Hey everyone,
My name is Joshua Schroeder. I am 23 years old, live where in the part of Canada where the Rocky Mountains meet the vast prairies, and have just completed a bachelors degree in Management Information Systems (or will have at noon tomorrow when I submit my final assignment!).
I first got into photography seriously in high school. I purchased a Minolta Maxxum in grade 11 before going on a class trip to England and Scotland. It took great pictures, but I never really learned to take it off of 'P'.
Because much of what I do is web based, I decided I needed to go digital in my third year of university. At that point I bought the then newly released Canon PowerShot A80. I shot with that for a few years, then got the bug to go back to SLR, so this summer I bought the cheapest dSLR I could find: A Pentax *istDL (with 17-55mm). I added a kit 50-200mm zoom lens almost immediately, but found that the kit lenses to be very inadequate for my favourite subject: ice hockey. When shooting at the long end of the lens, I was getting about f/6.7-f/8, which necessetated ISO 3200. I've now discovered how nice the backwards compatibility of Pentax bodies with lenses can make things. I've added a 28mm f/2.8 and a 135mm f/2.8, both used manual focus lenses.
While I'm happy with this system, I'm always itching for more. I don't plan on adding much to this gear now (as much as I REALLY want a 10-17mm fisheye
). Sometime down the road I'd like to add a Canon EOS-series as my primary camera.
Over the past three months, my photos have appeared regularly in the University of Lethbridge student newspaper, The Meliorist (sadly, the photos are not published online), and occasionally on the
Canada West Universities Athletic Conference web site.
I've only been around DPS for a few weeks, but I've been learning plenty around here. I particularly enjoy the opportunity to share photos and see what others come up with for the same assignments.