photography forum anyone?

[2airishuman]

hi all

has anyone noticed that andyr's list of forums has grown to 14!
quite the range of topics too....from airstreams to yoga?...
how does that work online

i'm interested in the wine forum....
but the link/home page doesn't seem to work currently...
i've used the food forum occasionally...

what i'd really like to find is a good digital photography forum.....

is anyone active on any photo forums or does anyone have one to suggest?

i've used the camera review sites but i'd like a broader based site with all topics related to photography and image management.

any ideas or links are appreciated.

cheers
2air'

[myoung]

You might want to look at:

Fred Miranda at http://www.fredmiranda.com/

Nikon F-Mount Forums based on the S2 Pro at http://theswampbbs.com/forums/

Pro Photo Community at http://www.prophotocommunity.com/ubb...ubbthreads.php

[wheel interested]

These forums seem to be very active and be current on new equipment. Also a great place for reviews.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/

This site is highly regarded

http://www.fredmiranda.com/

So is this one. Have you seen the DVD magazines on photography here?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/


http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/index.asp


Here's a small quaint community forum that was formerly started for Minolta Dimage 7 users but have since replaced their cameras with various brands.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/261411/

[bradk]

One of the better communities out there, also run by a really good friend of mine, so I'm biased:

www.photographyreview.com

another great resource:

www.dpreview.com


brad.

[85MH325]

2 Air, you don't really say what your interests are, but I find photo.net one of the more interesting sites.

Roger

[2airishuman]

thanks for the great suggestions gang.....

i've not seen fredmiranda or the prophotocommunity....
these look interesting....as do a couple of the others..

my interest from a forums view
are technique issue
like lighting, composition, macro, outdoors, image inhancements, b&w and so on...
or how to improve a given shot as conditions vary....also i'd like to start learning about large format shooting....a whole 'nother thing'....

sure i've read books and taken some basic classes...
but all from the predigital film era.....
i will likely never do 35mm film again....

so many of the forums i've seen are camera brand or even model specific.
i know this sort of fragmentation is useful, if one only wants to learn about a given camera,
and especially for learning about unique features or trading lens, equipment and so on....

dpreviews for example, has 'talk' sections for every brand/model subset but only a couple of broad sections on technique issue like lighting....
i also realize all of these fine forums need advertisement or financial support....which may sometimes lead to 'brand/model specific content'

i've owned and used most 35mm equipment and went through the nikon/nikkor, canon, pentax brand specific phases...
about 10 years ago a home robbery
freed me from all my lens, bodies and film camera confinements...
my next camera purchase was digital and i haven't looked back...
the camera is again just a tool,
the equipment no longer the hobby

now instead of spending so much time
selecting/buying equipment or debating brand features
and laboring with film/developer issue,
i'm back to just taking pictures and enjoying the photo experience.

the digital era as odd as it sounds,
reminds me so much of having a kodak brownie as a kid
(yes there are even pages for collecting these vintage cameras)
except i'm shooting, downloading to the computer and
enjoying the product all the same day......

so while many still consider
a manual f series with a couple of lens as the purest of basic 35mm photography,
i've decided a full auto digi with many manual features,
a pocket full of tiny batteries and sd cards....
is the most liberating photo experience...
now we can have real instamatics!

it would seem that basic photo technique and image improvements
is an ideal subject for a forum.....
for example i see one of the sites suggested above,
has a few people submitting photos
for others online to 'photoshop', critique or offer other digital techniques for enhancement....

in fact just now, while typing this post,
i found www.photocritique.net where members do just that....
this looks like a potentially useful site too.

so again thanks for the great suggestions,
i've got a couple of other forums to check out now,
with some detailed reading to do...
before asking the first question....
i hope they like the airstream as content.....

cheers
2air'

[AgZep]

I really like some of the many sub-forums at photo.net, each of which has its own RSS feed. I generally use Firefox for my browsing, and via RSS, it has the ability to display a drop down menu of the latest posts to each one without actually cruising over to that page (works great on dpreview, and even ye olde Airstream forum too). That way, you can see if there's anything exciting on a whole lot of different forums, very quickly, without doing any surfing. I'm told the new Explorer version does the same thing. I'm also a great fan of the Luminous Landscape site, even if they don't do RSS.

Turning to (somewhat) less geekly matters, I also enjoy using a digital SLR while 'streaming. I decided that when we went full-time, I just wouldn't have the room to store a whole lot of negatives, or the ability to even get them processed, since I prefer transparencies. I had moved to medium and large format film cameras almost exclusively some time earlier, but the DSLR really seemed to be the only option in the trailer. Glad I went that way.

Lately, I've encountered a lot of people without much traditional photographic experience buying high-end digital equipment. I guess a lot of people think the reason pro shots looks so great is beacuase they were made with pro equipment. Sort of reminds me of the great 35mm SLR craze of the late 1970s, that generated a lot of expensive closet fodder.

I feel badly that a lot of them get frustrated with the inevitable technical learning curve, and it seems most of the photo forums have reacted by becoming almost exclusively technical. Great if you need that info, but the hardware is only part of the puzzle. After all, the equipment that people like Ansel Adams used for their best work was shockingly primitive by today's standards, and they did ok.

About the best source for non-technical photo info that I've found is the hardcopy Lenswork magazine. You can get it at all the big book stores. Most of the articles never even mention the equipment used for the accompanying photos, much less get into modulation transfer functions and Beyer de-mosaicing algorythms. Highly recommended.

[Boondocker]

I find that most the people on photography forums like to talk about photography far more than getting out and doing photography. I dont go to them much theses days. Having said that, if you see my airstream out there come by and chat. 2AIR, if you want to try 4x5 some time I would be happy to get you off on the wrong foot.....

[claybags]

Having perused most of the photo forums at one time or another, I found Michael Reichman's Luminous Landscape the most interesting. He covers a lot of ground, philosophical and technical. I'm somewhat troubled (shouldn't be , I suppose ) by the attitude ( as I see It ) of a lot of newcomers to the photo world on the internet, i.e. "I have the latest, most expensive gear, now tell me how to use it and make a living being a pro". All part of what seems to be the "gotta' have it RIGHT NOW generation. What happened to education, experience, and lots of plain old hard work? I started when I was 8 years old, pursued a fine arts education, and with my significant other, have made a decent living for the last 40 years as a studio artist-photographer.
I guarantee it's not always the tools, but how they're used, although sometimes having good gear does help. If Ansel were alive today, for sure he would embrace the digital age. All that darkroom time.......
I must sound like a cranky old f- - - , so I guess I am.
Keep shooting.
Cheers, Jeff

[2airishuman]

hi agzep, jeff and rodney

you are each reinforcing my vague and preliminary view....most photog sites are so much about equipment. what i want is more on technique, and pointers for improvement while using basic digital equipment.

now i realize the ideal situation would be to have an apprentice/mentor relationship with a great teacher or active photographer....but the majority of us will not have that opportunity.

we all seem to agree the best thing is to get out there and take pictures. i love this but also know that without some guidance i will make the same mistakes over and again....

this brings me back to the notion that a forum could be a pretty good way to develop this relationship in the digital era. i will look a little more closely at the luminous landscape (i really like that phrase) and photo.net as you've suggested...

rodney i may take ya up on that big box offer sometime...
are you still living large in the airstream?
is a graduation about to happen?

has anyone gone to a shooting workshop or photog retreat?
i've never done this....they must be useful....any suggestions?

i agree jeff about education and practice....my goal is to enjoy what i capture more and improve technique...that is reward enough.
having spent 20+ years in medical academia...i'm not sure i want to go back to college....but photography might be the only field that would attract me back.

there were a couple of threads this winter on rallies that might have a theme.....it sure would be fun to gather together somewhere and spend our days outdoors doing photography and our evenings looking at each others efforts over a beverage.....

i think this would be a really great airstream forums event.
maybe we need jeff and some of the other real pros involved.
a 3-6 day camping trip with some airstream photo pros would be priceless!

i will bring the caffeine and fermented beverages...

thanks for keeping the thought-stream flowing on this non aluminum topic....

cheers
2air'