I've taken up photography! What an annoyingly expensive hobby! I first became intrigued with the idea after reading Philip Greenspun's web site on photography. I had read his advice about point and shoot photography, and came back from that cycling trip with one amazingly good picture. My ego bolstered by this, I decided to antagonize the entire community by asking this question:
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I've been poking around this web site for a bit now, and have been taking a few pictures here and there with my Fuji SuperMini DL point and shoots. I'm certainly pleased with what I've learnt, and for a while was contemplating shelling out money for a decent SLR plus a couple of lenses. But reading further is convincing me that this is a horribly expensive hobby that's intrusive. For instance, I read things like: "carry the heaviest tripod you are willing to carry." Most of the places where I want to take pictures are places where I already have to hike a fair distance or backpack to. (Like the summit on the Alderson Cathrew trail in Waterton Lakes National park, for instance) I'm not going to add 10 pounds to my backpack when I'm already 4000 feet up and have to climb another 3000 feet! My question is then: is this really a hobby for someone who likes to visit beautiful places and take good pictures, but isn't built like Rambo? Or shall I wait until I'm old enough to hang up my backpack and panniers, and never go anywhere I have to carry multi-night gear to? The few good pictures I've taken with my P&S do tell me that if I had a choice, I'd like to be able to take better pictures, but not at the expense of no longer enjoying the things that I enjoy today. (Hiking/Cycling high mountains on multi-day trips) |
I got lots of answers, some angry, some helpful, some touting their particular brand of equipment, but the answer that made the difference to me was from an Australian gentleman, Bob Hawley:
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Piaw, one of my ambitions used to be to go to America and hike into the places you go to and photograph the things that you see. But a life spent in commercial photography and lecturing and getting on with my profession meant that suddenly you have jogged me into remembering that I am now 61 years of age and really I don't think I'd be up to all that physical thing any more (I'm "reasonably" fit, but not THAT fit) But if I were YOU I'd think of the day when you are as old as I without any glorious colour pictures that record what YOU saw on your travels. No. it NOT intrusive...unless you want it to be. In your place I would take my old white Minolta 80001 with a couple of lenses in my Kodak "seat bag" with a swag of Kodak 100 tranny film (color neg is too restrictive in its end-use). The only agonizing decision I would have to make would be..."do I wait until the sun comes around to light that peak, or will I come back?" NEVER shoot a subject just because it is there, I like "drink in" the scenery and get the shot that will make it memorable...if if you don't do that, you may as well just buy a post card! ......Have a good time, I envy you, as one from the second most scenic country in the world....Bob |
For some reason that advice struck me hard, and with that I held my nose and ordered what others had said would be reasonable starter's equipment: A Canon Elan IIe, the Canon 24-85 USM lens with hood, remote release, camera bag, a small tripod, a couple of photo books, and loads of film. Armed with just that and good intentions, I took my camera to the top of Windy Hill Open Space Preserve one morning and starting snapping away. The results looked fantastic to my untrained eye, and even my mom (who was skeptical of me spending that much money on a camera system) was impressed.
Of the first 6 rolls of film, the only one I feel like I could show anyone is this:
Sunrise on Mt. Hamilton
This was the climax of a moonlight lit ride up Mt. Hamilton that Radek led in early July, and none of the other pictures had content that summarized my feelings about the ride quite like this one.
I then took my outfit to Rocky Mountain National Park, then Mt. Rainier National Park. Am I glad I did it? Yes. In fact, I enjoy it so much that I now have a virtual gallery on this site.
I took a workshop with Galen Rowell. As this review will tell you, it was worth every penny!