I love to take photographs. I guess it was something inborn since it is something I have always enjoyed doing since as long as I can remember. BUT I was not always good at taking photographs. There is a difference in loving to do something and being good at doing it. As long as the lighting was perfect, I tended to get some good pictures. However, I knew absolutely nothing, nada, about why a photograph was good or was bad. I snapped and I got what I got - good or bad. Sound familiar to any of you? Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal, all were foreign words. I knew camera, film and click the button.
Then in December of 1997 I attended a Christmas concert featuring Christian music group Point of Grace. I was excited. I had decent seats and center stage. I had my little Fuji point and shoot camera. I was all ready. At least until the photos came back from the lab. Something was wrong. They were all blurry. Not a clear picture in the bunch.
So while I was working in Calgary, Canada I decided I was going to get a camera that would take a decent photograph at concerts. Remember at this point I knew literally nothing about the fundamentals of photography. I just knew that if I bought a good enough camera, I would get good photos. It had to be the camera, right? (I'm sure I'm not the only person who ever had these thoughts).
So I began my research. And after checking and rechecking, it all came down to 2 cameras. The Nikon F5 and a Canon 2E or something like that - it had a feature where the focus point was determined by where your eye looked. That feature sounded a little freaky to me so as you may have guessed, I bought the Nikon F5 by ordering it online from a New York camera store. And it has been a love affair ever since.
It was February of 1998 and I had a concert to attend the same day as the camera arrived at my home. It was some friends of mine, Nickel & Dime (now disbanded) opening for Caedmon's Call. Either Bebo Norman or Andrew Petersen or both were also playing. I arrive at the venue, and for the first time I realize I do not know even how to load the film. Where is the release? I had not had time to read any of the instruction manual.
With such a begining you'd think the photos that night were a complete disaster. But I made a great selection in cameras. The F5 knew much more about taking photographs than I did and for the most part the photos were great! Much much better than my Christmas concert effort.
Since February of 1998, I have managed to learn some of the basics of photography. Books by John Shaw - including Landscape Photography and Nature Photography helped a lot as did a tutorial on Ansel Adams' zone system of exposure. Now I have others asking me for advice on taking photos! However to some extent the world of photography has passed me by. I am still using the Nikon F5 and taking film while the vogue now is digital. And I am now beginning to take notice. Luckily, Nikon has some decent digital SLR cameras. I am seriously looking at the D200 IF the sale price I saw advertised for it is correct. If so, I may gravitate that direction but I doubt I will ever totally abandon film and slides.
In the interim I have been scanning slides and negatives and photos. So I am beginning to understand the appeal of digital. At the rate I am going, it will take me a year to scan my existing images. With digital, it is USB plug and upload. Even the editing is reduced. My scans get dust or a hair or such and that requires editing out. With digital images, very little editing in my experience is required. Usually one is just cropping, or editing a little for exposure or color or shadows. It takes seconds compared to sometimes minutes for scanned images.
So if any one out there has a Nikon F5 and a Nikon SLR, (or a Fuji SLR that is compatible with Nikon lenses) drop me a note on how the digital compares to the F5. My impression is that converting from the F5 to one of the upper Nikon SLRs will be easy for me since many features are similar and it will accept my existing lenses.
For those who are new to photography or are seeking answers to why that camera of yours didn't take a good picture (like I was in 1998), come back and visit. I have recently been asked by someone for my advice on how to take good photos. I am no expert, but I soon hope to post a topic on what I have learned since 1998 - some by reading but a lot by trial and error. So drop in again and say hello.
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