myself

I've been taking pictures for as long as I can remember - certainly for more than 25 years, and have been through many formats and cameras (126, 110, 4x6, 35mm) and often with years inbetween any notable images. During University I took lots of black and white 35mm shots of various canoeing events, developing and printing myself, using an OM10 SLR.

This all changed in 2002 when my wife got an Olympus C-920Z, a 1.3MP 3x optical zoom digicam that used outrageously expensive SmartMedia cards. This was so much better than her previous 35mm Vivitar camera that she switched instantly, and after I'd used it I came to shoot on that camera more than my film one, purely for the immediacy of the results. We took it on a 10 day road trip around Nevada and California and managed to accumulate the (for then) huge amount of 726 images.

Chasing better print quality, and wanting more manual control over the camera lead to the Canon Powershot G3 4MP camera: two prime motivations were the use of CF cards as the SmartMedia were just too fragile and expensive, and a glass zoom lens (the Olympus had all glass elements too, and frequently outperformed 2MP cameras of the same era because of that). This camera is good, and does have a delightful f/2.0 lens and full manual control, but the shutter lag is painful and autofocus is prone to hunting. It does, however, support RAW format images, and so from the time the EOS 300D was introduced until I gave in and bought my first DSLR I was shooting in RAW and becoming really happy with the extra range it gave me.

The Canon EOS 300D was close, but still not exactly what I was after, but the EOS 350D was it - low noise, high ISO images (ISO1600 on the 350D looks like ISO400 on the G3) and instant on and no shutter lag (to my reflexes, anyway...) - the only real downsides to the camera are that it's a fraction too small for my hands, and that lens buying is pretty much a terminal addiction. The kit lens was good for about a year or so, but given my time over again I probably wouldn't buy it, although there is no single lens I would be happy with on my camera: taken together the Sigma 10-20mm and Tamron 28-75mm come the closest, and the f/2.8 of the Tamron provides wonderful composition opportunities. I did have to send back two other examples before I received one that was able to focus correctly though, so do make sure that your chosen retailer has a good returns policy if you are considering one.

Since the end of 2007 I have been using an EOS 20D and whilst it initially felt a lot more cumbersome than the 350D it's now so natural to hold I wonder how I ever managed to grip something as small as the 350D. The Canon 430EX flashgun is also a revelation, especially when used with the off-camera cord as ETTL-II is so far ahead of the older thyristor based flashgun I had been using it makes using the flash almost a pleasure.

tools

The images in this gallery are likely to have been taken with any of the cameras I've had in my hands, including ones I've just borrowed (like the Sigma SD-9), but my current set of favourite tools is:



this gallery

This is a re-imagining of Birch, a Perl photoblog creation package which I discovered in this list - it's designed as a simple tool to generate a stream of images in a low volume fashion, making it an easy way to put up a POTD.

Read more about the program and its genesis on the main distribution site. Improvements, bugfixes and suggestions are always welcome.

print purchase / commercial use

All images on this site are © to myself, or people I know. Feel free to use them for other non-profit on-line works with attribution, but for all other uses get in touch prior to use.

For any sort of commercial use I can provide unretouched RAW images, 8x10" ready TIFF or PSD files as well as providing prints or posters of anything on this site. My aim is not to make a living from my hobby, and non-profit/charity/educational approaches are all welcome.