The pictures here come have come from 6 different cameras: Sony A200, Nikon Coolpix 2100, Nikon FE, Nikon one-touch zoom, Olympus zoom wide 80, and a Kodak disposable underwater camera. Except for the digital shots and the one b&w photo of the Grand Canyon, all pictures were taken with color negative (print) film (usually 100 or 200 ASA, sometimes 400).

In 2008 I finally purchased a digital SLR to relace my 35mm film camera. The one I chose was the Sony A200, an entry level SLR with 10 megapixels resolution and the kit 18-70mm lens (35mm equivalent = 24-105mm). I really liked the feel of it and the layout of the controls, and I felt it was the best value among the entry level digital SLRs (especially when I got it on sale for $100 off!). So far, the only major complaint I have is that the quality of the lens goes down pretty quickly beyond 60mm, but this isn't a big deal since I'll probably replace the kit lens some day and all of the competition kit lenses only went up to 55mm.

Most of the pictures were taken with my trusty Nikon FE, a full-sized semi-automatic 35mm SLR bought around 1982, using a wonderful 28mm F2.8 Nikkor Lens and an inexpensive 70-210mm zoom. I always kept a skylight filter on the wide-angle lens (which actually did save the lens on the one occasion I dropped the camera) and occasionally used a polarizer. After one minor repair and a refurbishing, this camera was still going strong when I finally replaced it in 2008. I'd originally planned to use this camera for the rest of my life. It's built like a tank, 1 small battery lasts 10-15 years, it can take pictures even when the battery is dead, and it would've never become obsolete if it weren't for the introduction of digital photography.

In 2004 I bought my first digital camera, the Nikon Coolpix 2100. It's a compact camera with 2.0 megapixels and 3X optical zoom. The Spiderwort photo from Shenandoah NP was taken using its macro focusing mode.

My Nikon one-touch zoom was a compact 35mm camera with fixed focal lengths of 35 and 70mm. I bought that in 1987 and retired it in 1999 when it started acting flaky. The 3 pictures from inside the Grand Canyon and some of the pictures from Olympic National Park, Colorado, and Kauai were taken with this camera.

The Olympus zoom wide 80 is a weatherproof compact 35mm camera with a 28mm to 80mm zoom. I purchased it in 1999 and would still be using it if the price on the more convenient compact digital cameras had not come down so drastically. It works best with 400 ASA film or faster. My favorite picture taken with this camera is the one of Queens Garden at Bryce Canyon NP.

The picture from Virgin Islands National Park was taken with a disposable Kodak underwater camera loaded with 800 ASA film. The above water pictures came out quite nice, but even in strong sunlight the underwater shots did not have much color to them.

Except for the digital shots, the photos were scanned from prints on an HP ScanJet 4c. All of the images were then adjusted and converted to JPEG format using Corel Photo-Paint 7. I usually run a sharpening filter on the image and then adjust color balance and contrast as necessary. Since going all digital, I've been mainly using Adobe Photoshop for the adjustments.

I rarely do any significant modification of the image, preferring to use the composition I created when taking the photo. Other than the Everglades bird images, I can only think of 2 photographs which were used with any significant cropping (San Juan Island sunset and Chincoteague pony). There are several panamora shots which were created by knitting 2 or more photos together, doing this manually at first but now using PanoramaMaker 3.0. There is also a shot from the Badlands where I combined two photos from the same spot in order to get the maximum depth-of-field.

In only one photo did I actually remove something - this picture of Hurricane Ridge originally had an RV which was positioned so as to appear to be emerging uncomfortably from the rear of the deer (it's amazing how you can completely miss this when taking the photo).

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