Hello all,
I came upon your site and i can say im impressed. My names Austin, Im from the heartland of America! Im 20 years old, and have plenty to learn but i also have plenty under my belt in basics. I am a Photography major at a local college looking to transfer away to explore. I stated out in college with a digital design major in mind which i have taken photoshop classes untill my fingers bleed.

Im currently using a Sony A100 and Sony A330. My main lenses are a 70-300 promaster with macro. and the normal 18-55, and 18-70 sony lens that came with them. The A100 was my first DSLR and the A330 was my gift to myself from a promotion at my work. Being a full time student and full time employee is hard to keep money for hobbies so there for im still in entry-level digital. Im looking at the Nikon D3s if i were to upgrade soon but thats a far reach.

As for film photography (my primary) i use a cannon AE-1 with a 1:4 55mm macro lens, a cannon 100-300 zoom, and a cannon 20-105 zoom lens with a macro setting.

But my main squeeze right now is my Minolta x-700 with a 100-300 zoom lens, 52mm minolta with 22 fstop, and my favorite lens, the minolta 58mm with a 1.4 -16 fstop which give me amazing depth of field photos. After i scan some of my film photos ill post them up in a few days. i have all the misc you need, tripods, monopods, any color filters, 2 flashes vertical grip, auto winder, wire cable release....but none of this for the digital

Other than what i said here if you have any questions just ask! i have done most everything you can, including thermal photography, and developing in coffee and orange juice. Ill post up some pictures whenever i get a chance!!!

It's interesting to learn that you are experimenting with film; must admit that I do keep looking at my enlarger and realising it would not be impossible to make the darkroom functional again, with a week of clearing and cleaning. But I have no marketable use for film shots and it would be just for fun.

We have a Nikon D3S and I would not consider it a good upgrade from an Alpha 330 because all you really gain is some low light capability and a tolerance of slightly worse lenses, plus a sequence shooting speed and video. For stills only, the A850/A900 make a better upgrade as the 24 megapixel resolution is genuine advance on the A330. I prefer the A900 to the D3S for many reasons including size, weight and battery compatibility but mostly for the resolution. The D3S only has 720p video and that, for me, is a drawback; my son, who uses the D3S, is considering selling it while value are high, to get a D7000 as he's had that on test and reckons it will produce better results as well as much better video.

But I'm more than happy to stick with Sony at present - the NEX has rather transformed photography, for many others as well as me.

David

Welcome from me as well Raustin09a330 . Looking forward to seeing some of your pictures.

Sorry to be late in welcoming you. Birma's going to fire me...

You're forgiven Doc

See thats the only reason i really like the D3S is because of the low light shooting which can give me more "interesting" shots for my taste. But i do love my A330, and the best part is i have never actually used the Program or Auto mode... im not really a auto kinda guy

But you should definitely think about getting the enlarger out! never hurts to mess around with film! I love it! I dont know if you have ever herd of Jerry Uelsmann or not, but he takes film to a whole new level. Jerry can work in a darkroom for 8 hours and produce photos that can take commercial artists that use photoshop for their job about 3 days. If you haven't herd of Jerry i suggest taking a look around his site and i will state this now that it will blow your mind.
http://www.uelsmann.net/
I just love the feel of literally making my own finished photo instead of using a printer to do my work. The only problem is a darkroom. and thankfully i have the schools and my high schools to go to if i want to do any prints outside of class work. Thats the main downfall of film to me. And the whole 36 shots a roll thing haha
But thank you for the welcomes. I will be on spring break this coming week so i hope to get some digital shots up soon, and film prints up when i get it back from school!
Austin

Welcome to the forum! Yes, post some of your photos when you can.

Welcome to PhotoclubAlpha, you'll find we're a fairly friendly and helpful bunch, but we do squabble at times!

Yes, 36 shots is (after having gone digital) limiting, but there's also the advantage of portability of digital images, and less cost for developing!

Dusty

Welcome (like doc I'm late ).,

Very interesting link (http://www.uelsmann.net/) thank you ! .

Hope you have fun at spring break, this is the time to enjoy all that moment before to have kid

Frank

I published a small monograph section of Jerry's work in the 1990s, after assigning Richard K to interview him during a visit to Florida. I never have met Prof. Uelsmann, but Richard got to at my expense...

David

I would absolutely love to meet him! his work is amazing. But i just started a flickr stream so http://www.flickr.com/photos/toplof give it a check when you get a chance! let me know what you guys think!hiccup!