About me

 

I'm a Senior Lecturer in Engineering at University College Dublin, Ireland. I used to be an active amateur photographer from the mid 1970s until the mid-late 1980s, with a couple of pictures published in photographic magazines. In those days I wielded a Zenit-E (constructed more solidly than a main battle tank), an Olympus OM-1n (gorgeous camera), and an ancient Agifold 6x6 folding camera which, optically, knocked the spots off the 35 mm SLRs. To see a real camera like the Agifold:

 

Agifold - top, Agifold - front, and Agifold advert

 

(Oh, and despite the grey beard in my photo, the Agifold was an old camera of my father's, and it was older than me.)

 

I used a Euro-Master exposure meter with the OM-1n most of the time (none of this TTL-metering nonsense).

 

In the past couple of years I've acquired a succession of digital cameras, and I now carry a Kodak V705 everywhere with me (even in a case, it slips into a trouser pocket, with space to spare for keys and change); the 23 mm equiv. lens is wonderful. I've only just acquired a Pentax K100D, which feels clunky compared to the OM-1n, but also feels way superior to a friend's Nikon D50 (Pentax SLRs have always had excellent ergonomics: "Just hold a Pentax"). And the in-camera shake reduction actually works. I'm hoping to try out some of the lenses from my Zenit-E via M42 to K adaptors -- a 35 mm f/2.4 Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon, a 58 mm f/2 Helios 44-2 (basically a Russian-made Zeiss Biotar), and a Pentacon (aka Meyer Orestor) 135 mm f/2.8. Watch this space.

 

A useful site describing old lenses like the ones I've mentioned above is Manual Focus Lenses.

 

Due to unreasonable weight restrictions for baggage (coupled with extortionate excess baggage charges) when flying with a certain cheap Dublin-based airline, I decided to put together a lightweight, high-quality 'travelling rig'. This consists of a Canon PowerShot G9 (with all the Richard Franiec add-ons plus Lensmate tubes -- both available from Lensmate), Canon TC-DC58C and WC-DC58B tele- and wide-converters, a lightweight tripod made by Manfrotto for National Geographic (modified to take a proper ballhead with Arca-Swiss type QR system, complemented by a Really Right Stuff L-bracket on the camera and Richard Franiec's adaptor that allows the use of an old mechanical cable release with the G9). The images aren't as creamy as from the K100D, but the whole lot (except for the tripod) fits in a 3 litre Crumpler Pretty Boy L bag and weighs next to nothing compared to my main rig.

 

On photographic software

 

I'm lucky enough to be able to edit my photos on a Mac, where the bundled iPhoto provides quite a lot of basic functionality (straightening, convert to monochrome, etc.) for free. Poor, benighted souls using Windows can get reasonably good image-editing tools using the free GNU GIMP. Here's an online book about the GNU GIMP. And here's a review of the GIMP; it's also mentioned on www.dpreview.com/news/0403/04032602gimpv2.asp. Under GNU/Linux, the GIMP is the principal image-manipulation tool. And on the Mac, there are many other zero-cost options.

 

Under Windows, less powerful than the GIMP, but easier to use, and zero-cost, is Google's Picasa. There's an entry for it in Wikipedia.

 

I also have Adobe Photoshop Elements, which provides far more functionality than I need in many areas, and too little in others (RAW processing). I can thoroughly recommend the NoiseWare and RealGrain plug-ins from Imagenomic.

 

For processing RAW files with a lot of control, at a very reasonable price, I use SILKYPIX Developer Studio. Download the 14-day demo to try before you decide if it's suitable for you. Review of Silkypix at:

 

www.photozone.de/7Digital/silkyindex.htm

 

One of the latest options for image manipulation is Picnik, which allows direct editing of photos on your Flickr account, or transfer of uploaded and edited images to Flickr.

 

Photographic hero

 

My favourite photographer is the late Bill Brandt. The definitive book of his photographs is 'Shadow of Light', but it is out of print. The best you can do is look at 'Brandt: The Photography of Bill Brandt'.

 

Bill Brandt quotations, taken from here:

 

It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.

On seeing my subject I must of course have an exact idea of the effect I want to produce. This determines the point of view from which I take the picture.