On May 1st of 2019 a new era began for Japan with the start of the reign of the new Emperor. This new era is called the “Reiwa” era, the previous era was called the “Heisei” era.
One day after the new era began here in Japan, my photography entered into a new era, I sold my Nikon D700 (after nine years of use) and I bought a Nikon D7500.

Now some might find it strange that I’ve switched back from a full-frame camera to an APS-C, one. However, after nine years of technology upgrades there are a lot of improvements in the sensor technology. I’m also enjoying the lighter weight, especially being able use it with the nice compact Sigma 17-70 F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM C lens (probably the best value general purpose lens available at the moment). Compared with say using a Sigma 24-105f/4 or Nikkor 24-120f/4 on a full frame body and weight saving is quite significant, plus the cost is much cheaper.

Note this has been a long process of choosing a replacement of the beloved D700. At this stage in life I can’t afford a new Nikon D850 or even a D500 (both of which are superb cameras if you can afford them). I pondered buying a secondhand D810, but even those are quite expensive if they are in good condition. So it came down to either a D750 or a D7500 and I chose the D7500 because it’s newer, faster, cheaper and lighter. If I was only concerned with getting the best High ISO image quality, I would have opted for the D750, but for the total package the D7500 the won out in the end.

UPDATE: It’s been a long time since I’ve posted an update to Pbase. Last year (2018) the weather here threw everything at us: we experienced the Osaka earthquake, Typhoon Jebi (plus two other strong Typhoons), record rainfall, and a three week long heatwave. Fortunately although scary, these didn’t do too much damage to our place. The worst was Typhoon Jebi which did some minor damage to our back balcony, but more damage to some of our neighbours’ places. Then, at the end of the year our eldest cat Linus passed away at almost 18 years old. We’ve been married just over 20 years, so Linus had been with us for most of that time. Lucy is now 13 years old and still very healthy, but she too misses Linus.