About Dan Correia  

Note: If you were previously able to download photos from my Flickr page but can no longer do so, please no bitching. I am in the processing making changes as I struggle toward becoming a professional photographer. More changes will be happening shortly.

I have archived my best-of on this Flickr account.

Hi there. I have just completed a DJ mix that I've been working on for almost five years at this point. Check it out here, even if you are not particularly into DJ culture.

My interest in photography came about from my work doing blinkenlights for dance music parties, which I have done for tthe last four years. My interest in that came from my experiences as DJing since the mid 90s. I got my first camera, a humble Canon PowerShot S60, May 31st, 2005.

Generally my photos fall into the following categories: shots of my lights and lasers, portraits of DJ (popular with them), shots of club hotties (popular with nearly everyone), and outdoor shots I take in my travels throughout New England (which are largely ignored). I've found I like to take unposed portraits of people, when they are less self-conscious and more as they are. I prefer to have my subjects reacting to something besides the camera.

I am at the point where I have a pretty good grasp of framing, field of view and depth of field. I've also got a decent understanding of color balancing and metering. In the last year, I've spent quite a bit of time learning more advanced functions of photoshop (beyond, say, cropping and contrast) and I've done a lot with layers and masking recently.

I own a number of cameras, and use three regularly. I starterd with a Canon PowerShot S60, which has died on me twice, once when it was 3 months old, once when it was 13 mos. Note that it had a 1-year warranty. I have no plans to get it fixed. It's premature demise made me most unhappy with Canon, but in spite of that, I now have an EOS 30D. I also have a Canon EOS Rebel K2 film SLR that I use periodically. I really love shooting film. My favorite is Fuji Velvia 50, which works out well, as that's the greatest film stock in the world. No, seriously, it is. :-) My plan is to start shooting black & white film, and develop it myself. That is a project I'll be starting Real Soon Now(tm). I recently acquired a Canon PowerShot G2 that has been modified for infrared use.

At this point I have a pile of lenses:
EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM zoom: the good "kits" lens. Now broken! :-/
EF 35mm F/2: equivalent to 56mm on the 1.6x sensor.
EF 50mm F/1.4: A very useful lens, when it's not backfocusing or hunting or otherwise annoying me. Seriously, it's the only way to get "Canon" and "F/1.4" for under $1200.
EF 75-300mm F/4-5.6 USM III: economical telephoto zoom.
Lensbaby 2.0: More than a bauble, it's a tool for serious creativity.
Speedlite 580EX: Expensive, but the only real choice.
EF-50mm F/1.8: The original metal Mk. I version I got in a trade.
EF 17-40mm F/4L. A great walkaround zoom on an APS-C sensor, and a serious ultrawide on film/full frame. Also a "bargain" by the standards of L-glass.

I have an M42 screw mount adapter that allows me to use a whole host of manual lenses. My favorites are:
Meyer Optik Orestor 135mm F/2.8 and its 15 blade aperture.
Tair 11A 135mm F/2.8 and its 22 blade aperture. I just got this lens (06/09) and I'm still getting used to it.
Nikon E Series 75-150mm F/3.5, the best zoom lens under $1000. No joke. It's wickedly sharp wide open and has just about the best bokeh I have ever seen. A steal of a lens.

I've been on the intertubes for years. At this point, most of my online activities releate to music, one way or another:
Discogs
Audiosquabler
MySpace
Facebook

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