Photography

I'm somewhat horrified to realise that I have been taking photographs for rather more than 35 years. I started with a Kodak Retinette folding 35mm camera - from the 1930s I think - that my father gave me. Over the years I accumulated more boxes of slides than I really knew what to do with, and apart from a surge of interest on the arrival of my first son, Ian, and first SLR, a Canon A1, in 1982, most of my pictures were basically travel snaps. Enthusiasm reached a low point in the mid-1990s, after I'd switched to a Canon EOS autofocus SLR, with the notorious standard low quality zoom. Until, that is, I started trying to create my own website, as an outlet for various observations of life on the edge of the Kanto Plain. It was my first attempt to photograph higanbana (the red spider lily) that persuaded me to go and spend some money on decent lenses. I hope it's been worth it.

Pictures

• Sano thumbnails - lots of local snaps
• Huh? - photographs for fun and puzzlement
• Photoforum gallery submissions - my entries (see Photoforum link below)
• Photo gallery - some of the early photos in the Imaginatorium. One day I'll replace it with something better.
• Tiling photographs
• Self portrait

About photography

• What is a close-up filter? - I got so annoyed by people using the term "close-up filter" I wrote this. Includes the basic stuff about a lens (1/u + 1/v = 1/f), and calculators for this and lens combination.
• How many stops? - Calculator for exposure comparison.
• Focussing distance? - Calculator for focussing distance between two marks
• Adjusting exposure for teleconverters and extension tubes (Interim version)
• Angle of view of a lens - Calculates from film format and focal length (Interim version)
• Lens test - Chandlor 95mm f/2 (Taking pictures with an SLR and a magnifying glass)
• Coming soon: All the calculators from the above pages collected in a single page
• Photography books
  

Links - external resources

• photo.net - Though it started out as Philip Greenspun's personal website, this has to be the most comprehensive site there is on photography. Don't miss it! (See also Greenspun in Tokyo)
• photocritique.net - Post a photo and get/give critiques. If this site has a problem, it's that it is too successful.
• The Photoforum gallery - sponsored by the Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester is the "home of Kodak"). More about Photoforum and the mailing list - My submissions
• Photozone - Comparison ratings for lenses, based on user feedback. Immensely useful, once you realise there is no simple Truth.
• Photography equipment reviews - More user feedback

  The photo at the top of the page? It originally looked like this.

  Individual photographer sites

• Bob Talbot - Bob is a Photoforum regular who specialises in tremendous nature photos
• Bill Dudley
• Roberto Herrett
• Dan Van Loh (spot the hippopotamus!)
• The Photography of Tony Quinlan
• Jeff Spirer
• Vadim Makarov
• sprezzatura (Austin Burbridge)
• Danny Burk - spectacular nature photography
• Greg Fraser

  Miscellaneous

• Panorama software (Helmut Dersch) - Wide Angle Perspectives
• PhotoGuide Japan (Philbert Ono)