G'day from Australia

[Paul Bestwick]

Hi, I am Paul from Tasmania Australia. A brief history starting in about 1968 when I took my first photo (which I still have) at Taronga Park zoo in Sydney using a Kodak box Brownie. My first SLR was a pentax ME Super, & have since owned Olympus, Nikon Leica, Bronica, & mostly for about 12 years Hasselblads.
I worked for Canon inMelbourne in their photographic service dept for 4 years which is where I came to the realization that Canon were the best cameras available for my purposes. I had a couple of Eos 1bodies followed up by a couple of 1N's. I started out in digital with a D30 & continued to shoot weddings combining digital while also shooting film in my Blads. I got a D60 (regretfully really, in hindsight the D30 was just as good & I should have saved my money) then a 1Ds. Soon after that I flicked film & currently use a 1Ds II. Unlike the move from the D30 to D60, I reckon that the 1DSII is a significant improvement. What next...... well, I would speculate that the holy grail is dynamic range & my expectation is that Canon will make improvements in this area. Oh yea, I only shoot raw by the way. I had this 70-200 2.8 for about 5 years.......absolutely loved it. I sold that to get the is version, my favourite lens.
I mainly shoot weddings & portraits & for the past seven years have a main street studio in downtown Hobart. Looking forward to some quality time here

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi Paul
Happy to see you joining us! welcome aboard OPF!
I just have posted this morning (French time) a thread about video and a link to a video showing (at the very end) the port of Hobart (Tasmania).
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1511
A real shame for me! I arrive in Sydney 24 hours before leaving with the boat, we raced, arrived in Hobart (1st BTW) and I left the day after. Crazy.

The very few I saw of Tasmania were beautifull, do you shoot any landscape when your studio gives you spare time?
Tasmania looks wild, is there any chance that it could be interesting for wild life shooters?

The funny thing is that my 1st camera was also a Kodak Brownie flash, this was around 1961 and I was 9.... Hmmmmmm long time ago apparently!

[Asher Kelman]

Hi, I am Paul from Tasmania Australia. A brief history starting in about 1968 when I took my first photo (which I still have) at Taronga Park zoo in Sydney using a Kodak box Brownie. My first SLR was a pentax ME Super, & have since owned Olympus, Nikon Leica, Bronica, & mostly for about 12 years Hasselblads.


Hi Paul, welcome even if you didn't have all that Canon experience. Our camera choices have been close!

My first camera was a Kodak box camera too. It could be used portrait and landscape. The viewfinder was a 3/4 inch by 1/2 little square glass thing that one looked down on waist level.

My next camera was a Retinette 1B. The fixed 35mm lens was a wonder, used zone focused for many travels in Africa.

Then like you, a Pentax stole my heart; the Pentax Spotmatic with the 50mm SMC T lens. That worked for the next 10 years! Soon was joined by Bronica too and 4x5 too.

Then, like many of us, afer a flirtation with Nikon, the Eos Film cameras got me buying lenses and from there to the DSLR's and so many digicams. These have allowed events, travel, protraits and art to be done so much faster and easier.

Hope you enjoy all the great people here!

Get the beer ready, we may visit you!

asher

[Paul Bestwick]

the beer (& wine) is ready & waiting.....come on down.

paul

[Paul Bestwick]

[QUOTE]Tasmania looks wild, is there any chance that it could be interesting for wild life shooters?


Tasmania is wild alright........no animals worth shooting (pun intended) Amazing landscapes though