Nature Photography

[rmorgan]

What it is, is kind of a bummer . . . you have to open the shutter without energizing the CCD (which otherwise acts as a big dust magnet, and which with Nikons requires a separate AC power supply) and use methanol to swab the dust off the CCD. Some folks seem to freak out about having to do this on occasion (I've done it twice in 4,000 images), but I didn't find it to be a problem. The problem is minimized by not changing lenses, but of course that defeats the whole purpose!

[rmorgan]

Kilt--

What camera did you get, and have you gotten started with it yet? I went back to your original message and realized I hadn't absorbed your Galen Rowell comments fully. He certainly had a wide influence. Here's a Link to a nice article written in his memory by one of his students, Thom Hogan.

[frank_f15]

am a bit late and just new to this forum. but as digital camers go they are great. i have 2.1 mega pixel it is a nice camera but don't think it can replace my 35 mm slr, would love to have one of the digital slr's but at this time they are a bit to high. but digital is great, can take a shot just for the heck of it anf e mail it to a friend or take a shot and post to ans, a question. the biggest thing i miss with digital camera in my price rage is the loss of control and the loss of interchangable lens for wildlife i like a really big lens. very nice topic. and hope to see more post as the forum grows. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Kilt]

rmorgan,

I got the new Sony F717. Haven't had time to play much with it yet, plus the weather has been absolutely Edgar Alan Poe-ish for days. Thanks for the link on Galen Rowell.

[Pat]

Does this fit in your idea of Nature?

That is my still unplanked footbridge in the background.

Patrick

[Pat]

Here is a sunset from my mom's back porch.

I have gigabytes of photos from last 18 months of using my wifes Kodak digital. Jillions of flowers, animals, scenics. MY personal photography runs to astrophotography (just more distant nature) with totaly manual cameras Olympus OM-1 (I have 3) and about 50-60 pounds of lenses and accessories. My longest tele is 2000mm, 8 inch reflector telescope. Will focus as close as 25 ft or so. Gets you up close to the shy and wary animals or difficult to get places where telephoto is safer than climbing. I have been intending to try my wifes digital with the telescope for more instant gratification.

I have done my own lab work including enlarging prints as well as processing and mounting my own color slides but find digital manipulaltion smells better and is way cheaper. Still, I like "REAL" photos with wet chemistry some of the time and it will be a while yet before digital cameras compete with fine grain color neg film for larger enlargements.


Patrick

[Pat]

RMorgan, Sorry I'm so late on this... Congratulations on your photo layout. Some of those shots are really superb. I'm jealous of your cardinal shot as I have not been able to get a good tight shot of ours, not enough tele. Well, I could use my 2000mm telephoto on one of my SLR that I use for astrophotography (AKA Celestron 8 inch reflector telescope) but haven't done much wet chemistry photo work since buying my wife a 4 meg pix digital. No adaptor for her camera to my scope. One day I will spring for a digital for myself but will wait for the breed to mature a bit and "struggle through" with her camera for a while.


Patrick

Very nice picture. I like to take pictures of both nature and animals. I have a Minolta Maxxum 700si SLR and a Sony MVD_FD91 digital. I like the sony because I can take a picture and put the floppy disk in the computer and send emails. A picture will answer a multitude of questions.

[Pat]

JHB, Thanks for your kind words, not everyone apreciated the textures and composition but I like it. Good to have a photo record as I will be removing 2/3 or more of the dead stuff. The winter bridge scene was taken with my wife's Kodak 4800 digital snapshot camera. I have been too busy lately to do anything with my REGULAR cameras. I have some Olympus OM-1 manual 35mm SLRs and an OM-2 that are the staples of my astrophotography and even nature stuff. I have everything from fisheye wide angle to 8 inch reflector telescope(2000mm tele) that I use with the OM B U T lately (last year), I bought my wife a coma camera (so automated you can run it while in a coma), a Nikon SLR and a decent zoom lense 35-200 (approx)
B U T she doesn't use it anymore now that I got her a digital. She could care less about all the finer points of being able to choose metering variations, and override of the automation for artistic control and so forth. She likes to point, zoom, and shoot the digital and get fair results most of the time A N D not have to go through the film development hassle.

Later when the price/performance point drops sufficiently I will probably get an interchangeable lens digital SLR. Meanwhile I borrow her Kodak.

I'm sure there are lots of nice things about the floppy disk storage for your camera but I didn't want to have any more moving parts than neccessary so went with compact flash mem. With 3 each 128Meg cards you can get oodles (hundreds) of high res pix and the camera is recognized by Windows as a drive (read only) so downloading pix is trivial and pretty fast.

Good clicking to you,

Pat

[cjtinkle]

Hi All, I'm new to the forum. Just bought a Canon EOS 10D myself, had it about a week and love it! It's rained mostly since I've had it, so haven't really had a chance to play with it outside.
I love nature photography, and both hubby and myself enjoy macro photography.