About Me

I currently have two photo galleries online. At present, I update my Flickr gallery more often, but my Photo.Net gallery contains some of my earlier photos that I never copied to Flickr. Please visit either of them and let me know what you think of my work, whether it's good or bad. If you're looking for a particular photo I've taken or are just really bored, you can also browse my entire 50,000-photo library.

www.flickr.com Visit Obi-Wan's photostream

Due to my affinity for old, manual equipment, my gear collection is constantly growing. Here's a list of what I've accumulated so far, as well as a few items that I'd really love to get someday.

Whenever I happen across a useful web page out in the wild, I add a link to it on this page so that all the world can benefit from my good treasure hunting fortune -- and so that I can find the page again myself from a different computer.

Educational Pages

The following pages aren't so much about me personally. They were written to help educate the general populace about a particular subjct or to document a particular modification that I've made. I'm a died-in-the-wool engineer, so I'm handy with fixing things. I also have a master's degree in computer science, specializing in image processing, and have been a professional computer programmer and system administrator for the last 20+ years, so I do have some expertise in the following areas. Hopefully these pages will help others learn a little more about the technical side of photography.

Macro photography is a fun area. While you can certainly get great results by buying thousands of dollars worth of specialized equipment, you can also do a lot by using more general purpose equipment with a few modifiers. I created this list a while back to document the various equipment configurations I have and how they perform for macro work.

Image quality is important to me, and since I am starting to amass quite a collection of lenses, I wanted to do an exhaustive test of them to see which ones performed the best. This test isn't completely scientific, but it does a pretty good job of showing what each of my telephoto lenses (70mm or longer) is capable of.

This 150KB PDF contains a chart showing the depth of field provided by a variety of focal lengths, focal distances, and aperture sizes. It's very handy for determining how big an aperture you need to keep a range of subjects in focus.

If you have any interest in digital photography, you're going to be generating a fair bit of electronic data in the form of images. Since any number of things can bring about the disappearance of data from your computer's hard drive, I wanted to describe my recommendations for backing up your computer. People who refuse to do even basic backups and then expect my help and sympathy when their hard drive dies annoy me to no end.

One of the biggest advantages of digital photography is the ease with which you can modify the image after it is taken. Perhaps the most fundamental concept people should know to help them in postprocessing is how to use a histogram.

I see a lot of people throw around terms relating to image resolution while obviously having no clue what they're talking about. Understanding the basics of image resolution will not only help you get better quality prints, but will also keep you from sounding like an idiot (and recognize those who do).

Strobist rocks! I've fallen in love with using cheap, old, shoe-mounted flashes (located off camera) to light my photos. I recently did a presentation to my local photo group on the basics of off-camera flash. You can view the PDF slides from that presentation here.

I love old things. This includes old lenses, old subject matter, and old-looking results. Perhaps that's why I love black and white photography. This page contains my tips for taking and producing better black and white photos.

I do a lot of shopping for old, used, manual camera lenses at garage sales, pawn shops, and classified ads. There were an unbelievable number of third party lens manufacturers thirty years ago, and they produced equipment with a wide range of quality. Any time I research a lens for which I have trouble tracking down useful information, I try to note my findings on this page so that it's not so hard to find next time.

DIY Modifications

Most of the topics discussed in this section require the use of a tiny screwdriver. If that idea excites you, read on.

The Nikon Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 macro lens has been produced for decades, and has a well-deserved reputation for being a wonderfully sharp and well-built lens. Its one drawback is that it does have a tendancy to leak oil onto the aperture blades, leaving them stuck in place and unwilling to move when you turn the aperture ring. Here's how to clean them.

Strobist rocks! I've fallen in love with using cheap, old, shoe-mounted flashes (located off camera) to light my photos. One popular old workhorse flash is the Vivitar 283. Alas, it doesn't have manual power settings in stock form. Here's how to add manual power control to it.

Books

The following are some books on photography that I recommend or plan to read:

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