B O B S N E L L
Evolution
Finally, the wonderful marriage of digital camera and computer program………
For the past 5 years I've been enjoying the freedom that the digital age has brought, but not fully satisfied with the finished product that the printer produced. With my first digital camera, a Nikon 990, which was a little over 1 mega pixel, I found the beauty of taking macros of flowers, insects, and anything else that was small and didn't move. Then I would rush into the office and download my small 72 dpi images, and play with them, using Photoshop 3. However the best print I could produce at the time was a 6x8 with some pixilation artifacts. It still was an amazing advancement, compared to taking rolls of film to the store and waiting days for it to come back, only to find that they were over exposed, out of focus, or some other problem. Finally I was able to correct the various problems, within minutes. The next step was acquiring an Olympus C2100 UZ, which was a huge jump to 3 megapixels, and allowed me to shoot with a good zoom, image stabilization feature, and larger images, which forced me to increase the size of my computer and get an Epson 2000P printer. Now I thought I was on the way, as I could now print decent 10x14 prints. Last year it was time to trade up to my current system, which includes an Olympus E20 - 5 megapixel camera, with several interchangeable lens that give me much more latitude with cropping to get the best possible image to print on a rather large Epson 7500 printer, that takes up half of my work space, but worth every inch, as it now allows me to print 24 inch wide prints that are sometime 60 long, for a Giraffe that that I recently shot, and looks great on the back of my grandson's bedroom door. It also does a great job, printing on canvas, with excellent resolution. Now I have to work a bit more on my canvas stretching over the frame, and when perfected, I'll be doing most of my prints on canvas.
The new 11 megapixel cameras are starting to catch my eye which means that the 500 gig external hard drive will probably fill up before I had planned, all of which means that if you have a good camera, know how to get the most out of the various computer programs, can calibrate your monitor on a regular basis, and output to a good printer, then you are having the time of your life. 2005 will be the best year yet for digital photography, with the general public starting to appreciate the art that can come from it.
I've attended seminars, taken Photoshop lessons, and bought most books and magazines covering almost every aspect of digital photography and am only now am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I believe that if you really have the devotion and desire to learn, there is nothing that can't be accomplished in this new era of photography. With over 40 galleries on my web site ( www.bobsnell.com ) you can easily see that I am prolific, if nothing else.
| Previous Page