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“Persevere”Contents:• Essays & Articles - Journey into Digital • Galleries & Slide Shows
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Journey into DigitalHaving retired, I now have the time to devote to integrating the three personal interests I have had for virtually all my adult life: photography, computer technology and creative writing. I take lots of pictures, process them on my PC and write about them in my blog and elsewhere on this Web site. I see my photography as a journey without a clearly defined destination—an unending search for an unattainable goal. The following is a brief outline of my journey thus far. Film photographyI bought my first digital camera in 2003, but before that I had owned Agfa (bellows), Konica (half-frame 35mm) and Minolta (35mm SLR) film cameras for several years going back to my time as a teenager. When desk-top scanners became affordable in the late 1980s, I began scanning some of my images and storing them on my PC. This allowed me to publish and print the images myself and to “tinker” with them using the Paint Shop Pro™ (now Corel®) software package. These were my first tentative steps into the world of digital photography. Going digitalBy the time the early digital cameras became available, my interest in photography had waned to the point where I seldom took photographs of any kind. I tend to be a bit of a gadget-freak, however, so when automatic (point-and-shoot) digitals became affordable, I purchased a 3-megapixel, 3x zoom Fujifilm digital camera—a digital SLR was out of my budget range even if I had wanted one back then. I already had a PC, image editing software, desktop scanner and a colour printer so I was all set…or so I thought. In the beginning I was blown away by the things I was able to do, but, inevitably, I once more began to lose interest: 3-megapixels and 3x zoom just wasn't cutting it. My camera was okay for recording memories and making 4" X 6" or 5" X 7" prints, but I wanted more, much more. Zooming in closerAbout a year later, I purchased a point-and-shoot Fujifilm camera with a 10x zoom, but it was also a 3-megapixel model, limiting my ability to crop images and to make large prints. By now, however, I was hooked on the potential of this exciting new technology. Moving to digital SLR technologyLess than a year later, I bought my first digital SLR, a Nikon® D70s. The D70s is a 6-megapixel model and a super camera for the serious hobbyist. I also upgraded my computer software by buying Adobe® Photoshop® CS2. Three lenses and a Canon Selphy® dye-sublimation printer later and again I was all set…that is until a year later when Nikon® released its D80 DSLR camera. Digital workflow — capture, process, publish, printAt this point, I had assembled a basic, home-based electronic photography lab, including Web and CD/DVD publishing capability. And with the D80's 10.2 megapixels, I could finally do heavy cropping and make prints larger than 8" X 10", things I'd wanted to do for a long time. Soon after purchasing the D80 , I upgraded my PC and imaging software. I also added a couple of vibration reduction (VR) Nikkor® lenses spanning 18mm to 400mm and an archival-quality, wide-format Epson Stylus® Photo R1800 printer. Moving up to proIn the late Fall of 2007, I indulged my dream of owning a pro-level camera with its superior weather proofing and high-end features. My choice was the Nikon® D300. At that time I also traded my D80 and got a used D50 as my back-up and carry-around camera. Since then, I have added a Nikkor® 300mm f/4 lens for sports and birds, plus 1.4x and 2x teleconverters and some of the inevitable filters and attachments needed to round out my kit. Lessons learnedSeven to eight thousand photo images later and over two hundred hours of research and training, and I'm still chasing that elusive dream of the perfect photograph. Oh, I realize there's no such thing, but, after all, we all need to dream — don't we? » You can see a detailed list of my gear at this page.
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