The Photos

All the photographs that appear on this website were taken by me (or in some cases my wife Deb).  Please feel free to download them for your own personal enjoyment.  If you want to use any of the images for a commercial venture, please contact me.  Basically I just want to know where they are going and to get the appropriate credit.

Photographic Equipment

Medium Format Junkie

How I Started  I made the mistake of renting a medium format camera for a long fall foliage weekend in New England.  Once the Velvia chromes came back I was immediately hooked.  My wife was dreading my purchasing new equipment while I was shooting that weekend, but she was also swayed by the 6x45 transparancies on the light box.  After a lot of looking through Shutterbug and used-camera web sites, I ended up at Le Camera in Trenton, NJ where I had rented the equipment earlier.  I walked out of there with:  a Mamiya 645 body (original version, in LN condition), Waist-level finder and a 45/2.8 S wide-angle lens  for a smidge more than $900.  I've also added a 150/3.5 Mamiya telephoto.

Currently Having used the 645 for the better part of a year now, I am completely into the bigger film size.  I just upgraded from the original 645 to a 645 Pro, also purchased from Le Camera.  Now I have to save a bit for another film back and I will be in hog heaven. I've also picked up an old Rollei 66 slide projector, so now I can project these images - WOW! Mamiya 45/2.8 Mamiya 150/3.5

35mm Stuff
Bodies
My first real camera was a Konica TC with a 50/1.7 lens.  After a few years I decided to upgrade to the Nikon line, and chose a Nikon N2000 manual-focus body.  That served well for a few years before being stolen from my car in Philadelphia, PA.  I replaced it with the FE2 and have never looked back. I currently have 2 Nikon bodies, an 8008 and an FE2 (specs available).  The 8008 is autofocus, the FE2 is not.  While I like the 8008 a lot, the FE2 feels more like a camera should to me.  It was the last great metal Nikon for consumers (unlike the cost-prohibitive F3).  If I don't have to worry about carrying gear and can bring both bodies, I will usually load the 8008 with Fuji Velvia (the metering is more accurate) and the FE2 with Kodak Royal Gold 25 or 100, depending on the light.  I am starting to shoot more and more Velvia, as the color saturation is more appealing to me.
Lenses
20/2.8 Nikkor (AF) I just bought this, my second 20mm.  The first was an MF version that I sold many years ago for some reason I can no longer remember.  Ever since I sold it I have missed it for wide scenics.  Even my thin Tiffen circular polarizer vignettes, so I had to spend $90 for a Nikon one that won't.  Ouch. 24/2.0 Nikkor (MF) Very fast, very sharp.  I take most of my wide-angle scenics with this.  Fairly heavy, but a thing of beauty.  I have a special attraction to the mid-80s hefty-feeling manual focus Nikkors.  I also love that I paid $400 for it, and it now sells for $700 or so. 50/1.8 Nikkor (MF) Another quality all-metal Nikkor from the late 80s.  It was listed in B&H's ad at the time as "the good one", as Nikon had a couple of 50/1.8s out at the time.  Truth be told, I hardly ever use the 50.  The image in the viewfinder just never inspires me with it. 75-150/3.5 Series E (MF) A substitute for the very heavy 80-200/2.8 ED for use when hiking or just bumming around. I've shot a lot of rolls, and have been very impressed.  Not enough to sell the 80-200/2.8, but it's still a very impressive lens. 80-200/2.8 ED Nikkor (AF) A heavy, expensive lens but by far the best optic I've ever used.  Razor sharp, wickedly fast.  That 2.8 maximum aperture really lets you snap the foreground into focus.  It does beg for a tripod mount and the newer model has that - but it's now a 2-ring zoom (separate focus and zoom rings).  A couple of companies make a tripod adapter for it - maybe I'll get one one day.  Nicknamed Godzilla. 300/4.5 EDIF Nikkor (MF) Just picked this up (7/5/97) at a camera show and I'm anxious to start shooting with it.  Very well balanced, lighter than the 80-200, but didn't come with a tripod collar.  I tried in vain several well-stocked used camera shops and the web, but no one had any idea where to find the missing tripod collar.  Finally, someone suggested I call Nikon direct.  Duh.  One phone call and $60 later, I have a tripod collar :-).	I have had a lot of other lenses over the years;  I've owned at one time or another (but no longer have): 20/2.8 MF Nikkor  28/3.5 MF Nikkor  85/1.8 AF Nikkor  100/2.8E Nikon  105/2.5 MF Nikkor  200/4 MF Nikkor  28-50/3.5 MF Zoom-Nikkor  70-210/4 AF Zoom-Nikkor  35-105/3.5 MF Zoom-Nikkor  100-300/5.6 MF Zoom-Nikkor  28-105 AF Sigma

If I can take the time I setup on a Bogen/Manfrotto 3021 tripod with a medium Bogen ball head.  I also have a Bogen 3001 compact tripod that I use with a Kaiser mini-ball head for when I have to pack a suitcase, and a Bogen monopod for hiking.  I hardly ever use a flash, so I just have a small Nikon speedlight.  I've got a bunch of bags, including a new backpack photo bag from Tenba that's pretty cool.
 

Computer Equipment

My current home setup is a Pentium 166 with 48 MB of RAM and two 2.1 GB hard drives.  The photos are scanned on a UMAX Vista S-12 600 dpi 33 bit single-pass color scanner, tweaked in Photoshop 4.0 (cropping, borders, sharpening, levels, etc) and saved as JPG files.  I try to keep photo sizes less than 150k for downloading.  I also now have access to an Agfa Duoscan for scanning my 645 transparencies.

Internet Resources