Greetings and salivations.. I mean salutations.
You soon will get to know that I am quite the bad punster. I guess that this is the place where we humiliate ourselves, in describing ourselves to others.
Where do I start. Oh well, when I was a kid, my grandfather got me interested in photography. He used to develop his own black and white prints, and ektachrome slides, and would let me help from time to time. He was a litho plate maker, and after his Leica got stolen, he purchased a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic. I often used the camera, and found it quite a good tool.
Fast forward to my 20s, a college kid, looking for some work. I worked for Fotomat, and believe it or not, I learned an awful lot from seeing other people's bad pictures. After them asking me how they could improve their snaps, I felt it my duty to do a little reading, and find out why. I guess it's why my booth had one of the best figures. People would come back all the time, and tell me that I helped them enormously with their photos. Their's got better, and so did mine!
Back in the 70s, I purchased a K1000, and an inexpensive zoom lens, as it was what I could afford. I took it everywhere, and snapped everything. A few of my shots even made it into the Fotomat national employee magazine, when they ran a section on the NYC area.
I have been using the K1000, and the lenses that I have for all that time, when I finally broke down, and got the K100D. What drove me to it, was the facts that I could use my old glass, and it took regular AA batteries, and it is a Pentax! I figured that DSLRs had come of age, and it was time to move into this genre. I got the K100D with a good rebate, so I purchased the longer zoom, and got a rebate on that as well. Well, I started carrying this around with me everywhere, and felt that I was looking like a real geek, so I decided to get a cheap p&s camera, a Pentax, none the less. I take the DSLR out on the weekends, and get shots around the Valley, and carry the tiny p&s just about everywhere I go. It's quite handy having a halfway decent camera with you at all times.
So I have my old 50mm prime, which has served me quite well, but rarely gets used, with the range of zooms that I have. I have used the other old manual lenses with the new camera, and they work fine. It certainly helps that I know a little about photography, and can compose a good shot. I even recently got some books to figure out how I can do it better, and they have been an enormous help!
I love the DSLR, and the P&S as well. I can spend more time taking pictures, and less money on developing film now. Though editing is time consuming (I am still learning to use the GIMP and Photoshop) it is a good learning experience, which gives me time to use my creativity in a hobby, which is something that is severely lacking in my job.
What I have found over time, is that it isn't necessarily the camera, but the photographer that takes the good shots. I have taken excellent shots with my P&S, as well as my SLR, and DSLR. Glass does matter, as I have found out, and Pentax makes a fine product for me.
I look forward to adding my less than opinions, as well as my wacky anecdotes in this forum. I have been lurking for a few weeks now, and felt it was time to contribute.
You can see some of my shots on my Picasa site. It's Picasa Web Albums - Rocco
Happy '09
Rocco in Rosendale.
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