Cat's Ear (John Johnston) involved in some researc's photostream  

Updated October 5, 2009.
I have two serious hobbies: Doing mathematical research (this is why I'm sometimes busy with school) and taking pictures. I will describe a little about the second one (more than anyone really wants to read).

My first picture was a glamour shot of my older sister taken with her camera when I was seven years old. Even then I had the vision of what I wanted to create but not the technical skill. Even with the sun flare it was a good image. When I was 13 my scout master was a professional photographer. He showed me darkroom techniques using that 120 film image of my sister. We/I made dozens of 8x10 enlargements of that image using his darkroom, chemicals and paper. At that time I had no real appreciation of the gift he was giving me. To my knowledge there is not a single copy left of that image. So I cannot even make an honest judgment of its quality.

My second picture was when I was 13 at my eighth grade graduation using a borrowed camera - my sister's again - of my "girl friend". The image was blurred due to camera shake. I'm sure it was my nerves. Anyway I was teased so much over that blurry image that I didn't pick up a camera again for many years. (Talk about useless sensitivity - wow!) By the way: I think maybe I have over compensated for the camera shake I was teased about. The first Blazing Star image I posted in June was hand held at 400mm and 1/60 second. I can usually hand hold 200 mm with the IS on at 1/20 second without shake.

In the late 80's and early 90's I was doing ceramic arts and Asian ink painting. My work was selling on a regular basis - almost enough to pay costs. A good friend and mentor kept telling me I needed to get pictures of my work for historical reasons, if not for a professional portfolio. So I looked at the cost of having someone take pictures of my work. Oops, there went all the profit that wasn't there to begin with. So I started looking at cameras. Two good things came of this search. There was a young, aspiring photographer working at one of the local camera shops. He gave me good advice, we became good friends and he still gives me good advice. So in June 1993 I bought my first camera: the Canon EOS A2E (In Europe it was called the EOS 5). The ostensible reason for buying the camera then was to keep a record of my artwork. The real reason was that my girl friend and I were leaving for an extended trip up the Pacific coast. I fell in love with making images with film. The camera and what I could do with it replaced both my ceramic arts and the Asian ink painting. All I can say is that with the cost of film processing and the amount of shooting I was doing it was a good thing that I had a good job.

My second camera was the Canon EOS 3 (October 1998). I was in the camera shop I use and while waiting for a sales person I was chatting with another guy about cameras, film and related stuff. When a sales person came up I asked about the EOS 3. He said that there were none available yet, maybe in a month. It turned out the guy I had been talking with was the western region Canon representative. He got me the camera with the then new 28-135 IS lens on the spot. At that time only three EOS 3s had been delivered in the US. For the almost 10 years I used that camera I averaged 6000 images a year. At $0.85 per shutter click that is over $50,000 in film and film processing. I waited for the third generation digital camera when they were clearly as good or better than film. I started scanning all of my images in 1999.

My third camera and first digital and first top of the line professional was the Canon 1Ds Mark III, bought on January 26, 2008. I was three months down on the waiting list this time - no fortuitous chat with the Canon rep. I have had only one serious disillusionment: I discovered dust. Based on film and processing costs the camera paid for itself in less than a year. It has opened up a whole new style of photography for me. When I was doing film I would "fix" the images in Photoshop. Now, my philosophy is do it right in the camera. If when I get home and look at the images in the large on the monitor (I have an HP LP3065-30 inches and a 96% palette.) and it's not quite right I just go out and shoot it again and again and ... until I get it right. If I'm not sure what depth of field is going to look best I shoot at all the f-stops that my camera/lens allows. Then I change the point of focus and do it all over again. This is especially useful for macro photography. Then I change the composition slightly and do it again. Usually boredom or impatience sets in before I finish all the possibilities. But the point is that I now have affordable options that I never had with film.

I shoot exclusively in RAW. So all my images need processing. I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Generally my only adjustments are levels adjustment, less often I do some selective lightening and darkening (dodging and burning in the old nomenclature). I do this most often in those instances where in the old days a photographer would have used a graduated filter. I rarely do any color adjustments. Even more rarely I will go to Photoshop to do levels adjustments when I cannot get them right in Lightroom. I use Photoshop for panoramas and sometime for artwork. Only two of my posted images have used Photoshop for more than levels adjustment: An old truck and Dancing in the rain. I'm sure that HDR serves some purpose. But I have yet to discover what it is. Someone put two of my images into an HDR Gallery. So I put a comment on the Gallery saying that none of my images are HDR. I wonder if that person is unable to get a high contrast, saturated image without using HDR. For that kind of image digital mimics slide film rather well. It mimics negative film less well. I almost always use natural and/or available light. With the really high quality of the high ISO ranges and AWB with my camera I rarely even use a flash. If I'm doing portraits in an outdoor setting with somewhat harsh light I will use flash fill to eliminate shadows and the resulting high contrast. Back in the old days when I didn't have the luxury of changing ISO at will I used a plethora of different lighting techniques. Now I'm just lazy. It takes a lot of work to do light setups.

I have enough good equipment that any bad images are me not the equipment. My macro lens is the only non L lens I own. It is also my oldest, bought in August 1993. It is also still being sold by Canon. My lenses are:
100 mm macro f/2.8
24-70 f/2.8
70-200 f/2.8 IS II
100-400 f/4.5-f/5.6 IS
17-35 f/2.8
85 mm f/1.2 II (currently my favorite, probably because I use it to take pictures of pretty women.)
24 mm f/1.4
17 mm f/4.0 TS (Still learning how to use this one.)