Photography in 2025, A Year of Change8 min read

We are well into the new year, but there’s  still time to take a closer look at what we are doing with our photography in 2025.  Everyone keeps telling us we need the newest and greatest brand camera to get us motivated or that it will make us a better photographer, I think that’s wrong. 

What’s changed?

There has been a few changes with my own journey in photography since 2024.  I have always own APSC cameras, and they have been my main camera bodies for 10 years or more. I have also been a fairly silent photographer, not really showcasing my photographic journey and experiences with anyone. It’s true I have posted a few photos on instagram and I have made a few post here. Apart from that photography has been a very personal pursuit for me. However I have made three small changes which I hope will help to make better photographs and showcase my work (I’m not saying its any good though). I will mention two of them here:

1. Full frame camera has been added to my work flow.
2. I have launched a podcast.
3. (I will talk about this in another post).

Gear affects everything

Let’s take this point to the extreme.  If we didn’t have any gear at all there would likely be no photos. Nowadays thats virtually impossible though. In fact according to some stats as many 90% of people have access to smart phones. That seems a little high to me (see link). Smart phones of course have cameras, would a smart phone without a camera be smart? I can imagine an army of photographers saying, “Hell yeah.”  A similar site also mentions that about 92% vs 7% of photos are taken on phones vs cameras (see link). Now that’s a stat I do believe. 

Getting back to gear the gear thing. Due to my work and lifestyle, the best most creative time for me to  do street photography is in the dark or low light conditions. My smaller APSC camera could handle a lot of moderaly difficult lighting situations. Anymore than that was just asking to much of their smaller sensors. 

I will give you an example. This first image was taken with my favourite one-handed-fragile-carry-around-camera. Yep, if you have read my review you know I’m talking about my much loved Ricoh Gr iii. However when the lighting conditions got bad so did the images. I had a similar results with my Sony 6300 and Fuji XT-30, although they do getter better results depending on which lens. I think those experience could be explored in another post.

So in the two photos below I’m in at temple complex on a trip to Hangzhou, Jiangsu, China.  The first image is taken in the Shade of some rock/cave outcrop. It’s also under the shade of trees, the sunlight is sparse and dappled. I feel I have pushed the file as far as I can take it, with degrading the quality and though not a great picture it’s ok. As with almost all Ricoh GR iii photos it does look better in monochrome. I have just switched out to colour for this demonstration.      

The second image is the same camera in far more difficult conditions.  Now before you judge my photo taking skills, I admit it’s not a well framed image. It is however the best example I can find, because typically I delete all my shitty photos like an obsessed maniac (I’m actually surprised this one survived). 

So obviously this image is unusable. Now in the moment I hoped rather wishfully that the lady might walk in the light, but to be honest if I recall the sun was at the wrong angle anyway. The idea wasn’t bad anyway. Anyhow we are talking about the file here. As you can see I have pushed the fill too far already. 

Again that is not the camera’s fault, the sensor is just too small.  I’m merely pointing out the limitations of small sensors.

Which full frame camera?

Play along with me first (don’t scroll down). Look at the photo and tell me if you can guess. Is it Canon? Sony? Nikon? The photo itself is ok, but could be better. I still like it though. The point is, my new full frame camera handles the situation really well. I have even pushed and pulled this file quite a lot, and it still looks good. 

I will give you a couple of clues to which camera it is:

• I will give you a clue, it’s not a new camera.
• It’s around 12 years old.
• Martin Castein is largely responsible for me buying this (if you don’t know his YouTube channel check him out he is awesome.

Here’s a photo of my new/old camera.

It’s the Nikon D600 of course. Yes I see that embarrassing dust, I will clean it off when I get back home. 

A photo changer

Obviously it’s not new. It is however new to me and thanks Martin Castein I’m really happy with it. I will write a review on it at some point. For not, just know the way it processes the light is gorgeous. Having a full frame camera, even this old one, has changed my photo game in low light environments. I know there is better out there, but this is the one I have got so I will talk about it.  This experience has also  changed my appreciation for older cameras the aesthetic in terms of image character. In many ways I think modern cameras are just too perfect. 

 More important, the night time has become an accessible play ground for my photography. It easily out performs an APSC camera even when it has a 1.4 prime on it.

Podcast

Now this is new. You could call it a plug for my own podcast if you were being picky. It is however all part of my grander plan of challenging myself creatively and who knows in what other ways. 

This podcast is simply to talk about the stuff people like us enjoy. Gear, images, photographers, photos, books and experiences around photography I hope at some point to even have guests on. It’s not likely to happen soon though, because I have only made one podcast, and have had zero downloads. More people have seen this post than will see those podcasts, for awhile at least.

I will be more active on all platforms this year. More posts, instagram (not sure), more vids on my YouTube channel. I actually used to have a bunch but I decided to start over. I’m sure that infuriated all twenty of my subscribers.

So here I am promoting my podcast of the same name (travelwithalens) its on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and If I can figure it out I will use a plugin on this website as well.  So if think my rambling writing style annoys you, then lets see if you can handle my mono sleepy voice. 

Final thoughts

As creatives I do believe change and challenges are important for our growth. Especially in this world of new media. It is easy to get left behind or just feel out of the loop. Which I know is fine for some people and Gold bless you. For myself I just need to challenge my lazy butt.

I will still use my Fuji and other APSC cameras, but now I look forward to more night photography, I just hope I can stay away from the other attractions of the night, which leads to blurry photos, dropped cameras and the inability to play with dials and settings. 

The question for you is, how are you going to challenge your photography in 2025. Will it be a gear upgrade, downgrade or a sidegrade? My writing software says that not a real word, but I like it. So what will it be for you? It would be fun to find out. Thanks for reading.