Photography tips

Well, I thought I should post a little info about who I am and a bit about my photography.

My fisrt experience in taking any sort of photos was way back in my childhood. I guess I was about 9 or 10 years old and went on holidays to a national park with my gran. She took all the grandchildern on a weeks holiday, 1 each year. During this Holiday, I was loaned a camera - don't even know what sort it was or anything and a couple of rolls of film. I took some photos and even had one of them of a waterfall blown up. I was hooked!

When my gran passed away several years later, I got her 35mm SLR camera with a 50mm and 135mm Lens' I learnt the basics of photography using this Camera, and when I lost interest in it (mainly due to the costs involved in getting film developed) I passed the camera onto another family member.

When Digital Cameras first came out, I was intruiged and bought a very early Kodak model. It cost a small fortune and it could take either 8 high-quality or 16 low quality photos. It was very primitive compared to today's Digital Cameras.

Very soon, I learnt the limitations of such a camera, and it was a few years later that I purchased a much better Point and shoot digital Camera - it happend to be another Kodak as well.

It was probably at this point that my interest was re-kindled in photography as the main barrier I previously had was now gone. I could take as many photos as I wanted and there were no additional costs to get film developed, just take pictures and download them to your Computer. This Camera had all sorts of program modes, and even had manual settings as well. It was a 2megapixel Camera and had 3x optical and 3x digital Zoom. The images it produced were pretty good at the time.

As luck would have it (or not) the camera was dropped and it broke. I was about to go on holidays and wanted a camera so I went out and bought a brand new 2megapixel Canon Camera. I soon found out that the new camera was much more capable of capturing a better image than the old Kodak camera ever did. I guess that around this time, the advances in the technology were very rapid.

The Little Canon A40 camera served me well for about 2 1/2 years when I finally decided that I wanted a DSLR type Camera. I wanted something with much better lens capability than a point and shoot camera.

After several months I finally went out and bought an Olympus E300 4/3 format Camera. The decision was partially based on price and a few of the unique features of the Olympus DSLR. I got it as a kit that included a 14-45 and 40-150mm Lens'.

The Olympus 4/3 format is a 2x crop factor when compared to a 35mm Film SLR. This means that the 14-45 lens is effectively the same as a 28-90mm lens used for 35mm film.

I got the Camera about 2 weeks before going on holidays and have very little time to learn a lot about it. On my holiday, I took around 500 pictures and was pretty pleased with the results. We also took along the aging Canon A40 camera. On this holiday the Canon met with an unfortunate fate - it fell about 100ft onto rocks and died a most horrid death. Fortunately the Memory card was recovered along with the photos on it.

When we got back from our Holiday, realising that a small Point ans shoot camera is useful to have around, we went and researched the latest in P&S cameras. The Canon had been ok, se we finally settled on getting another one and ended up wtih an A520. It had reasonable features for the price.

After only a few weeks we were very dissapointed with the Canon A520. We soon realised that the quality of the images was not as good as what we had been getting from the old A40! there was a lot of evidence of noise in the images. So, still wanting a P&S, we eventually got an A610. The Canon range of Cameras had 1 great feature - very short shutter lag time which is a problem with nearly all P&S digital Cameras. We found that even though this camera was better than the A520 and the old A40, that after using a DSLR the quality was simply not there. Yet, at times it is still convenient to have a small compact camera in your pocket as opposed to a DSLR.

Over the last year or so, I started lusting over better Glass to hang on the E300 and eventually bought into the Pro lineup of lens'. The Pro lens' are better quality, and faster. I bought a 14-54MM and was very happy with it - it was simply so much better all-round than the 14-45 Kit lens. I was very happy with the Olympus 4/3 System and monitored closely all of the newer models that were released. All the while, noting that the E300's were dissapearing from the shops. I like the Camera so much that I kept an eye out and managed to buy a 2nd one at an absolute bargain price as most shops were running out the old modle Cameras. It was less than 1/2 the price of my original purchase only 12 months earlier.

Now, I had the 2nd body, I absolutely needed to go out and get the Pro Zoom and went and got the 50-200mm lens. This lens once again was a bit faster, and a bit longer than the 40-150mm Kit lens. At the moment, I have put the original Kit lens's in the drawer, just in case I ever need them.

Of course along the way, I have grabbed all sorts of accessories, such as a Hotshoe Flash and a PSD (personal storage device) and several different Software packages.

Well, that wasn't a little bit about me,in fact it was a lot, but at least it gives a bit of an idea on my experience in photography.