First, some history...

How was I transformed from snapshotter into photo-nut? This mostly happened over the last few months, but I think it started backed when I was around eight.

I was given a little Hanimex camera (probably a 110 IF), which took film in the form of a cartridge. Many of the photos I took with this were awful (yes, I still have them). But not all. Then teenagerdom took over and I became extremely paranoid about having my photo taken.

[The rest of this post is possibly somewhat tedious. I'm mostly writing it for myself - you might want to skip to the last couple of paragraphs!]

I also forgot that I liked taking photos - I certainly don't remember having a camera. I didn't really return to a more normal attitude until I was seventeen when my father lent me a Minolta SLR to take to France with me my student exchange odyssey. The other kids on the plane actually asked me if I had Japanese blood, I was taking so many photos on take-off (in fact, I was trying to capture as many images of Melbourne (from the air) as I could, preempting some serious homesickness). I took some photos over there, and continued off and on for a few years after I got home but nothing serious. I eventually gave the camera back to Dad sometime late last century and left photography alone again. Maybe film was too much hassle? I don't know. I was certainly still interested in imaging, but bought a 8mm Sony camcorder (analog tape) instead of an SLR.

Fast forward to around 2001. Serious DSLRs were still stupidly expensive but my inner geek needed to get in on the action and I got some crappy little "digital camera" (now lost in a box somewhere), with a massive 0.3 megapixel (640x480 VGA) resolution. It was not great - I gave it to my daughter and she had a ball taking mostly out-of-focus shots of all sorts of things.

2003 - enter mobile phones with cameras. I got a Nokia 7650, again with VGA. I didn't buy it for the camera, but of course I did take pictures with it, especially since, due to work, I was living two states away from wife and children. Being able to take pictures of where I was and send them via MMS kept us in touch. (Thankfully I got to move back home after a few months.)

Then I spent my $1000 Christmas bonus (only one I've ever had, mind) on a Canon A80 for my wife. That's right - for my wife, since she wanted to have decent photos of our children, among other things (happily she had still been shooting film, mostly on disposable cameras, while I was busy ignoring photography). Of course, I couldn't resist completely and used it too from time to time, mostly when we went somewhere involving trains. But some reason I didn't take it to San Francisco and instead used the second-hand Nokia 3650 (still VGA) I bought over there because my dual-band 7650 wouldn't talk US-style GSM. Gargh!

2006 - Another travel-induced phone upgrade (this time to Japan, so I needed a 3G W-CDMA phone) got me a 2MP camera on the Nokia 6233. And I did take the A80 this time. And took some halfway interesting photos - with the phone as well, even. Damn, those temples are fascinating.

2008 - The 6233 had become decidedly flaky, so I upgraded to an N95 8GB (wow, Carl Zeiss optics...) And this thing has a Flickr upload capability built-in, right there in the camera application. I wasn't really one for sharing, but I did start upload shots of odd signs and things I found in the street. And then...

[things get interesting]

A guy at work offered me a Canon 350D for $A350. I knew I'd been wanting a DSLR for years (startup times and capture delay on the things I had were driving me nuts, for one thing) so I jumped at it, 18-55mm mostly plastic kit lens, 8MP sensor and all. I spent the first little while just seeing how quickly I could take a photo from the time I flicked the camera on. *grins* (But still the obsession has not really taken hold...)

Then, a guitarist I play alongside in amateur theatre pit orchestras brings along his 500D. And he's taking photos in low light with no flash. And they're good. And I get interested... oh, so you need a lens with a wide aperture... and the 50mm f/1.8 is under $A150... and then it takes off for me. I buy the 50mm. I buy the 75-300mm telephoto zoom too. I quit my increasingly boring and frustrating job. I hang out at the zoo a lot and also shot more at gigs. I resurrect my long-disused eBay account and wind up buying a 3000N because I thought the 28-80mm lens it came with would be fun. And I start shooting film as well... then I buy an EOS 5, a monopod, a decent camera bag, an EOS 650 (mostly for the 70-210mm f/4 push-pull zoom, but also for the history) and an EOS 50 (for the 28-105mm USM) etc. etc.

At this point, I have more camera gear than I can comfortably carry and have to start deciding what to take with me. And I can't leave the house without at least two cameras (digital + film). I'm in love! I'm obsessed! The people at the film lab know me by name...

If this is wrong, I don't wanna be right. ;)

Onward!