how long have you all been into photography.

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TG.

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Tel
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i just wanted to post this to see how long people have actually been into photography, film or digital, but more to the point how long where you doing it before you got good at it, my reasons for askiing is i've been into it for about just under a year (i think) and i don't really think i've advanced much at all, i don't really think my photos are that good and i'm beginning to wonder if i'm really cut out for it.

i know i should try and get out more and actually take more photos, but i'm often pushed for time due to work, i went out today and took about 140 pics and to be honest don't really like any of them, i will post a few later on today and try and explain what i mean, has anyone else felt like this in the past or even now, i would be really interested to hear your comments.

cheers guys.
 
Hi, Ive been into photography for 25 years now and I still don't think that im that good, I think we all put ourselves under a lot of pressure to take great photographs and I truly believe that the day I think "wow thats a great photograph" about my own work is the day to give it up, I sometimes look at a shot and think thats good and then I find myself thinking, hmmm maybe if id got a little lower or closer or used a different lens. That said whilst ever you enjoy doing it, keep doing it, I love photography, it is one of a few passions I have and I am very lucky to actually get paid for doing it.
 
I've been into photography for a long time - I just never realised how much, we did a little at school with a proper darkroom (I really wish I'd taken advantage of that some more) and I remember buying my first proper digital camera - spent about £400 on a nikon coolpix 885 back in 2002. We'd had a handmedown crappy one before this one.

I think I've always liked photography because I'm crap at art - I can't draw for toffee, photography allows me to capture moments and things that I consider to be quite arty.

The thing that disappointed me about the nikon was it was so bloody slow - I knew exactly what it was I wanted to capture and when I pressed the button, it thought about it for a few seconds and then took the photo - compactflash was still in it's infancy back then.

I moved onto a sony cybershot p75 a few years ago when I saw my grandmas and saw just how quick it could take a photo, the detail was pretty good and it worked fast which is what I wanted.

I could never get exactly what I wanted on the camera - I could visualise in my head what I wanted to achieve but the 3x optical zoom just never cut it. After going on honeymoon to Tunisia this year and getting some disappointing landscape shots that I thought were going to be sensational I decided to take the plunge and get a digital SLR.

I went down to curries after doing a load of research with my dad and held both the nikon d50 and the canon 350d, I decided the nikon was bigger and felt better to hold initially but preferred everything about the canon, I held the canon for a bit and decided I could get used to it if I kept at it.

A week later my dad bought himself a 350d (I knew he wanted one when we were in curries - due to jessops having a mistake on the website he got a better deal than me and got a £200 lens for free after they took £99 off it twice).

I gave sue the Sony point and shoot and she was quite happy with that - thats until we went to chester zoo and we each had her own camera and she took this. This picture pretty much changed the whole ballgame - she knew that she wouldnt get much of a chance with the DSLR because I wanted to take pictures with it, after seeing what she could achieve with the right equipment I could tell she was desperate for one so I went and bought another of the same deals from curries (jessops had sorted their technical glitch :( )

So anyway, here we both are today, with our own websites and photoblogs and I think we're doing okay - sue especially.

The biggest question I would ask you Tel is "Do you enjoy it?". If the answer is yes then keep at it - we all need something to do that excites and pleases us (oo-er). I've been out a couple of times in the last month, shot off 400+ photos and come back with not a lot that I like or I feel is any good - its all a learning curve and not every photo that you take can be the best in the world.

Just ask sue how I was when we went to Chester Zoo for the 2nd time and I tried out manual for the first time and came back with 300 blurry pictures because I'd not changed the iso or kept an eye on the shutter speed. When I went to Twycross I learned a hell of a lot - ask Ian how pleased I was with the end result of the sealions and how my technique changed over the day?

If you go out a few times over the course of a month and you come back with one piece of work that you think is absolutely stunning it puts a whole new lease of life into it - I love photography.

If you can get to Chester for the 30th you'll pick up loads of tips and hints, everyone is so helpful and I can only thank the site admins, moderators, and the general populous of TPF for helping me and sue in finding something we both like doing together and helping us to improve on it.

Sorry its turned into such an essay :)

Matt
 
I've been interested in Photgraphy for many many years but was always put off by the the cost/effort of a dark room . Since digital / PS came along my interest level has risen exponentialy :)

And now that I've got a D-SLR (y) :clap:
 
About a year for me, and quite by accident, to boot.
My mothers old 35mm compact died a death - she had always liked to take family snaps, so we both kind of decided it was time to go digital. I bought a Nikon Coolpix 7900 to replace the old film camera.
When it arrived I started playing, rather a lot, so's I could get to grips with it all & then pass it over to my mother, teaching her how to best use it. I took the camera out with me on my usual walks & just took snaps of what I saw, not really knowing what I was doing - but I did know that I was really enjoying it.
That escalated rather a lot - to the point that I was constantly snapping away whenever I could.
I took the plunge & got a D70 - I don't think the purchase was really justified at the time, but I certainly don't regret it now!
From there I started to find that I could sell some of my photos as prints, and also that there were small jobs about if I wanted them... After a while of doing this a bit, I kind of decided this was what I wanted to do with my life - I scrapped the plans for computing in uni, and focused more on photography.
I'm now studying photography in Cardiff - whilst I think that the academic value of photography is extremely limited, I do feel that it should keep me focused and moving forward with my work.

So that's my wee story. I think that being "good" at photography is an odd expresion. Do you enjoy taking photos? If the answer is yes, then as far as I'm concerned, you're good at photography. Making a living out of it is different, but that's not we're discussing here.
 
My first camera was a Zenit-something or another, back in the 80s, but I was more into my music and stuff back then, so learning all about photography took very much a back seat and I kind of forgot about it.

Then about 4 years ago, I was walking past a local charity shop and they had a Centon K100 (rebadged Pentax K1000) with a 50mm f/1.2 (?) lens in the window for a tenner, so I bought it. After learning the basics, I went to a local camera shop to upgrade and after trying out equivalent Canons and Pentaxes, I went for a Nikon - it felt more substantial and just felt better in my hands.

I upgraded THAT one to a Nikon F80, and have since gone digital with a D70. Whether the pics I take justifies the money I've spent over the last 4 years, I don't know, but what the hell, I enjoy it!
 
Thinking about it, quite a while, since the age of about 11 or 12. I've always had a point n shoot camera. It wasn't until I purchased my D70 in 2004 (on a spur of the moment decision - but I'm quite impulsive at times, lol) that I actually started to think about what I was taking pictures of. When I discovered these forums, my photography improved no end (still a long way to go, mind!) and I discovered a little about the principles involved in photography.

I'm just about to sign up to an A level evening class in photography. Like you, my motivation / inspiration seems to have vanished and my camera hasn't seen the light of day for months. I'm hoping the course will relight my photography fire :)
 
Like most respondees, I've probably never been far from a camera, but only got really serious 2 years ago or so. I've had a couple of SLR's and settled on Canon EOS 30d and 5d with which i've taken a few thousand photos. I love 3 or 4 od the shots i've taken and can bear to look at a hundred or so. The rest i keep to remind me to CONCENTRATE ON WHAT I'M TRYING TO ACHIEVE!!!!!!!:bang:
 
A neighbour who was a chemist taught me how to do contact prints from family Box Brownie negs when I was about 13, it might have been a bit earler, but anyway, that would make it 50 years. I soon had my own darkroom next door to a coal cellar but it had running water - you wanna talk about dust?, LOL with an enlarger I built myself. I bought my first SLR when I left school after saving up the money to pay for it By the time I was 17 I'd done a few friends and family weddings and that gradually progressed to bigger paid jobs.

I did weddings and pretty well any other sort of photography all my life till I packed it in about 3 years ago. The downside of all that was that while the money was nice, I rarely got the camera out unless I was getting paid. Don't ever lose sight of the fact that the maximum enjoyment you'll ever get out of it is as a hobby.

I fell in love with the idea of digital long before it really delivered the goods, but it does now without a doubt, and I'm enjoying my photography even more because of it.

I saw Lord Lichfied interviewed where he said he'd never taken a shot he was entirely happy with. I know exactly what he meant. Don't get despondent, we all have periods where we seem to just take crap, you just have to work through it or put the camera away for a while and chill.

Photography is more exciting now than it's ever been with pretty well anything being possible with digital editing so make sure you really want to do it before you stick your gear on fleabay. :D
 
Been "into" it since Jan/Feb 2005. Nowadays I tend to find I shoot less images - I used to end up with 40 images of the same fence etc. I do like all the faffing about getting set up - something to do with rituals I guess.
 
I've been using photography for a good few years in my illustration & design work but was never really all that serious about it. A while ago I bought a Nikon Coolpix 8800 but found it was too slow for the kind of shots I most wanted to take (sports). I moved to the 350D & it's just gone downhill from there - I'm now on the 20D & 1D (& my wallet keeps trying to kick me in the ass - & so does my girlfriend! :LOL: )
 
30 years plus but the freedom to try things out with DSLR means I have learnt more that is useful in the last 18 months than most of the previous time. Learning is slow when a roll of film and processing was (comparatively) expensive and the time involved meant you weren't quite sure what settings you had used. :) And yes I know i should have used a notebook but never did.
 
about 10 mins.............it's only just dawned on me why i'm here.

I was starting to wonder why there wasn't much car talk going on :thinking:
 
:clap: lol :LOL:
 
When I was about 6 or 7 I guess, my Aunt and Uncle bought me a Kodak instamatic 126 camera.....I quickly got totally hooked on the fact that you could "freeze history" and that's the thing I still love about photography today. I have a shockingly bad memory too (I mean really bad - not just a bit forgetful) so taking pictures of events helps me to remember things that happened later on. I moved from the Instamatic to one of those little 110 cameras....then to a point and shoot 35mm........and then for my 18th birthday my parents bought me a Canon Sureshot Zoom XL and started the whole "Canon thing" going!
I used the camera regularly until about 1997/1998 - at speedway, on holiday, you name it. Then I put it down on the shelf and sort of forgot about it for a few years. Picked it up again when we made our third visit to the Hebrides in 2003, and took plenty of pics that year.....2004 I took it away with us again, at around the same time I started going to speedway again regularly after a few years break and that was what really confirmed that I was hooked again!

Late in 2004 I finally made my first foray into eBay and came away with a Canon EOS500N and Sigma 28-80mm lens - at long last the SLR I'd hankered after for years! Needless to say that went on holiday with us last year - in a weeks holiday I took 14 36 exp films.....which made me start wondering whether I'd be better off going down the digital route. At that point I'd begun chatting with the chap who is our official club photographer at the speedway and he happened to mention that he was looking to sell his old D30......after a deep breath I took the plunge and haven't really looked back since!

In answer to the question within the question, so to speak, I don't imagine that there is anyone on here who hasn't sometimes either been somewhere fantastic and found themselves unable to string two decent shots together, or has looked at their shots and felt disheartened and felt that they'd not achieved anything or improved as they should. The key I guess is to stick with it. Take a step back - try to analyse whether you're just being over-critical or if there is something you can put your finger on and then correct. Look at shots you DO like and try to work out why you like them...maybe get some prints done.
 
Last August I was a hand model on a shoot with a manicurist who works regularly with Nick Knight. I took some of my own snaps while there with my little Canon G5 and said lady used the pic I took of her (as she waited for the pro's to come back from lunch) and she used the pic here http://www.showstudio.com/contributors/326 on this site.
I felt encouraged when she asked me if Id ever thought of getting more seriously into photography as it was something Id always longed to do but shied away from due to my Dyscalculia (problems with numbers).
A month later I entered a photographic nails comp at Earls Court and came 2nd. I was told by one of the judges that though my work in the picture was fantastic, my lack of photographic skills would always keep me from the top spot and to 'stick to what you know and leave the photography to the pro's'.
Spurred on by that comment :LOL: a few months back I bought myself a decent camera, and am now struggling my way a long a path I yearned to take about 25 years ago.
Im feeling at a low spot at the mo but, to give up never crosses my mind.
 
thailand tel said:
i know i should try and get out more and actually take more photos, but i'm often pushed for time due to work, i went out today and took about 140 pics and to be honest don't really like any of them, cheers guys.
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Stop putting yourself under pressure for a start, tryin to force it will only result in breakage! Take some time out, decide what/who you find inspiring, where your passions lie and what's important to you.Then go out and put a frame round it! Shoot a lot yes, but don't try to use quantity as a shortcut to quality.

I personaly started when I was about 14 when my folks gave an old praktica mtl3 or some such. 50mm lens and my pocket money was all I had. Didn't take a lot of photographs but enjoyed what I did (mostly documenting my friends shenanigans!) I left it for a while then went to scotland camping after splitting up with a long-term girlfriend. Needless to say, the scenery/emotion inspired me and here I am.

I'm never really happy with my work though, and if you ask most people on here, you will find they are very rarely 100% satisfied with their work. But if you were satisfied, what would be your impetus to keep trying, eh?

hth? I've probably just repeated what other people have said, but 'meh' skim reading is a necessity when you've been away for a while.
 
Eacactly 2 years this month for me.
Had a Kodak 3700 full auto p&s for family shots then started taking a serious interest with it.
I got frustrated with it's limitations although I got some crackers with it.

Quickly moved on to the Canon A95 to get used to manual settings then a year ago got the 350D

Just abandoned the 1DMKIIN (unrealistic dream with a family of six :crying: ) and am getting a 30d instead after getting a couple of L lenses.

I was an artist beforehand which helped with compositional skills and interpreting colour/light etc.

I love the fact that there are so many differnt areas you can get into in photography, landcape work, portraiture, action, wildlife etc etc.

It's now a passion more than a hobby but the expense is a pain in the @ss (it is when you don't have a lot of disposable cash)
 
I had a sony DSC-717 full auto mode for a couple of years, but have only been 'into it' since I bought the Minolta 7D about 6 months ago, so far I have about 5 photos out of several thousand that I am proud of.
 
InaGlo said:
I was told by one of the judges that though my work in the picture was fantastic, my lack of photographic skills would always keep me from the top spot and to 'stick to what you know and leave the photography to the pro's'.
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bet it was a male judge?? I get this all the time with my photos....

Mind you, I know what I want to take and just keep adjust knobs and dials til it sort of looks like I want and try and remember what I fiddled with so that Barry doesn't start producing some fantastic work when its his turn on the D200 :LOL: so i guess that judges comment applies to me too!

I got into photography in 2002 with a Fuji Finepix 4700...I still have it and it still takes fab photos...
Wet photography is too slow for me and I could never afford to get the films developed, in fact I think I still have some going mouldy in a drawer somewhere...I also get claustrophobic in the dark room! :bang:
 
I started just over a year ago, like most people I had a P&S but the catalyst for me was when my wife started buying images from "pros" at her equestrian events and I was appalled at what she was getting back. I bought a D70 with kit lens and then hardly shot her at all! I also got a macro lens and used that quite a bit until November when all the gear went away and didn't really come out again until about April.

I then shot a few of her at horse events, her friends started asking for some and it has just snowballed from there. I'm in two minds as to whether I should take some formal training or just let my instincts guide me, it appears to have worked so far.
 
I'm coming up to my first anniversary on the 11th October the day I got my 350d....so almost a year.:eek:
 
About 3-4 years, I bought a cheap little DigiCompact when I started selling on Ebay. Id already been shooting motorsport on a MiniDV camcorder but didnt like being stuck behind the camcorder for the full event, I decided to try my little compact and enjoyed the event more and also liked the results more. So i upgraded to a better DigiCompact, from there I upgraded to a Sony P828 (POS) which I returned to the shop within days and got a full refund and instead bought a Canon 300D, then 20D, then 1dmkII, next will be a 5D... but simply having a better camera and lenses obviously doesnt mean i take better photos, simply ive got better equipment to play with.

I consider 90% of my photos to be awful, 9% poor and the remaining 1% of them are very lucky captures. It doesnt deter me though, Im always trying to learn and become more creative, ive got several ideas for shots in my head, that I just need to get out there and take.
 
Years, probably about 30, give or take a few.
 
point and shoot - since I was 5 or 6? :D

First "proper" (SLR) camera about 10 months ago.

Still using it P&S most of the time though! :bonk:
 
Very interesting reading all the above. I am glad I am not the only one that takes loads of pics of the same thing only to still find that there is not one decent one amongst them! Recently I have felt that I was not getting anywhere with any of my pics so the camera has been in hiberation for a while. Hopefully one day, the motivation to take pics will resurrect itself :)
 
thailand tel said:
i


thanks guys quite varied comments here, but what comes across a lot is the enjoyment aspect of it, i do really enjoy photography i guess it's just the frustration of coming home sometimes viewing your photos on the pc and seeing you have a pile of **** , i have'nt got to the stage that i'm thinking about throwing the towel in, as i've only had the D50 for about 6 weeks, maybe it's just trying to get used to all the settings, i do miss the image stabilisation i had on my FZ20, at the moment i'm just using the kit lens i got with the D50, i was going to buy the sigma 18-200mm at the end of the month, but i'm wondering now if i should save the extra money for the nikkon 18-200mm with the vr lens, quite a lot extra but if i want image stabilisation i guess thats the only way to go.


at the end of the month there is a day course in one of the colleges in milton keynes, it's just to help with getting settings right etc, i think i will go on this, as no matter how much i read i really think i need hands on instruction, anyway as i mentioned previously i would post some photos i have taken over the last couple of days, none of which i'm really happy with please let me know were you think i may be going wrong,i am posting these photos in the photo critque section but i will add a note relating to this thread as always comments are always appreciated, one of the things that always bugs me is getting blown out skies, i can never seem to get this right :bonk:
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I really hate saying this Tel because it's so often misunderstood as can't be bothered to explain, but try to read some photography books. Your local library will a rich source of material. We're all guilty of relying on camera metering too much, and even the best systems can be fooled. The problem is you need a good basic grasp of metering/exposure... how it works and when it's likely to be fooled, before you can override the camera metering properly. This is the basic reason for your blown out skies. :)

The day course is a good idea, but they vary enormously and so much depends on the enthusiasm and commitment of the tutor. Some of them are abysmal, some are excellent.

Don't get despondent. Honestly, the library is probably yiour best bet. ;)


Sorry Tel... I managed to cock your original post up there.
 
Picked up a D70 going through duty free about 18 months ago when I was living in Poland. Have only really been using it in anger since moving to Scotland 3 months ago.

I've probably spent as much again on books and magazines in an effort to force feed myself as much photography literature as possible. Still in the stage of shooting everything many times with different apatures / shutter speeds to see what difference it makes.

Christ! Just looked out the window an seen the most ridiculous orange sky. Looks like someone has taped an orange filter over the window - and the bloody camera bag is in the car with the missus!

New I should have bought that D200 body I had in my hands today :bonk:
 
DreederUK said:
but simply having a better camera and lenses obviously doesnt mean i take better photos, simply ive got better equipment to play with..
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Very well said.

I only came into digital photography about 5 years ago with a Fuji FinePix and thought how good the digital revolution was, Just buy the camera and so long as you had a PC there you were.. All set-up and ready to go..
About 2 years ago my brother got me interested in the DSLR hardware and after trying his combo wanted my own.

Now look what's happenned..:bang:

some-serious-hardware.jpg
 
Is that a 1Ds box I see there?? When did you get that then? (y)
 
I'd been using a P&S for a few years and enjoyed using it but I wanted to get more out of it (mainly motorsport shots) so I decided to buy a DSLR and upgraded to a 350D in April this year. I wish I had taken up photography more seriously years ago, I'm thoroughly enjoying everything about it.

At the moment I'm currently taking pictures of anything at all to try and hone my techniques and I've found that I enjoy taking images of almost anything. Today I was out takes shots of old building, yesterday it was wildlife, it's amazing the different techniques you need for different type of photography, so much to learn and so little time. I think my learning curve would be much steeper without this site, the hints, tips and inspiration I get from visiting here here is excellent.
 
Tim whats second from the right???? on your pic
 
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