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Hello, my name is
Gene Wright (No I'm not the
famous Gene Wright Photographer
from San
Francisco, but I am in California), I created this website out of my
obsession for photography. I have been around cameras my entire
life. I was four years old when I started shooting with a Kodak Brownie
Camera similar to the one pictured below. I have been shooting photos and thinking about cameras and
taking pictures every
since. The subject of photography covers a lot of ground (you can take that
literally too), all the way from photography techniques and style to
camera manufacturing and all the ancillary things that go with photography.
So on about the website As time
went along, more and more acquaintances, friends and customers kept asking about
the camera gear I use, what camera equipment should they get. How to shoot real estate
photography. etc. Where to get prosumer camera equipment without paying an
arm and a leg. It seemed like they had a thousand questions. So I put up some pages
they could go to about where to Best Prices for the various equipment I talked about and
used.
At the time Stockton had two independent camera stores (I could swear that
each store charged at least $125% of MSRP for everything in their stores). When
Best Buy came into town, one camera store went out of business, the smaller
store was purchased by Wolf Camera (a part of Ritz Camera). Every time I have
gone to Best Buy, if the camera product is not on the top 50 list, they don't have it in stock.
This was the same story for our local Wolf Camera (Now Closed) (I know you can order on-line from
either company), but if you're going on-line go where you can get it at a big discount,
besides if they don't have it in stock, it probably doesn't exist.
As people discovered the website,
more questions came in. So, the site has grown from a half
dozen pages to a combined total of over 7,600 pages on
Vistaview360.com (this site) and
wrightrealtors. I have touched on
virtually all digital camera manufacturers and virtually all of their cameras and their
lenses. including 35mm, compacts and medium format. I usually add a number
of new things and change or improve others every day. When you buy camera
equipment, please link to one of these companies through this site,
(This will ultimately give me more time to do more reviews) I get a small
referral fee from them and besides you still pay much less than at your hometown
camera store. I personally order from these companies and you can trust them.
Digital Cameras and all other
electronics are like dog years.
Multiply the camera age by 7. So as of December, 2010 my new
D90 is already
effectively 15 years old. Besides newer cameras like the
Nikon D5000,
Nikon D3100, and
D7000 have been released. What can I say?, I like new
toys. But, let me say again: You don't need new or fancy equipment to shoot good
photos. See my page on
How to improve photography without new gear. I still use my old Nikon D50
for most real estate shots
About The Photography
History. When
I was a just little kid, my parents had a Kodak
Box Camera that I took many wonderful pictures with. It was a No 2A
Brownie Model C made in Rochester New York by Eastman Kodak, first introduced in
1924. It sold new for $3.75 and used roll film.
In 1962, I purchased a Polaroid Land camera. Can't remember the exact price, but
it was expensive (around a $100)
In 1972, we acquired a pocket size Kodak instamatic that used a new KODAK
110 Film Cartridge. The line was so popular that more than 25 million cameras
were produced in slightly under three years. In 1976, I purchased a OneStep SX-70 camera,
the Pronto!.Over 6 million Land cameras were produced that year. This camera was
fantastic for real estate photography (at the time). Looking back, this camera
sucked.
In 1977, I purchased my First SLR, a Minolta SRT101, a 28mm wide angle lens and
a 500mm telephoto lens. I made lots of shots with this camera,
film development process was slow and somewhat expensive. Great camera though,
beautiful images, but as computers and the internet was developing I wanted to
transfer images direct to my computer and my internet website.
In October, 2001, I acquired the digital Sony DSC-P1 3.3 Megapixel camera with a 3x
optical zoom for a whopping price of $799. I purchased because it was small and
fit in my pocket. There was nothing like it. You could
use a USB cable to transfer the digital images straight to your computer. I shot
thousands of photos with this camera. It is sitting in the closet to this day
usurped by a 6mm DSLR camera with wide angle lenses.
Prior to this camera I was using the Polaroid One Step and copying the photos
with a scanner or just making copies on the copy machine for real estate flyers,
or making copies of photos developed from the Minolta SLR.
I Sold the Polaroid at a garage sale after acquiring this camera.
I really missed the SLR concept but wanted an SLR in digital format and when Nikon came out with the D70 for $999 in
2004, I drooled over this camera until 2005 when Nikon released the 6mp D50, I
opted for the D50. It was priced at $650, but Costco had it on sale for $750
including a 18-55mm and a 55-200 lens. I still use this camera daily. It has
over 25,000 shots and is still going strong. I normally shoot jpeg at 3,008 x 2,000, which
makes good 8x10 prints at 300dpi. For the website, I reduce the size to 800x500
at 70% quality and normally lead the photos with a 200x130 thumbnail image. This
is painfully slow for dial-up, but a breeze for DSL and Cable Users.
I wanted wider shots for real estate interiors and the later part of 2007
purchased a Sigma 10-20mm for those really wide interior shots. I looked hard at
the Nikon 18-200 "Super Zoom", but when Sigma came out with an optical
stabilized 18-200
OC HSM lens for $200 less than the Nikon, I purchased at the
same time as the 10-20. The 18-200 hardly ever leaves the camera and the OS is
good for about 3-4 stops.
I became interested in panorama tours and acquired a
Nikon 10mm fisheye and a
Sigma 8mm fisheye. I sold the Nikon because it took 10 shots as opposed to the
Sigma with only 4 shots required for a stitched panorama tour. See working examples on this site.
or
Gallery Tour
There are literally thousands of photos of Stockton, Lodi and San Joaquin County
on this website and my real estate website
WrightRealtors. I started with a
photo or two per page, but added photo galleries to display more photos.
Some of my favorite cameras and lenses are the 12mp Nikon D90, but I still prefer the "old shoe
Nikon D50" I also favor the Tamron
fast 28-75 f28 which is a terrific walk around lens and the Sigma 18-200 HSM
and the Sigma
"Bigma" 50-500 Lens
How I do lens reviews
I test many of the lenses myself and not just rely
solely on reviews of others. I constantly buy, sell and trade lenses, I borrow them from friends
or rent them for
a few days and then come to my own conclusions about a lens. I also shoot images in similar conditions, look at them on the computer and print them out to compare lenses:
To find out more about VistaView360.com, we invite you to take a look around this site and see some of the services we provide, the sites we've built, and a few things just for fun.
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