awesome for me. I’ve also have had a lens in mind for quite a while now and perhaps I’ll get it soon. Fast zooms have always been attractive to me and I just love how the Tamron 28–75 f2.8 renders both visually and its effective focal length on a 1.6 crop factor Canon. Will see, maybe Santa Klaus will leave it on my sock if I behave (wink, wink).
 

All images by Jorge on a Canon 450D & Canon 40mm f2.8 Pancake, and processed in Lightroom 3.