Hello from Dunedin, New Zealand!

[kiwibee]

Greetings all! I'm a retired school teacher and partial-defector from dpreview, having become rather tired of the pettiness and arguing. There is still plenty to learn from the best people over there, but one of them has just been (permanently?) banned - enough said!
Film costs, work and family stifled my SLR interest many years ago, but it has revived with the coming of digital. Various Sony cameras owned including the 707, 828, H2, and now recently a move back into DSLR with the A700 which I am really enjoying. I now have a mixed-bag of lenses including a Sigma f2.8 105mm macro, Minolta 50mm f1.4, Beercan, Sony 18-250mm, and my current challenge which is to improve the 'keeper-ratio' with a Minolta 500mm Mirror lens!
Hopefully I'll learn plenty here, just as I have over in that 'other place'!

Kiwibee

[Dr. Harout]

In my childhood I saw teachers as people sent from God and respected them a lot. Don't laugh but I even believed they are special people who don't even go to... toilet.
Then I understood they are people like us, the myths disappeared but the respect and now love remains. If I had to put people an gradient bench or scale, teachers will rank on the first one.
Allow me to bow in front of you.
Welcome to Photoclubalpha.

[kiwibee]

Thanks for the welcome Doc! I only wish more of our students had that reverential view of us! Actually, there are many great students, some of whom remain as personal friends of mine. Not a highly-paid career, but a most rewarding one in other ways.
kiwibee

[David Kilpatrick]

Hi Kiwibee - if you can find a way of getting 100 per cent keepers from the 500mm mirror, let me know, as I have been trying for years. Ever since it came out in the 1980s! It is so picky about lighting conditions, and needs exceptional contrast in the subject for any degree of impact. Some of my favourite film shots with it were silhouettes of people with the sea behind them, sparkling water turned into hundreds of neat circles of light. So far I've never had a chance to repeat this on digital.

David

[kiwibee]

Hi David - sorry for the belated response, but I've been out of 'cyber-shot' for a few days. Mmmm! Not sure that a 100% keeper ratio is possible with any lens, let alone the pesky Mirror! I'm using it for bird photography at the moment. It's very portable of course, but there are the well-known trade-offs. I find that a tripod is almost mandatory for sharp results, and close-ups have very shallow depth of field. I'd love maybe a 200-500mm zoom for comparison, but that will have to wait a while!

Kiwibee