Some of my Photography and Photon Catching Results

I have always loved photography. For years I had a wet darkroom dealing mostly with slow speed Black and White film and making he prints on nice fiber matt paper. The camera of choice for this was a classic Nikon F2SB. It was a beautiful thing.

Later I bought a Nikonos-V and began capturing the beauty of the underwater world. This became a lesson in discipline and technical skills. The discipline part was because you couldn't change film underwater and I didn't even like changing rolls between dives (one drop of well placed salt water cost me over $600 in repair bills back in 1989). The technical part involves lighting issues, especially backscatter, focus and exhaust bubbles getting in the photo. I actually became fairly good at this. If I got back into it I would use a digital camera with a big memory card, quality case and lens port plus a flash or two on extension arms.

When I got into Astronomy I played around with Gas Hypersensitized Tech Pan. Basically, this allows long exposures in very dim light. Just about the time I finished the Hypersensitizing chamber Kodak quit making Tech Pan film and Digital cameras were taking over the telescopes also.  Honestly, I was never very good at taking long exposures through a telescope - also called prime focus photography, but it was fun to try (I haven't given up!) Of course now everything is digital. I have a separate page for my attempts at Astrophotography and I feel like I have improved a bit.

Here's my recommendation on getting into digital photography: Get a decent DSLR from one of the big names (Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony etc.) and then get a great lens or two for it. The lens is far more important than the camera. Using settings other than full auto, get out and shoot hundreds, or even thousands of photos.

I change these photos out occasionally depending on what I like at the moment. Click on any small photo for a larger view.