Hello,
I joined up a week or so ago and have been busy reading through the various essays and threads. I'm impressed with many of the photos I've seen posted -- they certainly set a high mark to aim at.
Until recently cameras were something I used only to document my 40+ year motorcycle building/racing hobby. I used an AE-1 in the 1980s and early 90s, and for the last 12 or so years I've used a Fuji 6900z digicam and was largely happy with it. Not sending film out to be developed and printed was a very nice change! Those cameras stayed in program mode and that worked fine for me.
In the last year I've tried to do some bird photos as my wife and I take our walks in Golden Gate Park and the short zoom on the Fuji wasn't doing the job for me. A friend steered me towards a used Nikon D300 which with a 70-300 has given me much more reach. I'm now getting used to what fiddling with the various dials and menu options does.
I'm trying my hand at shooting a wider range of photos -- animals/insects/flowers/landscapes. I've gotten some nice comments on some of them so I started searching for photo information to see what I might be doing right, and what I could do better, and wound up here.
I've got PS-E 11 and the CS3 suite and a good tripod/ballhead should be acquired in a couple of months after the checkbook recovers from buying the camera/lenses and varioius small accessories.
cheers,
Michael
