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    About VistaView Me




    I am Gene Wright in Stockton California.

    I am not the Gene Wright Photographer, a longtime studio and commercial photographer in North Beach who was dubbed a "living legend" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Click here to find the San Francisco Gene Wright or here for the book San Francisco Love Affair: A Photographic Romance - Gene Wright Images 1949-2000

    My name is Gene Wright. I am a real estate broker that became interested in computers and photography as a direct need for quality real estate photography in the real estate business. See my page on: Room too Dark and the Panorama Tour Page. The average real estate agents are still using camera phones to photograph their listings and very rarely do I see a MLS listing interior shot with a 10mm or 12mm wide lens . I started my first website to have a place to promote my real estate business and have a place for the real estate photos  I only shot film with my Minolta SLR SRT101 prior to the website. I started the website in October of 2000 with a brand new Sony Cybershot  DSC-P1. 3,3 MP camera. This camera measures  4.5 x 2.1 x 1.7  (fits in my pocket) and weighs 8.8 ounces. I paid $799 for it, It came with an 8MB memory stick. The only Nikon DSLR at the time was the Nikon D1 2,7 MP DX which sold for a whopping $5,000. Nikon did not release an affordable prosumer DSLR, until The Nikon D70 in February of 2004 for $999, and the NIKON D50 in April of 2006 including the Nikkor 18-55 kit lens and the Nikkor 55-200 for $650. and the current Nikon D40 was first released in November of 2005 for $599. In June of 2006, I got the D50 because I wanted a wider lens to shoot interior photos. The only wide choices were the Nikkor 12-24mm ($950) and the Sigma 10-20mm for which I paid a huge $520, it was cheaper and wider than the Nikkor 12-24mm.  The Sigma is an excellent lens, just a little slow in low light (which is the majority of residential interiors) at f/4. Two things with this lens: it is so big around (3.3 inches), it casts such a gigantic shadow at the bottom of the photo with the on-camera flash. I have to use an external flash to eliminate the shadow, (besides when I bounce the light off the ceiling, I get better photos). If I were buying a new 10-something lens today, I'd take a hard look at the new Nikkor 10-24mm Lens.

    The Sony lens was 3x optical (39 - 117mm as 35mm equiv.) F2.8 - F5.3. The Sigma 10-20mm lens was (15-30mm as 35mm equiv). Now we could finally shoot some decent interior photos. When Sigma released the f/4 fisheye lens in 2006,  I got all excided about doing 360 Virtual Real Estate Photography, and I started a website just for the real estate virtual tours. We named it VistaView360.com. The virtual tours are still here, but they have taken somewhat of a back seat to all the other exciting photography activities.

    So 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. The same story for our local Wolf Camera (I know you can order on-line from either company), but if you're going on-line why not order from one of the big three Adorama,  Amazon or B&H Photo Video, 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, in my spare time, the site has grown from a half dozen pages to a combined total of over 5,600 pages on Vistaview360.com (this site) and wrightrealtors.com. I have touched on almost all 35mm camera manufactures and all of their cameras and all their lenses. There are more reviews coming (when I get time) When you buy camera equipment, please link to one of these companies through this site:  Adorama,  Amazon or B&H Photo Video, (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 by September of 2008 the D50 was already effectively 21 years old. Besides new cameras like the Nikon D90, Nikon D3000, and D5000 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

    No 2A Brownie Model CAbout 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.

    Minolta SRT101 SLR Camera

    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.

    Sigma 10-20mm Lens
    Sigma 10-20 Lens


    Tamron 28-75 Lens

    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. Real Estate Tours 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.com 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:

    I get my camera gear at Adorama, Amazon or B&H Photo Video

    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.