Hello! I've been reading the DPS blog for some time and have been really enjoying that but it only occurred to me to look at the forum today and having got sucked in and enjoying a lot of the threads I decided to sign up.
I had a film camera when I was younger but it's only been the last 5 years when I've had a digital camera of some sort and really got in to photography - to the point where it's my primary hobby and is quite consuming!
I started off with an old Canon Ixus V, then moved through an Ixus 400, then a 40 and presently a 55. The reason for using those little cameras was that I went mountain biking a lot and needed a small camera that I could get out and use very quickly so as not to slow down the cycling (with other people). The reason for going through that many cameras was due to breaking them! - although none of them were broken during mountain biking, they were all quite stupid accidents! Another factor for sticking with the Ixus cameras was that they were infrared sensitive, and in 2005 I really started getting in to infrared and that has become an addiction in itself.
This is an early Ixus infrared shot that was at the beginning of my addiction to it...
The Ixus cameras really got me addicted to photography, so I next bought a bridge camera - a Konica Minolta Dimage Z5 which was ok, but a bit disappointing really. So, I decided that because I was taking that many photos and it had become a big part of my life, I'd buy a DSLR and got a Nikon D50. I'm so glad I did that. Since buying that camera I have learned so much and it's just so nice to use a camera that feels nice in your hands and does what you want it to!
After three years of taking infrared shots with the Ixus cameras using long shutter speeds, I finally got a modified camera so that I could take infrared shots hand-held. It's a Fuji Finepix S5600 and this is one of my first nice photos from that...
I find that the best infrared shots work on sunny days when you've got nice looking clouds around. Unfortunately, since I've had the modified camera (less than a few months), it's not been that nice weather here in the UK - so I still think I have yet to get anywhere near the best out of this camera yet.
To finish up, I do from time to time experiment with a couple of film cameras. A Holga 120CFN and a Lomo Supersampler.
I was particularly struck with the Supersampler to the point that I wrote
an article about it that was published in issue 10 of JPG magazine.
I've been blogging and using Flickr since 2005 and links to both of those are in my signature if you fancy exploring!
So, hello everybody!
