Plutone (NL)'s photostream  

Happy Canon 40D user and NON Photoshopper
Also using a Canon G11 as a lightweight alternative.






I allways shoot in RAW, because I do not trust optimizations by my camera. RAW format enables me to make pictures look according to what I think I saw in reality.

Do not call this approach Photoshopping please! It is always the the natural look of things that I am after.

I used to be a black and white photographer a long time ago, who spent many hours in the darkroom. From the early eighties I found myself not so interested in this any more.

About 2004 I tried my first digital camera, a simple one and in 2006 I did it again. It was a fight, in the first place because of its slowness and disappointing picture quality.

Fed up with frustration. I bought the Canon XTi/400D as soon as it was available, and in march 2008 I switched to the Canon 40D with its far better color reproduction. I really love this camera!

For developing RAW files I normally use DXO software, which is quite slow but gives me the best results. The most important feature of this software is that most lens flaws are corrected automatically. So rather cheap lenses give unexpectedly good results. This is one of the great things about photographing the digital way.
I just discovered a nice alternative in Capture one, especially for portraits i like that one better.

I am still learning a lot, and that is a good thing to experience when you are 58 years old!

I regard myself to be a fanatic non-photoshopper. Yes, I do use software, but what I do with software is what anyone would have done in the darkroom in the film era. So what I do is cropping, making pictures lighter or darker, change contrast, tuning color and keystone correction when appropriate. As I mentioned earlier, to be able to do so I allways shoot in raw format. I do not remove or add elements or make colors artificial. I tried it a couple of times, and it is certainly not my thing.

I have discovered that for me, light is more important than composition. This often means that composition is merely choosing the frame for me. Light and reflections normally dictate my point of view.

At this moment I am trying even harder to get the natural look, I think my pictures had exaggerated contrast in the past.

I hate idle compliments so I won't give such. Sometimes I give an impression or an idea that comes up when I see a picture. I hope nobody will feel this as offensive, it is never intended like that. Note that when I give compliments on a picture or fave it, this is really meant as a compliment.