EdBray
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 7,179
- Name
- Edward Bray
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Hello All,
I have just joined the forum and thought that it would be best if I introduced myself.
I am a 49 year old male living in the SW who has been involved with photography off and on since the late 70s. Whilst studying electronics at college part of the syllabus involved a grounding in photography element at the local art college and it was soon evident that I enjoyed this more than the maths and physics based electronics. That Christmas my girlfriend (now my wife, and has been for the last 25 years) bought me my first SLR camera a Zenith TTL.
I progressed through a few different cameras in the early 80s and eventually settled on an outfit based around an Olympus OM2n (with an OM1n as a fully manual backup) and as I had a good grounding in photographic techniques and methods, I began working regularly as a part time Wedding & Social photographer in my free time. Over the next few years I took many thousands of photographs and whilst all the couples who's weddings I had photographed seemed happy with their pictures, I became a little bored with taking photographs for myself and my lack of darkroom facilities meant that I was mainly reliant on cheap machine printing for my own prints, and as most people will attest, these are usually poor.
In the early 90s I decided to splash out and equip a large cupboard that we had (spare'ish) at home into a darkroom and bought a range of quality equipment to allow me to do my own monochrome and colour developing and printing. I also changed to Nikon equipment at this time and also bought a S/H Mamiya C330 to improve the quality of my wedding work.
About that time I returned to the College of Art & Design to do a GCSE and A' level in photography (passed both). In 1994 I joined a local camera club and seemed to do very well in their competitions with my own preference of images (pretty much anything but weddings) and was soon also renowned as a very good colour printer.
In 1995 I was made redundant and decided to utilise some of my redundancy pay to go into the Wedding & Social Photography business full time, I splashed out on a S/H Hassleblad CM500 outfit that a friend was selling and began using this for most of my photography. I scraped along like this for about 2.5 years and then had the opportunity to become employed (outside of photography) again so decided to take the job.
After working full time in Photography and having to make a living at it I had pretty much lost all interest in the subject and eventually decided to give it all up and sold most of my equipment. I just kept a Nikon body and a couple of lenses, but rarely used them. I stopped going to the camera club although I did still visit other Photographic clubs in the SW area giving talks and judging competitions for them.
In the early 00's I bought a Fuji S602 pro and my interest in photography seemed to be recharged and I again started to take photographs, it was not too long before I wanted a DSLR and bought a Nikon D70 with 18-70 lens, I still had a Nikon F4 body, and a couple of lenses, which whilst they would fit on the D70 the 1.5x magnification meant that they were not really suitable, so I sold the F4 and just kept my 24-120 AF-D Nikkor and my Sigma 70-300 APO (original AF-D type and to my mind the best lens Sigma ever made) and bought an SB200 to go with the D70. This gave me a range of 18-300mm (27mm-450mm in 35mm) I have used this outfit for a few years, and when the D300 came out managed to pick up a cheapish mint D200 (it's not what you know but who).
My one reservation of the Nikon DSLRs was the 1.5x magnification factor (can probably count on one hand the number of images I have made between 300mm and 450mm) and as such I have always hoped that I could get a full frame digital camera. This I now have as I have just bought myself a Nikon D3. I am unable to fund a Nikkor 14-24 at the moment but I have picked up a mint 18-35mm AF-D which on testing over the last couple of days seems to give nice sharp contracty images with the D3.
So current outfit consists of D3, D200 and D70, lenses 18-70mm DX Nikkor, 18-35mm AF-D Nikkor, 24-120mm AF-D Nikkor and Sigma 70-300mm APO, SB200 Flash and a Fuji S602pro for holiday snaps and when I cannot be bothered to take the SLRs out.
My personal photographic interests are landscapes and portaits, but will try to capture anything that takes my fancy.
I look forward to participating in the various forums and would hope to become a valued member in time.
For those of you still awake, I apologise if I have bored you with my long introduction, for those of you asleep, I hope you needed the rest.
I have just joined the forum and thought that it would be best if I introduced myself.
I am a 49 year old male living in the SW who has been involved with photography off and on since the late 70s. Whilst studying electronics at college part of the syllabus involved a grounding in photography element at the local art college and it was soon evident that I enjoyed this more than the maths and physics based electronics. That Christmas my girlfriend (now my wife, and has been for the last 25 years) bought me my first SLR camera a Zenith TTL.
I progressed through a few different cameras in the early 80s and eventually settled on an outfit based around an Olympus OM2n (with an OM1n as a fully manual backup) and as I had a good grounding in photographic techniques and methods, I began working regularly as a part time Wedding & Social photographer in my free time. Over the next few years I took many thousands of photographs and whilst all the couples who's weddings I had photographed seemed happy with their pictures, I became a little bored with taking photographs for myself and my lack of darkroom facilities meant that I was mainly reliant on cheap machine printing for my own prints, and as most people will attest, these are usually poor.
In the early 90s I decided to splash out and equip a large cupboard that we had (spare'ish) at home into a darkroom and bought a range of quality equipment to allow me to do my own monochrome and colour developing and printing. I also changed to Nikon equipment at this time and also bought a S/H Mamiya C330 to improve the quality of my wedding work.
About that time I returned to the College of Art & Design to do a GCSE and A' level in photography (passed both). In 1994 I joined a local camera club and seemed to do very well in their competitions with my own preference of images (pretty much anything but weddings) and was soon also renowned as a very good colour printer.
In 1995 I was made redundant and decided to utilise some of my redundancy pay to go into the Wedding & Social Photography business full time, I splashed out on a S/H Hassleblad CM500 outfit that a friend was selling and began using this for most of my photography. I scraped along like this for about 2.5 years and then had the opportunity to become employed (outside of photography) again so decided to take the job.
After working full time in Photography and having to make a living at it I had pretty much lost all interest in the subject and eventually decided to give it all up and sold most of my equipment. I just kept a Nikon body and a couple of lenses, but rarely used them. I stopped going to the camera club although I did still visit other Photographic clubs in the SW area giving talks and judging competitions for them.
In the early 00's I bought a Fuji S602 pro and my interest in photography seemed to be recharged and I again started to take photographs, it was not too long before I wanted a DSLR and bought a Nikon D70 with 18-70 lens, I still had a Nikon F4 body, and a couple of lenses, which whilst they would fit on the D70 the 1.5x magnification meant that they were not really suitable, so I sold the F4 and just kept my 24-120 AF-D Nikkor and my Sigma 70-300 APO (original AF-D type and to my mind the best lens Sigma ever made) and bought an SB200 to go with the D70. This gave me a range of 18-300mm (27mm-450mm in 35mm) I have used this outfit for a few years, and when the D300 came out managed to pick up a cheapish mint D200 (it's not what you know but who).
My one reservation of the Nikon DSLRs was the 1.5x magnification factor (can probably count on one hand the number of images I have made between 300mm and 450mm) and as such I have always hoped that I could get a full frame digital camera. This I now have as I have just bought myself a Nikon D3. I am unable to fund a Nikkor 14-24 at the moment but I have picked up a mint 18-35mm AF-D which on testing over the last couple of days seems to give nice sharp contracty images with the D3.
So current outfit consists of D3, D200 and D70, lenses 18-70mm DX Nikkor, 18-35mm AF-D Nikkor, 24-120mm AF-D Nikkor and Sigma 70-300mm APO, SB200 Flash and a Fuji S602pro for holiday snaps and when I cannot be bothered to take the SLRs out.
My personal photographic interests are landscapes and portaits, but will try to capture anything that takes my fancy.
I look forward to participating in the various forums and would hope to become a valued member in time.
For those of you still awake, I apologise if I have bored you with my long introduction, for those of you asleep, I hope you needed the rest.
