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Hello from Ben

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Hello from Ben

  • rastapopolos
    Member

    Hi folks –

    A mate of mine brought this site to my attention. I’ve been taking (rubbish) photos on film since I was a kid. Around 1990 I bought my first SLR, the reliable Canon 300 (no, none of those are mine – it’s gathering dust in a drawer at home) but my photos didn’t get much better – they were just sharper.

    I’d used compact digital cameras and regarded them as toys – I reckoned their usability was rubbish but they were great for throwing in a pocket and snapping photos at parties. I had no interest in owning one, despite being a bit of a gadget geek.

    It wasn’t until my wife bought a Canon 300D that I had my epiphany – here was a camera whose controls worked exactly like a proper SLR and from which I could get instant feedback about the quality of the photos I was taking. Highlights blasted out? Close down the aperture a notch or two and go again. Manky colour balance? Gorgeous results with manual white balance. …and of course the decided advantage of the fact that my Compact Flash card is re-usable – never again would I have to dither over taking another few shots because the cost of processing was going to crucify me.

    Then of course I discovered Flickr – all of my backup needs were sorted and I found a community of funky photo buffs. Since then I’ve been a keen amateur, developing a naturalistic style which involves eschewing flash and Photoshop. I like to work with the available light and I like to shoot hand-held – two choices which aren’t exactly complementary! I’ve been pleased enough with the results so far.

    The Canon 300D was robbed, so we upgraded to a 350D, with which I’ve been very happy. It’s fast enough, hi-resolution enough and not overly technical to meet my needs. Recently I’ve started looking at replacing the kit lens with some real glass – starting with the Canon 50mm f1.4, which I had the chance to try out recently – yummy – what a gob-smackingly gorgeous lens. It give me nearly three whole f-stops over the Canon 350D kits lens.

    I’m looking forward to contributing to this forum – mostly in the form of questions at first! I’ll lurk for a bit until I pick up the vibe here, but I hope to engage with all of you in due course.

    Best Regards
    Ben

    slang61
    Participant

    Welcome Ben,
    Best thing to do is post plenty of pics for C&C then see how you are getting on.

    Most of all Enjoy and learn..

    Deebo
    Participant

    Hi Ben
    Welcome to PI and great intro for us all.
    Dont be shy and get stuck in and enjoy

    Dee

    rastapopolos
    Member

    Thanks for the welcome, slang61 and Deebo. Guess I have to pluck up the courage now to select a few shots for critique… OK, here we go…

    cheers
    Ben

    Alan Rossiter
    Participant

    Welcome along Ben. Hope you find what you’re looking for here. By all accounts you have more experience than a lot here so we’ll watch with interest.

    Alan.

    ossie13
    Participant

    Welcome Ben & enjoy the site!!

    Cheers Steve

    GCP
    Participant

    Welcome and enjoy the site.

    shutterbug
    Participant

    Welcome to the site Ben :)

    rastapopolos
    Member

    Thanks very much to all of you for the great welcome! I appreciate it!

    cheers
    Ben

    steelydan
    Participant

    Great Introduction Ben and welcome to the weird world of Photography Ireland.

    Pull up a chair and relax,

    Its all about having Fun!!

    joeyvw
    Participant

    welcome along Ben

    Mark
    Keymaster

    Welcome to the site Ben !

    Get stuck in :)

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