Some info about my photography:
I used to have a fear of photography as a child. My parents had a manual 35mm non-SLR camera, and when my mother took photos she spent 10 minutes adjusting all the settings before she took the photo. Posing for 10 minutes is not fun. When I tried to take photos myself (at around 10 years old), they never came out right. I didn't know anything and my photos were blurry or over exposed or under exposed. I once used a cheap plastic fixed focus "panoramic" camera and the entire roll of film came out black! I gave up after that. There was nothing to it - just press a button to take the photo, and I was certain the shutter opened and closed when I pressed the button, so I don't know where it went wrong. Even now I sometimes feel faintly surprised that I can take any photos at all. I keep expecting it to turn out black. Unfounded fears. But still.
I took up photography properly when I started college, which is only a few years ago.
I have a 35mm film camera - a Nikon F55 SLR, which I don't use very often because of the hassle in getting photos developed and printed. I recently bought a Nikon D70s, which is a digital SLR camera. I used to have a Kodak point-and-shoot camera. It was very basic, and at the low end of the market. It had 3M pixels and 3x optical zoom. I sold it because it really didn't have enough settings for me. I borrowed Kieran's D70 as much as I could, but not having my own camera to take photos whenever I wanted meant that I didn't take many photos. I hope to remedy that from now on.
In my gallery, I have some film photos that I scanned in. The quality of the scanned photos is nothing like the original (dust specks everywhere and reflections), which is part of my reason for buying a digital SLR. I'd rather have a digital camera than a new scanner.
Each photo in my gallery has an "image type".
Digital refers to the ones I took with my Kodak
point-and-shoot, so the photos have a lot of noise and distortion.
DSLR refers to the ones I took with a Nikon D70 or a D70s.
Film refers to prints that I scanned in.
I don't use Photoshop to enhance my photos if I can help it. I don't really know how to use Photoshop. I'd like my photos to look good without digital enhancement.
I know all the basics of photography, and I know some of the advanced stuff. But I don't see the need to have my camera on full manual. It gets the settings more accurately than I can. And if it's not right I can change some settings and take it again. That's why I like digital.
I like to use my camera in S or A mode for everything but landscapes. For landscapes I just use the landscape mode.
I have the following lenses:
the Nikon AF Nikkor 28-80mm 3.3-5.6 G type lens that came with the F55
(I won't be using this anymore)
a Sigma F2.8 50mm macro (1:1) lens (cost me a lot of money but
it's worth it), with a UV filter
a Sigma 10-22mm wide angle lens
a Sigma F4.5-5.6 70-300mm macro (1:2) lens, with a UV filter
the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-70mm F3.5-4.5 G lens that came with my
D70s, with a UV polarizer. I really like the effects of the polarizer on
the colours of my photos.