Photography history:

 

I became keen on photography as a teenager - I developed my own pictures, set up a darkroom in the loft, and I even dabbled with developing colour pictures, although I never had much success with that! I was still into photography at university, a member of the club, and I took photos for the student newspaper in the first year.

 

After I left college my interest in photography waned for a bit - I still took snaps, but no longer had access to a darkroom. As a computer programmer, I worked on newspaper typesetting systems, then moved on to desktop publishing applications and graphics software.

 

It was a combination of this work, and an opportunity to go to Africa for three weeks in 1996 that re-awakened my interest in photography - the digital camera era was still in its infancy, but I was able to get my slides and negatives scanned to create a 'PhotoCD'.

 

Digital camera hardware:

 

1998: Olympus C400

My first digital camera was a gift from a Japanese client after we worked together producing a Japanese version of the 'Designworks' graphics package. Max resolution 640x480, no removable memory card

 

2000: Kodak DC280

This was the first camera I bought myself; two megapixels, and it munched through the batteries at a ferocious rate!

 

2001: Kodak DC3600

This was a warranty replacement for the DC280 which broke down just before the 12 months were up.

 

June 2004: Kodak DX6490

I bought this for the increased resolution (4Mp), the 10x optical zoom, action shots with a multi-shot mode, and it has full manual control of exposure, or aperture or shutter priority.

 

Jan 2005: Pentax Optio s5i

A really tiny pocket camera, that I can carry everywhere.

 

Current kit:

Nikon D50

Nikon D80

Nikkor 18-70mm kit lens

Nikkor 70-210mm f4-5.6

Nikkor 35mm f/2 D

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D

Sigma 10-20mm

 

Computers:

 

I use a Windows PC at work - I'm now lead programmer on a team writing Playstation and Xbox video games - and I have a Mac Powerbook at home.

 

I don't usually do much post-processing of my pictures before I upload them - apart from simple cropping, sometimes simple brightness adjustment, redeye removal - except of course the panorama composites.

(Photoshop Elements 3 & Lightroom Beta)