Sometimes I stop and simply reflect on how much we have evolved along the line. It was a long and dark winter night when Vlad and I sat together and decided that I need a blog to write down what I experience through photography, and that requires far more than just a caption of an Instagram post. I had so much more to say and that was just the perfect way to do it. I remember how we used to watch tutorials and we how were getting annoyed because of not being able to figure out how to justify the text.

Down the line, almost 2 years later, I am doing everything on my own writing, editing, posting, then editing the photos, editing the videos, afterward comes the part when I post on Instagram, I post on Facebook, I upload videos on YouTube, then I go back to Instagram, add the video in IGTV, write a tweet about what it’s new and so on. Everything is hard work, but the most important for me is that you, my dear reader, enjoy what I am offering you and that you always come back for more end result of my work.

I always had this affinity for taking pictures, I realized I took so many pictures with my old cameras (not great quality of course)and I was always trying to capture everything in my device, somehow, I just wanted to take the landscape or the portrait back with me and share what a great experience is to visit a certain place.

Then I realized that I don’t really need a camera, we’re leaving int he smartphone area, where with any decent phone you can have the same quality as with a camera or sometimes even better. I still have some pictures from 2008 on Facebook; unfortunately, I no longer have them saved on my computer, the laptop fried and died one day with all my pictures from US, Bulgaria, Greece, and Milan. What I want to say guys is that looking on Facebook at what I managed to upload and share with my community, I can see how much I evolved. My pictures were dark and shaky and not straight with the horizontal line.

So, when I started the blog, I realized that my pictures were not worthy to show the story behind my words. I was also a Canon fan for so long, I can’t even remember when I had a photo camera that was not Canon, so I started looking into it. Obviously, I was not planning to buy a DSLR. I mean…”what can I do with that heavy camera? It’s big and difficult to carry, and also, you can’t use it to go to certain concerts, because you need a permit, apparently”.

One day, seeing the struggle I was going through, Vlad came and said: “I found a camera that is perfect for what you want to do, videos and photos and you will just love it”. I immediately went on the Canon website and I looked at him expecting to hear out the model number to go and check it out, but in return, I got a link from Sony. I was shocked, I couldn’t betray my old friend, but then after weeks, almost months of reviews, tutorials, videos watched on YouTube filmed with Sony Alpha, I was convinced. I will say goodbye to my Canon since I was so in love with the new idea of using Sony.

This is the story of how I betrayed my Canon friend. But in the end, you can see for yourself how beautiful my pictures are – every single picture on Instagram from last year is a Sony picture. It captures the indescribable beauty of the Northern lights and to be honest all my videos are such great quality, I simply can’t complain at all. I also invested in a new lens – the Sony FE 1.8/50 mm which makes wonders when it comes to portraits or taking picture of something very close – like food.

I am not going to give you any technical details of my Sony Alpha because you can find all of those on the internet while searching for reviews. Plus, I am not a professional to explain these things, all I want is to give you the answer to the most common question I get “what camera do you use to take this amazing pictures?”

The part that I love the most, besides taking the best pictures, is also the connectivity. It’s so easy to use the Wi-Fi and transfer the pictures to my phone immediately; I don’t have to carry me a laptop with me all the time. I also love the fact that with the app Play Memories, you can just take remote pictures easily. Set the camera to take remote pictures, go wherever you want, look at the screen of your phone to see how the picture will look like and when you are ready, you just need to say “cheese” and press the button like you would take a phone picture…and it’s done!

No matter how much I’d try to look up in the synonym dictionary for a word that could tell the story of that late October in total silence, with only the birds singing, with a glass of rose in Lisbon with a beautiful view over the city, it would be impossible. Therefore, in order to make my picture more vivid and to correct the color distortion from too much light or the opposite, not enough light, I always have my setting as JPEG+RAW, this helps a lot to correct the pictures while editing.

How do I edit?

Most of the time, I will do it with Lightroom and sometimes with Snapseed, but I find the app too complicated to use, so I go back to Lightroom.

Any tips and tricks to share for your holiday pictures?

I don’t consider I am a professional photographer, but one thing is for sure, invest your money in a good camera, but don’t buy the most expensive one and then shoot your picture in Auto mode. Rather than that, buy a new camera or a better camera ..especially when you say “I can’t take good pictures at ISO 3200 because of all the noise on the picture”.

I hope this story gave you some clarity on what camera I use and the reason why I bought it.

This post is not an advertisement it’s just my sincere opinion on the camera that I currently use.

If you have more questions, please ask in the comment section down below.