One Camera One Lens

One camera one lens is not my new philosophical, inspirational or creative approach to my photography. It is just my new common sense approach to my photography.

Prior to swapping out my M43 mirrorless camera for a Nikon D7500 DSLR earlier this year I had a collection of various 35mm film cameras, plus a digital camera with a choice of several lenses.

Enter procrastination!

Besides falling out of love with the mirrorless camera, I always found it difficult to decide which camera and which film to use (in the case of the 35mm units), or which lens to use with the M43 camera.

So…I didn’t get out and take too many photographs…and when I did I didn’t really enjoy what I was doing.

Now with just one camera one lens there are no difficult choices to be made, meaning it is so much easier just to grab my camera as I walk out the door.

And I am loving the fact that that camera is a Nikon with a Nikkor zoom lens, and I am rediscovering the joy of photography.

I’m sure many people will decry the fact that the one lens I have is the 18-140 zoom kit lens.

But do you know what—I don’t care. It has a great zoom range and is, for me, a perfect everyday, walk-about lens. Should I have any doubt about the lens’s sharpness, distortion, or vignetting, then I just rely on DxO Photolab to correct any minor aberrations. I say minor because I’m sure viewers would never spot any uncorrected issues in 99% of photographs I take.

So I’ve been using this one camera one lens combination for a couple of months now, and the majority of the time I have been shooting – as my photoblog name implies – in aperture priority. But going forward I have decided to try using the P-mode for my everyday photography.

I’ll still be able to adjust shutter speed and/or aperture with the twist of a control dial retaining a high degree of control over the photos, but for the most part I’m going to let the D7500 do it’s thing for me.

But that’s in the future.

A story on a photoblog is not really a story without any pictures, so here is a collection from recent weeks, with a bit of explanation about where and why I took them.

Normally I wouldn’t include EXIF data with my photographs, but due to the immense amount of interest in my last story about why I bought a Nikon D7500, I have included the EXIF data this time for those interested.

One camera one lens – Photos From A Road Trip – January 2025.

My partner Lyn and I were on our way back from our latest motorhome road trip, which started in the northwest of the South Island. We drove across to the west coast and stayed overnight at a freedom camping site near the Wairau Diversion, which is a flood control channel for the Wairau River.

I was really drawn to the way the first pylon stood out in the foreground, and then my eye was drawn to the “marching” pylons heading off towards the Wither Hills in the background.

Taken at 7.11pm, a couple of hours after the photo above, and with the zoom pulled all the way back to 18mm, I took the inspiration for this shot, in a round-about way, from – believe it or not – Rhine II by Andreas Gursky. Of course, he erased all the man-made factory and other paraphernalia from his scene…

But it was the bank-to-bank stretch of water in the foregound, the wide side-to-side floodbank in mid-scene, and the big sky above the horizon that appealed to me.

Everybody loves a good sunset picture…don’t they? Well I love this one – 8.40pm at the Wairau Diversion.

Nins Bin is an iconic crayfish roadside cafe alongside Stae Highway 1 about 20kms north of Kaikoura.

I have driven this road many times over many years but never before have I stopped and taken a photograph of this undeniable tourist attraction right alongside the main road.

This trip was my chance – so I took it.

And the reason for this photograph?

We are bombarded by signs wherever we go, wherever we look. I think I read somewhere once that we see up to 1600 signs of various types a day! But how many do we take notice of?

Well, quite clearly this is a STOP sign, and it is on the side road from Hapuku onto a very busy State Highway 1. As I watched nine out of ten vehicles failed to stop here!

So the question I asked myself when I took this was -why have signs if nobody takes any notice of them? Even if their safety and well being – and that of others – is at risk.

Just behind the point where I took this photograph the main trunk railway passes over the same side road with STOP signs either side of the crossing.

Guess how many drivers stop at the railway crossing? Yep – just one out of ten!

This rather poignant row of seats was setup in front of a new grave in the cemetery at Hapuku.

I found it rather touching that this resting place had obviously been arranged for attendees at the latest interment at the cemetery. Some unfortunate soul was laid to rest there not long before Christmas and the grave was adorned with festive decorations.

For this photograph we’re further south down State Highway 1 now at Weedons NZMCA park.

I woke up one morning and looked out our motorhome window while I was getting morning coffees ready, and spotted that our neighbours had a couple of bonsais on a shelf outside their motorhome. I quickly grabbed my camera and snapped this through the unopened perspex window – hence the softness of the image – which I have disguised with a black-and-white “old-look” finish.

…and to finish a handful more photos in the one camera and one lens series…

For the record – post processing was carried out using On1 Photo RAW 2025, with a “recipe” (Effect) of my own making.

As always your comments and feedback are welcome.