Photography

Photography

Photography has always been something I've enjoyed hugely. I've owned an SLR camera since I was about 11 years old. For most of the last fifteen years or so, I've shot mostly on slide, which gets quite expensive very quickly...

In January 2004, after dabbling with a cheap HP digicam, I bought a Canon EOS-300D and it's revolutionised the way I take pictures. I no longer have to worry about wasting a frame, I can experiment much more freely and going digital has helped me rediscover the joy of photography.

Missing the full frame viewfinder from my 35mm film bodies, I plonked down a chunk of my hard earned credit card limit on a Canon EOS 5D in May 2006. I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

My 5D with a 17-40L f/4 lens

My current arsenal of lenses comprises:

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L
Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye
Canon EF 35mm f/2
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 MkII (largely retired in favour of the f/1.4)
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

I've also invested in a Speedlite 580EX flash, a pair of Pocket Wizard radio flash triggers and a small array of filters. Stability comes courtesy of a Manfrotto 055 Pro B tripod fitted with a Markins M20 ball-head and Arca style plates. For when I run out of Compact Flash card space, I use a Nexto CF OTG portable storage device.

View my Photo Gallery

Searching the Web Gallery

I've completed indexing my online photo gallery with keywords, at least all the shots of VWs.

Makes and models are also indexed, together with most colours and angles of view

I've adopted the following scheme for the order of details in the keywords

Make (e.g. Volkswagen)
Model (e.g. Golf)
Spec (e.g. GTI or Scala)
Mark (e.g. Mk1, Mk2, etc. with no space after Mk)
Colour (e.g. white or Pearl Green Effect where I know the VW colour name)
Other interesting details (e.g. Borbet, clear indicators, etc.)
Angle (front, rear, side)

Use % as a wildcard. Searches are not case sensitive

so you can type in scirocco%Mk2%bbs and find pictures of Mk2 Sciroccos with BBS wheels.