Calling all photographers

[CaledoniaMan]

I am wondering how many people are interested in this board?

If you are, why not introduce yourself with some information about what kind of things you like to photograph, ambitions you have, photographers you admire or anything photographical that interests you. Perhaps you photograph to record everyday stuff for social media, maybe all your photography is via smartphone, maybe you are a street photographer capturing candid unposed street shots or you are into serious landscapes, sport, wildlife. Maybe you aspire to move your photography on.

To start the ball rolling here is a bit about myself. I am a semi serious hobbyist willing to have a go at anything that catches my eye, but my interest over the years leans towards portraits, trying to put the subject at ease and capture that natural look or expression.

I am a firm believer that it is the photographer rather than the kit that makes a good photograph. I have a beaten up Nikon D300 with a couple of good fast Nikon lenses as well as a Fujifilm X100S travel camera alongside my trusty iPhone. I do occasionally get distracted by bright shiny new megapixel cameras (camera porn) but then remind myself that a lot of the great photographers shot with minimal equipment which only ever got replaced when it wore out.

I am also interested in the history of photography having attended a few night classes on the subject. I recently discovered that even the classic Hollywood glamour photographers like George Hurrell http://georgehurrell.com/ in the 1930's would adjust (photoshop) his images using a pencil to shade the skin blemishes which showed up as white spots on the negative. I often visit exhibitions of famous photographers work and also search second hand bookshops. My latest additions are on the works of Jeanloup Sieff https://www.jeanloupsieff.com/# and Cecil Beaton https://goo.gl/L1qxih

Whether you are a happy snapper, a professional or aspire to something in between why not say hello.

[redsturgeon]

You know me Cal but for those who don't.

Semi pro...ie. I get paid for portraits, boudoir and stock photography but not enough to make a living and I would not wish to make a living at photography.

I like to travel to locations to shoot nude models against natural or architectural backdrops, I do this for fun not profit.

I have had my work published," Lighting the Nude, 2nd edition", carries a dozen of my works inside along with the front cover by me...to be found at all good bookstores etc. I have also sold various images that people have hung on their walls.

I use Nikon kit, D700 and D750 full frame bodies with a variety of Nikon lenses. The kit is not the most important thing though and is just there to make getting the shot easier. In fact my portable lighting kit is probable one of the most important items of kit I use.

Bill Brandt, Edward Weston and Helmut Newton are among my favourites but I enjoy and admire the work of many photographers.

John

[ten0rman]

It's probably fair to say that I am not a photographer, more a snapper as the mood takes me.

Initially I had a Kodak Brownie (?) 127 which took B&W pictures of which regretfully I have very few left. I say regretfully because some of them would have been indicative of my early life.

Next I bought the Russian Cosmic 35mm (non SLR) camera with manual everything. If I got it right, I could get a good photo. Most were average. All photos were turned into colour slides and at the moment I am slowly going through around 25 years worth of slides converting to digital and attempting to sort out where and when they were taken. As for the 127 above, I have "lost" (actually disposed of) some of the early ones, probably because they showed events I didn't want to remember eg old girlfriends. Pity really!

In 1988 the Cosmic 35 broke through old age - literally fell apart so I bought a Yashica 2000, a manual only SLR with TTL metering. All of these photos were printed and need to be catalogued.

Finally, in the 2006 I bought a Canon Powershot A610, along with the optional wide-angle and telephoto lenses, followed by the A640 in 2010. These cameras are digital and have a large number of features, but in reality, using the cameras in Auto mode seems to get best results, probably because I don't really understand what all the extra features can do. Following on from seeing a professional photographer using my camera on AV, I have tried to emulate him with somewhat mixed results.

My parents died in 2004/5 and I inherited about a third of their photos (my sister & brother got the others), with some, as far as I can see, dating back possibly to the 1920's. Some are annotated, some are recognisable people, and a few have been identified by a very elderly relative. This has had the effect of inspiring me to catalogue my own photos so that my descendants, if they so wish, will be able to see and identify with them. This is why I am slowly converting the 35mm slides. Interestingly this has had the strange effect of showing that my wife and I have been to at least one place of which we have absolutely no recollection, but because I had the foresight to write something on the slide surround, it does indeed show that we must have been there.

FWIW, the method of conversion may be of interest. I built a lightbox using 2 x 25W incandescent pearl candle bulbs inside a box made from white faced hardboard and with a small rectangular hole covered by the translucent screen from an old 35mm slide viewer. This provides a backlight for the slides. After some experimenting, I made an adaptor to allow the digital camera to be placed at a fixed distance away from the slide, thus allowing, if the slide is good enough, the camera to use macro focusing, otherwise I have to use manual focusing. Camera settings are AV, tungsten lighting, and with all other settings as standard. The camera does introduce colour distortion and both horizontal and vertical edge curvature. I then use The Gimp, an open source photo editing type program to correct both the colours and the curvature. The result appears sufficiently satisfactory for display use on a 32" television. I also use The Gimp to eliminate any specks/dust/hairs that may appear on the photo and have even attempted some sharpening using the Unsharp Mask. Now ok, this may not satisfy the purists, but given the quality of the photos, it is satisfactory for us.

I did buy one of those ready made adaptors for this job, but quickly gave up on it as it insisted on giving a halo effect to the converted photos. It's almost as if it only has a single source lamp providing a back light when in needs to be an even illumination over the complete area.

Regards,

ten0rman

[RedSnapper]

Hi all,

I've been a jobbing Pro for far too many years. I've moved around a lot and always found the camera a useful tool to make money. Served some time with portraits and weddings but tended not to have the people skills to really make it work. Majority of the paying work has been documentary, wall art, and latterly product & fine art reproduction. Enjoy the technical challenges of accurately reproducing artwork for limited edition print runs. This pays the bills and personal landscape work feeds the soul.

Shoot Canon but am not a gear head, I actually have very little gear and use a Fuji 100xs alongside an android phone as my everyday carries.

[Fromdusktildawn]

I have recently developed my interest in photography over the last few years after taking a couple of night classes and making friends with a fellow photographer. I have a Nikon D5500 and recently bought a zoom lens for better wildlife and landscape photography. I enjoy street, architecture and travel photography as well. I consider myself as very much a beginner with a lot to learn. My Christmas present to myself this year was a magazine subscription to the British Journal of Photography.

After the recent 'supermoon' I am also starting to get interested in observing/photographing the night sky. I have made contact with a couple of local groups who go out to 'dark areas' to observe and photograph the night sky. I havent been out with them yet but I hope to in 2017.

I like old photos as a historical record - there are some good groups on Facebook that show old photos of my local area in Wiltshire. Its great to compare them to today's scenes. And of course photos are an important record of human rights, political debate and cultural images.

I like the idea of Photography board. Happy New Year !

Liz

[Stonge]

I took my first photograph some 55 years ago on my dad’s Box Brownie. The heads were cut off. I still remember the intense disappointment! At about ten years old I acquired a plastic camera that used 127 film. I still have one or two images from that. My first real camera was an East German 35mm model called a Boots Beirette, acquired when I was about thirteen with the proceeds of a paper round. I took mainly slides though I did eventually have an enlarger and make some monochrome prints. Then there was a gap until in my early twenties I bought a Konica Autoreflex A3, quite quickly superseded by a Pentax MX and the usual 28, 50, 135mm lenses. I did some colour printing using the Kodak Ektaflex process. I still have some prints from that time, about 30 years old and still in pretty good condition. After my daughter was born, the photography was relegated to recording family holidays, birthdays etc.

It was digital that brought me back to photography as a hobby, frankly with film, photography had become too much of a hassle most of the time and I couldn’t be bothered. For me, the great advantage of digital colour photography is that you can work with it to the same extent (or more) as was possible with ‘wet’ black and white printing in the darkroom. With colour negative or positive film there wasn’t much you could do to ‘improve’ a print or slide after the fact. With digital post-processing a whole new bag of tricks is available e.g. cloning, levels, composites etc. One man’s meat is another’s poison of course, but for me I like having this extent of control and it adds to the interest and enjoyment of a challenging hobby.

My first digital camera was a ‘proof of concept’ purchase from Dixons around 2003, which had a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels and was intended to keep daughter up to date while she was away at university. It proved to be so amazing to be able to fire away for nothing (no film/processing costs) just bung the images on a CD and send them off (the days of dial-up Internet access!). So just a week later I bought my first ‘proper’ digital compact: a Kodak which my brother used until very recently as his family camera.

Over the next few years two more compacts followed as prices remained the same and specs improved until finally one year the digital SLR dropped into our price range. A holiday in Madeira was the final straw where the compacts were concerned as there were so many times when I felt that better pictures could have been obtained with a proper camera.

I settled on the small and neat Nikon D60 (bought from Amazon) and I was delighted with it. I used it happily for a couple of years before upgrading to a D7000. I had a Nikon D7000, an 18-200 walkabout lens, and then a twin set of 18-55 plus 55-300 lenses.

The problem was carrying this outfit, so I looked into trying to lose some weight. The weight I am referring to was that of my camera equipment. I have been trying to lose my personal flab for some time but without much success as I do tend to eat too much and I’m rather fond of chocolate – though the wife wants us to try something called the 5+2 diet, apparently. Anyway, the main reason I wanted to reduce the weight of my camera bag is that carrying it actually causes me some pain. I have a painful left shoulder, on and off and to varying degrees. I do not believe it’s going to get better any time soon, probably worse as old-age sneaks in.

So I’m now in the position of having bought an Olympus EM10 outfit. It certainly feels considerably lighter on the shoulder than the D7000 outfit, but I did actually compare the numbers between two almost equivalent collections of gear.

Nikon D7000 – 780g
Nikon 18-140 lens – 490g
Nikon 55-300 lens – 531g

Nikon Total – 1801g

Olympus EM10 – 349g
Olympus 14-150 lens – 286g
Olympus 75-300 lens – 422g

Olympus Total – 1057g

However, it could be argued that the Nikon D5500 (470g) is a closer match to the EM10. Substituting the D5500 for the D7000 would reduce this outfit to a weight of 1491g.

But I didn’t stop there! I now have three EM10 bodies plus 14-150, 75-300 and 60mm macro lenses. I bought the latest EM10 body for £239 second-hand but it looks like new. Hopefully it’ll last. I’ve sold all the other cameras and lenses apart from a small Canon compact.

So I’m in the M43 camp at the moment but I’m not precious about cameras, I’ll flog the lot and buy something else if it looks significantly better for me.

[MaraMan]

Well done on trying to get this forum going. I have been interested in photography since I was a child in the 60's. My first camera was an Ilford Sportsman which my Father taught me to use. After losing interest after leaving school, getting married and having children I took it up again in earnest in the late 90's. I was inspired by my first trip to Kenya, I took my Nikon F80 and 55-300 telephoto, luckily this trip was led by Paul Goldstein who transformed my understanding and instilled a thirst for improvement. Subsequent to this I made many more trips to various parts of Africa including Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa and repeated trips to Kenya at migration time, and a memorable trip to the arctic to photograph Polar Bears. My kit changed to Canon as I made the transition from film to digital and invested in some L series lenses including a 500mm F4 prime. I have sold some prints and also had some shots published but it has always only been a hobby.

These days I am less able to go to Africa and content myself with landscapes (urban and rural). I do not think of myself as a gear head, more a collector, and to some extent think the only thing that matters is the lens, by this I mean good and bad. I have though over the years picked up a few cameras and lenses that I would be loathe to get rid of. Most are just there as historical favourites and only a few of them get much use. Here's an extract of that collection:

Ilford Sportsman/Leica M6/Fuji X-Pro1/Canon EOS 3/Canon EOS 5D, EOS 20D & EOS 60D/Hasselblad 501c/Bronica ETRSi/Olympus OM2N & XA
Canon 50/100-400L/17-40L/24-105L/Leica Summicron 50/Voightlander 28/Zeiss 80/Bronica 75/Fuji 18 & 27mm

My first love was and is film photography, I love the creativity and patience it instills. Chasing pixels has never been of much interest to, some of my best work has been on my venerable 8 megapixel 20D.

Anyway that's probably enough, it was a good excuse to rummage through my camera boxes. I would like to reinvigorate my photography this year and am planning a road trip through Namibia, I have long wanted to visit that country despite the Top Gear boys recent efforts.

MM

[redsturgeon]

Anyway that's probably enough, it was a good excuse to rummage through my camera boxes. I would like to reinvigorate my photography this year and am planning a road trip through Namibia, I have long wanted to visit that country despite the Top Gear boys recent efforts.

MM

I assume you will not be travelling by beach buggy

John

[MaraMan]

Well I am game (sorry for the pun) but I suspect my better half would not be so keen
MM

[droopsnoot]

I have a bit of an interest in photography, which started back in school, took a back seat for a while but has returned recently. I have a reasonable dslr and a few lenses, I also keep looking at newer cameras but put myself off because I haven't really stretched the boundaries of the one I have yet. Main things have been bits of motorsport photography, though I have a bit of an interest in landscapes and astro. Both the latter require getting up very early or going somewhere very dark, which tends to make them only a passing interest rather than something I'm passionate about.

[vrdiver]

I was never one for photography, but after I learnt to dive I picked up a Nikonos IVa and spent many happy hours shooting underwater pics (of variable artistic merit). I learned that if you finished the roll of film before the end of the dive you were almost guaranteed to see something truly special just before the end, whereas if you held back a few frames you would end up taking shots of your buddy on the surface so as to finish the roll and load a fresh one for the next dive.

I remember shooting a couple of dozen rolls whilst diving in the Red Sea, and the excitement of getting them back after they'd been developed. About one shot per roll was "pretty good" with another half dozen "OK to remember by" and the rest were binned. Occasionally you'd discover that the whole roll was wasted because of the same error being repeated. The feedback was not instantaneous!

Macro shots were made using an extension tube between the camera body and lens, and a probe attached to the camera showing where the focal plane was. Not many macro shots of fish!

The Nikonos IVa was replaced by a Nikonos V, which I flooded, so ended up owning two of them. Then I bit the bullet and got a Nikon D200, along with Nikon lenses. Lovely camera, but the kit, including underwater housing and strobes weighed 20kg, which wasn't good for cheap flights (Mrs VRD got to take her video kit as hand luggage, provided nobody weighed it!)

I currently use a Sony RX100 (version 1) in a Nauticam housing. The piece of kit that really needs upgrading is me, as the limiting factor in the setup...

VRD