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11-30-2019, 11:20 AM - 1 Like   #46
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QuoteOriginally posted by Robin Quote
My best trick is to take a quick shot in the morning, having left everything on manual from astrophotography the night before
Been there, done that, too many times!
QuoteOriginally posted by genericmoniker Quote
I find I'm taking slightly better pictures, with better composition, with the intent of doing some PP to get things to where I want them. So much faster, lol.
Some things can be fixed in Post-processing, but good composition is fundamental to a good final image. I try to be slower, taking my time to compose a shot, and when time and space allow, to take a few steps forward, left right, back, crouch down, or raise the camera over my head, etc, to consider an even better POV.

12-01-2019, 06:24 PM - 4 Likes   #47
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Same location 6 years apart, first was when I was a beginner with an LX-3 compact and the second was last fall with a Pentax K-1
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12-01-2019, 06:42 PM   #48
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I think I'm still taking photos of the same stuff, just my equipment and my use of all prime lenses is now heavy and more inconvenient than the point and shoot I started out with.
12-01-2019, 07:16 PM - 1 Like   #49
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QuoteOriginally posted by y0chang Quote
Same location 6 years apart, first was when I was a beginner with an LX-3 compact and the second was last fall with a Pentax K-1
That's an amazing evolution and an amazing picture! What a difference 6 years make.

12-03-2019, 02:51 AM - 2 Likes   #50
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Reading this thread got me thinking about how I got started, and it startled me just how far back it went.

My first desire to take a photo was when I was about four or five. In those days the family had an old Kodak camera, a bakelite thing with a single shutter speed and a roll of 120 film (I think}. The usual routine was as follows, get ready for a holiday and discover we hadn't finished the film from last year, so snap off the last couple, take the film out the camera and get a new film (12 exposure} for the holiday. I wanted to take a family snap to use up the old film but was told "No", so somewhere in the family archives is a snap of everyone else smiling and me sulking....

Around 14 I got a Kodak Instamatic for Christmas, a cassette of 12 or 24 exposures and a "cube" of four flash bulbs. It got me into thinking about composition carefully (developing was expensive so each image wasn't wasted} and it lasted me for a few years until I left school and signed up to the military. All of a sudden I'm 17, getting paid well and no real bills, so my next step was an Olympus Trip that was on the shelf in the base shop. I scrounged a 35mm roll of film from a colleague who was into photography in a big way and successfully fired off my first image with the lens cap still on......

A couple of years later I'm posted to another base and more money in my pocket. The local town had a camera shop and one day I walked out with my first SLR, a Praktica with an M42 screw lens mount. Over the next couple of years I picked up a couple of extra lenses and a flash gun and took to taking images of everything I saw, including work related stuff, and had a whale of a time just messing about. It taught me a lot through trial and error (and one of John Hedgecoes books}, and I really enjoyed it.

A year or so later I was reading a camera mag and they announced the Pentax P30 was being launched. A week or so after that I was walking passed the camera shop in town and spotted one in the window, so I went in and after a bit of haggling walked out with my first Pentax. I sold off the Praktica to a mate, and started the lifetime journey that was Pentax....

I soon picked up a couple of lenses, and again through trial and error and practice managed to really enjoy photography. Joining the local camera club got me access to a studio and sweet talking some female work colleagues gave me a couple of models who would smile and pose (fully clothed} while I worked out how lighting worked.

And then I got married. Now my desire to take images we still there but money was required for bills and house renovations, so my hobby was relegated to special events and when they came along, the kids. Funny how the first offspring get photographed doing everything but the second gets only really special events. I borrowed a mates digital compact in early 2005 and had a play, and we bought a digital kodak compact for a family holiday in 2006. Having a digital camera was interesting, but somewhat limiting in terms of the capability of the lens.

The serious photo hobby stayed this way for a decade or so, several house moves had the Pentax camera gear packed in a box and never taken out from year to year until one day I was at work. My wife phoned and said she was in the local superstore and they were having a clear out. What camera brand did I use, and did I want a digital SLR? That day I moved into the digital era seriously with a K100d super and all of a sudden it all fell back into place! The P30 went into storage, and all my old lenses came out to be reused with the new body. I was in my element, I could play to my hearts content and it wouldn't cost me a thing in developing costs...!

Since then I've built up my lens collection after trips to second hand shops and a couple of new ones, a new K3 body last year and a close look (!} at macro. It's been an interesting journey, if I'd had digital back in the mid eighties when I was single and just getting into SLR photography I wouldn't have lost the decade or so when I first got married and had the kids, but I reckon I've got some spare time to putter away as the fancy takes me.
12-15-2019, 04:41 PM   #51
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That's a great evolution story Bassat.
12-16-2019, 03:25 AM - 3 Likes   #52
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Such a lot of great stories here! I think it's funny how many of us got started with a Kodak Instamatic:

QuoteOriginally posted by photocles Quote
My photographic "evolution" began with hand-me down C126 Instamatics and (really, really lousy) pics of my family and friends.
QuoteOriginally posted by dlh Quote
1965: First roll of color film - Kodak 100 Instamatic w/Kodachrome (35mm cartridge snapshot camera w/fixed lens). Taken from the parking lot of George Washington High School, Alexandria, VA (one of the three schools merged into T.C. Williams when the City of Alexandria desegregated its school system in 1971 - "Remember the Titans").
QuoteOriginally posted by Liney Quote
Around 14 I got a Kodak Instamatic for Christmas, a cassette of 12 or 24 exposures and a "cube" of four flash bulbs. It got me into thinking about composition carefully (developing was expensive so each image wasn't wasted} and it lasted me for a few years until I left school and signed up to the military.
I got my own Kodak Instamatic when I was seven. It wasn't new technology then - 1979. My dad did repairs for a local camera shop, and he repaired this left-behind Instamatic that nobody really wanted back - and it fell into my hands. I was in love with photography from the beginning: Capturing time, and making my own private world visible in a world where children were much less in focus than today, for better or worse. When I turned 14, my brother said that if you flipped through my photos fast enough, it would be a stop-motion rendition of my life. All my pocket money went into film and development.

By then I had advanced to a left-over Yashica, and during my teenage years I went through a lot of left-over second hand SLRs, Konica, Minolta, Olympus. I stuck with Olympus, and even had a fully manual 300mm at some point.

Then digital photography arrived, and I was a student, and couldn't afford the cameras. My first digital was a Kodak superzoom - can't recall the model now, but I was absolutely blown away by the freedom to experiment without having to pay for film and development! This was also when I had my first kids, and my family joked that they were the most photographed children in Denmark. (They weren't, by the way, only by within-family-comparison!) I stayed with compact for some years, but in 2008 I decided that I had to get back to dSLR. Nature photography was always a main interest of mine, and I needed more creative control. I chose Pentax because of weatherproofing, in-house stabilisation and good build quality. K10d - I really loved that camera!

I remember some of my friends warned me about choosing Pentax: They said lenses would be hard to come by, and that AF wasn't up to standards. The lens thing was never really an issue - I have always been limited by economy rather than availability - but I admit to sometimes suffering from AF-envy when I am shooting birds in the company of Nikon-shooters. Maybe next year, that envy will be a thing of the past...

Evolution? Hmm. I have definitely improved my birds-in-flight, and the fact that AF-performance isn't world class might actually have helped with that, because it forces you to think ahead. But other than that, I think most of my recent advances have been driven mainly by this forum: When I first joined back in 2010 my first activity was to join a "12 days of Christmas" photo challenge, and it really helped force me into trying out new things. And in general, seeing all the creative work of you lot has been a great inspiration!

12-17-2019, 11:04 AM - 1 Like   #53
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QuoteOriginally posted by y0chang Quote
Same location 6 years apart, first was when I was a beginner with an LX-3 compact and the second was last fall with a Pentax K-1
Amazing that you have those shots. Perfect answer to this thread!
12-17-2019, 05:06 PM   #54
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5 years ago we had just started travelling somewhat late in life, my wife had a morbid fear of flying but she just decided to sod it and go. I was getting great pics on my Note 4 then my neighbour offered me his Fuji bridge camera. I sucked so badly with that! So I decided I needed to learn. After starting the steep climb I decided I needed a dslr. My budget was limited and I couldn’t afford the Canon I wanted, there were however a few K30s in my price range. Remembering Pentax from my youth and after watching a review or two, I plumped for a blue one. LBA, a K3, an Olympus stylus 1s and a KP followed along with membership of our local society. Landscapes and street have been my staple, portraits and macro are next, and the learning curve hasn’t flattened out at all
12-17-2019, 11:28 PM - 1 Like   #55
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QuoteOriginally posted by dlh Quote
The thing that comes through most strongly for me in reading these personal histories is how photography lends itself to individual growth. I'm a believer in what I call, "the dandelion theorem": as people grow and develop as persons, they don't replicate the lives of other people, they move in their own direction. And, as a dandelion in the puffball stage, where the seed-stalks radiate outward from a central point, they get more and more separate and distinct the farther out they go. Each of us has his own path, and the farther you travel down your own path, the farther away you are from anyone else's, but you are closer to your real self. I think the corollary is that the closer you are to your real self, the better your photography (or whatever else your heart has chosen for you) will be.
I like you theorem, in fact I'd say it's Yoda worthy!
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