Colby Brown is a Sony Artisan of Imagery who discovered photography while studying Emergency Administration and Planning at the University of North Texas. He recently told his story to Jill Waterman of B&H Photo, “I thought photography was going to be the conduit that allowed me to travel,” he explains. “I took a little Kodak 4.1MP bridge camera with me, and it worked wonders at the time. But once I accepted the fact that I really wanted to dive into photography as a potential way to travel, I switched to Canon, in 2006.”
Brown worked exclusively with Canon from 2006 to 2012 when he decided to start using Nikon.
“Canon didn’t have anything beyond 22MP, so 36MP was huge; it was a new frontier for digital SLRs at the time,” he says. “I was intrigued with what Nikon was doing, and successful enough in my career to be able to essentially duplicate all my gear, and run with both systems.”
In October 2013, when the Sony α7 and α7R were announced, Sony had Brown's attention and now he has used every Sony camera to come out since February of 2014.
“My initial starting point was with the big resolution α7R series, and things either stayed along the same lines or progressed and organically shifted from there, depending on my projects,” says Brown. “That first generation of bodies and the α7S were all so very specified, they each had their purposes."
Brown's favorite features of the Sony system are the Dynamic Range and Portability. “I think those two speak volumes for the type of work that I do and the locations I work in,” he says. “I’m a travel photographer who spends a lot of time out on the road in remote places rather than staying in luxurious cities and hotels. The fact that my gear bag is not only half the weight but also a third of the size it used to be allows me to pack more medical stuff, or climbing gear or whatever else I need, making me more efficient or effective with my gear load out in the field.”
The Sony α7R II is Brown's current camera of choice due to it's combination of the best aspects of Sony's cameras rolled into one body.
