#Alive Alf Photography

[hood-ex]

3 is a good number so a birthday! maybe it's a lil blue maybe not! donna, gar, joey, dick.. your choice! (also, you don't have to do all of them or any of them i'm just sending ideas)

Jason’s hands started to sweat as soon as Alfred pulled up outside Donna’s photography studio. There was a colorful sign taped to the door that said, “Happy Birthday, Donna!” 

He wiped his hands against his jeans and frowned, wondering if he was underdressed for this kind of thing. He hadn’t been to enough parties to pick up on what was considered too casual or too formal for a get together like this.

The only thing Jason had to compare it to was the parties Bruce threw at the manor sometimes. Those were usually black tie events, and he had seen enough TV shows to know that this wouldn’t be that kind of snippety, upscale party. 

Jason decided to go with just a pair of jeans, a Coca-Cola shirt, and white Converse even though Alfred said he should at least wear a nice polo. Alfred was a fine dresser and all, but Jason didn’t really trust his judgement of fashion when it came to this kind of thing. 

“How long are you intending to stay?” Alfred asked as soon as Jason popped the door open and jumped out of the car. 

Jason leaned down to the open window and met Alfred’s curious gaze. “A few hours probably.” He licked his lips, feeling nervous about going inside the studio by himself. “Don’t wait up, okay? Dick said he was gonna give me a ride home.” 

Alfred raised a brow. “I assume Master Dick thought ahead to bring a helmet for you?” 

“I dunno,” he shrugged, realizing seconds later that it was a bad answer based on the way Alfred’s eyes narrowed slightly. He quickly choked out a, “I mean, yeah, probably. Y’know how he is being Mr. Responsible and all that.”

They stared at each other for a moment before Alfred said, “Indeed.”

Jason let out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. Alfred’s stare was always so piercing and made him feel like he did something wrong. Dick liked to joke that it was Alfred’s “mom look.”

Jason plastered on a smile and smacked the door with the heel of his hand. “Well, guess I’ll catch you later then, Alf. Thanks for the ride!” He gave Alfred a wave while walking backwards towards the studio, which was just, wow, when did he get so lame? 

“Have a good time, Master Jason,” Alfred called out before rolling the window back up and driving off. 

As soon as he was out of sight, Jason let out a shaky breath and rolled his shoulders. He didn’t know why he was so damn nervous. It was just gonna be the Titans, some other heroes, and some of Donna’s friends from work. Nothing he couldn’t handle, right?

“Right,” he whispered to himself as he went inside. 

Jason kept his sweaty hands firmly tucked in his pockets as he looked around Donna’s studio. It was a nice space that was decked out with star themed decorations hanging from the ceiling and plastered against the walls. It was actually a lot bigger than he was expecting. It had enough room for a buffet of food off to one side with a few folding tables and chairs next to it. 

The other side of the room was set up for people to take pictures in front of a starry background. A table full of props was laid out next to it. Two girls Jason didn’t know were currently wearing cheesy tiaras and having their picture taken by some photographer dude. Jason felt stupidly relieved that the girls were dressed more casual like him.  

The middle of the room was obviously meant to be the dance floor since that was where nearly everyone was standing and looking up at the band on the stage. The band which... wait... what the hell? Why were Dick, Joey, Roy, and Kory holding instruments on the stage? 

Something like disbelief settled in Jason’s stomach as Dick suddenly looked right at him with a big smile and waved. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel better about his wave to Alfie or just downright embarrassed. 

“Jason, you made it!” Dick said into the mic that was in front of him. 

Everyone, even the damn photographer, turned their heads to stare at Jason. The sudden attention made his cheeks get real hot. Don’t you dare do something stupid like wave again, he thought as his fingers bit into his thighs. What if he just nodded? A nod was totally kosher, right? 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to do anything at all because Donna suddenly pushed through the crowd in her black skirt and heels. She stopped in front of him and settled her hands on his shoulders. 

“Hey!” She said with the most beautiful smile ever. “I’m so glad you came! Did Alfred drop you off?” 

“Yeah, he just left,” Jason said. He looked over Donna’s shoulder and let out an internal sigh of relief when he noticed that everyone’s attention was back on Dick and the others. “Oh! Uh, happy birthday!” 

“Thanks!” Donna beamed and began tugging insistently on his shoulder. “Come and dance with us! They’re about to start playing!” 

Jason felt himself smiling back. He let her lead him through all the people until they stopped right in front of the stage. He barely had time to register the fact that Gar and Wally were flanking them because the sound of Dick and Joey’s electric guitars ripped through the crowd. Roy’s drums followed. It took a second for Jason to realize that they were playing Shout! by The Isley Brothers. 

As soon as Dick opened his mouth and started singing, “You know you make me wanna...” Jason felt like he had entered The Twilight Zone. Since when did Dick sing? Hell, since when did he play the guitar?  

Jason blinked dumbly as Kory started spinning around Dick and Joey in her purple dress. She shook a tambourine to the beat and looked more alive than Jason had ever seen her. 

Everyone on the dance floor dutifully yelled, “Shout!” whenever it got to that part of the song, and Jason found himself chanting with them. The energy in the room was infectious, and Jason could feel his own energy buzzing in his chest and spreading down to his hips and feet. Before he knew it, he was shaking his shoulders and jumping up and down with Gar. 

It was fun and freeing in a way that felt similar to swinging between buildings, but it also felt like its own separate thing. It made him feel like he was really part of the normal world all the other teens who weren’t wearing capes lived in. 

It was fucking awesome. 

[cosslaycosplay]

cosSLAYer of the Day: 17th March 2021

cosSLAYer of the Day: 17th March 2021 feat. Red Fish, Blue Fish Cosplay

Mari by Red Fish Blue Fish CosplaySuit by Andromeda Latex Photo by Alive Alf Photography

[cosplayinamerica]

Cosplay Photographer : Alive Alf

I believe it was Anime Los Angeles 2017 when I met Alify Nasution or better known as Alive Alf. I remember this because he had a portfolio book of his photography which is rare to me – most photographers would show their photography on their phones. As I flip through the portfolio, I could see he shot differently from other photographers. I could definitely see how being versed in graphic design informed his cosplay photography. When I started interviewing photographers, I reached out to him.

Do you have any photo shoots that come to mind as being one of your favorites to do?

My current favorite photoshoot at the moment will be either Aqua (Kingdom Hearts) or Haunting Ground shoot. Both has similar reasoning which is trying to explore the character’s feeling through photography. I always enjoy doing a project that focus on the character’s feeling, kinda like a character study project. We brainstormed keywords and drew storyboards to develop our ideas together. It was such a great team effort.

How does American style of cosplay photography differ from those in Asia ?

I’ve been asked this question many times since I moved to America in 2015, but this time my answer has slightly changed. Back then I see that American style is really focusing on a single portraiture and stylized like a movie poster, compared to Asian style that are usually focused more on storytelling photosets. I think the reason why American style is heavy on portraiture and movie poster style photos is because most photography works they’ve seen since the beginning of their career has that type of photography style which inspires them to create such photographs. Same goes to Asian cosplay photographers, they’re inspired from the media they already familiar with hence the reason why they have that specific style.

But I think now American style has evolved and I’m starting to see a mix of portraiture and storytelling sets like in Asia, I think biggest the reason is from the influence of the internet especially social media. On my part, I usually share Asian style cosplay photography and try to introduce it to my fellow cosplay photog and cosplayer friends in America because I believe if we learn from both worlds, we can make our community stronger and better!

How did you get started in cosplay photography ? How long have you done photography for cosplay

I started out as a cosplayer first in 2005 in Indonesia. Back then there were not many photographers and I think the term “cosplay photographer” isn’t even born yet. I started becoming a cosplay photographer in 2009! There are two main reason how I started in cosplay photography, the first one is because I noticed that all the amazing craftsmanship of cosplay were only being showcased in a con and usually the only photo we had just simple photo with a convention hall as a background (hall shoots), I realized cosplay has a potential to become something bigger and artistic and I feel like combining photography with all the epic craftsmanship from a cosplayer is a perfect match to create a new form of art. My second reasoning is that as a male cosplayer in the early days of cosplay in Indonesia I felt discriminated by cosplay photographers, not many cosplay photographers treat me equally with other female cosplayers in our group, even during a photoshoot. From that experience I promised myself that when I become a cosplay photographer, I will do my best to treat everyone equally.

What is the process like working with you, what can the cosplayer expect? Usually I ask the cosplayer about what kind of concept or ideas they have in mind. Are they interested to do conceptual cosplay shoot or portrait cosplay shoot. Once we decide which type of photograph they wanted, I'll start gathering ideas and will try to brainstorm ideas with the cosplayer if possible. After doing all the pre-production process, the photoshoot will be pretty straightforward! Sometimes during a photoshoot I suddenly become silent and not saying a word for couple seconds, not to worry though, I'm just accessing my "Mind Palace" for ideas :P How has cosplay affected your life ? Cosplay open lots and lots of opportunity to me, but one of the biggest thing that cosplay has done to my life is that it gave me the opportunity to move to America and even received an Artist Visa which is one of the more difficult visa to get. I really appreciate cosplay and the community for helping me grow to be a better person.

https://linktr.ee/alivealf

Brinni - Aqua // Brinni - Fiona Belli Kiki Kabuki - Daniella Maka 

[cosplayblog]

Sivir Cosplay by Miyuki Cosplay

Sivir, the Battle Mistress (Chinese splash art blue version) from League of Legends

Photography: Alive Alf 

[games-geeks]

steakpresident looks fantastic cosplaying as Mordred from Fate/Apocrypha (casual) in these photos shot by Alive Alf Photography... (9 pics)

[criticalrolecosplay]

Cosplay of the Day: 25th August 2019

#CosplayOfTheDay: 25th August 2019 feat. @jobieleecos & @alivealf #CriticalRoleCosplay #CriticalRole

Jester by Jobielee Photo by Alive Alf Photography

[sayorichu]

Kakegurui - Yumeko Jabami Cosplay

Cosplayer: “Self” Sayori Chu www.facebook.com/SayoriChu/ Photographer: Alive Alf Photography www.facebook.com/AliveAlfPhotography/

This photoshoot was done during Fanime 2018 at Westin Hotel Lobby. It was my first time shooting with Alf and he is great at directing! 

The cosplay was made by me and there was A LOT of mistakes that happened along the process. And so there was a lot of counter sewing to fix my mistakes haha. But this is the best way I learn from cosplay, are from my mistakes. When I physically make a mistake and I can see it and feel it, thats when it processes in my mind for what NOT to do next time :D I try not to get too frustrated when I make mistakes because it hurts my work. So I try to look at the bumps in the road as grinding... to gain EXP? I guess haha  Okay BYE!

[cherihoney]

Hi hi! I'm a cosplayer who used to go by the name "jvnko" here but tumblr recently decided to terminate that account, so I guess I'm getting a fresh start here! (=ච ω ච=) Here's an introduction post with some of my cosplays! I ran my old account for about five years so I'd love to connect with some people old and new on this new one. Cheers! (PC: Kings Cosplay, L Cam Photography, Alive Alf Photography (x2), MH Photography, & UV Photography.)

[drustvars]

Elise the Trailblazer

Cosplayer: Trillium Sage (me) 

Photog: Alive Alf Photography 

[stella-rogers]

“Clever lady. Good shot.”

Femme!McCree - @stella-rogers (me)

Femme!Hanzo - @carmillajo

Photo by Alive Alf Photography

[bestcosplayposts-blog]

Series: Valkyrie Connect Character: Witch Gullveig Cosplayer: Stella Chuu Photographer: Alive Alf Photography

[liliphae-blog]

ANIME EXPO 2017 Crysta (Ferngully) Cosplay by Liliphae Photo by Alive Alf Photography

[sirenacosplay]

"But now that I'm on the court, the enemies are giants, and their spikes are directed right at me. Honestly, it scares me. Before, I would have let it affect me, but now, you've got my back. I feel really confident." Sugawara Koushi is me Kageyama Tobio is Gurl with the Red Hair Photos by Alive Alf Photography

[sentrava]

Artist Spotlight: Danish Photographer Balder Olrik

The Danes are a straightforward people; they say what they think. At first, this might seem a bit rude to a foreigner, but slowly you realize that that’s simply the way it is here. What does this have to do with the Danish photographer Balder Olrik? This interview is a rare example of frankness, straight-forwardness, and open-mindedness.

Balder tells us about the most intimate moments of his life, moments that others might have buried in their past. He chooses to share with us “intangible things” through his breathtaking photography. When looking at his photographs, one thing is for certain: he is way ahead of his time. Through his lens, we are able to see things that we might have never spoken about, even to ourselves. There is an ocean of photographs out there and there are even more background stories to those photographs. Balder Olrik’s photos, and especially his series “Under Reconstruction,” is something that has stayed in my mind for a very long time; it has changed me as a viewer. The story he shares, which is both funny and sad, is about a woman’s thoughts. At first, the images are confusing, but suddenly it becomes clear: of course! This story could not have existed without these images.  

Join us for this story, and the story of Danish photograoher Balder Olrik himself, in his own works:

  When did you start photographing? Did growing up in the family of scientists influence your vision?

My fascination with photography started a long time ago. The very first book I bought was about women photographers’ views on women. I was so young then that I didn’t even understand the title. I just liked the images and was inspired to take photos by myself. But I was not really able to take anything that came up to my standards. So for many years, photography was kind of a notebook for my paintings. Around 1990, my interest in photography grew dramatically when I saw the possibilities of combining two mediums.

As you mentioned, I come from a family of scientists. Their jobs is to constantly tried to show us the secrets of the world. But I have always wanted to understand what is intangible inside us, at least in myself.

At an early stage, I understood that each person, whether it was a parent, a teacher, a friend or anyone else, had completely different perception of me. Most of them were in contradiction to what I felt or who I really was. But what was the truth? The mystery of human perception is something I’ve tried to understand all my life. It keeps popping up again and again in different forms. I was always questioning things. Simple observations can spin me out of the orbit for months until I return back with a set of souvenirs. That’s the essence of science for me.

    I find your artworks very particular. Can we go back to ’80s when you were painting on canvas and continue to the ’90s, when you started merging paintings with photos?


My career as a painter exploded at a very early age. I was exhibiting internationally when my peers were still in high school. In a case like this, most artists would just try to live up to their success. But I just could not do that. For me, the reason for being alive lies in the unstoppable searching for answers. It happens every day. If you find me in those rare moments where I’m not like that, I am most likely in a state between desperation and depression. Photography, painting, and computers have been three main tools throughout my search. I wanted to find out how they materialize and how they differ.

    In the late ’80s, my photos were darkroom-manipulated, but the technological developments in the ’90s expanded the possibilities. I bought a very expensive computer for image manipulation, as early as ’93, when most people, didn’t even know that it was possible to do digital image manipulation. It became completely integral to my creative process. Today’s excellent color printing pushed me to go further in that direction.

      The series “System 2” deals with behavioral science and unconsciousness. What are the results of your investigation, and what is that we unconsciously choose to see or not to see?

I have learned much from using the theory System 1 & 2 in practice, and was able to take it further. Daniel Kahneman, who developed the theory of System 1 & 2 is not completely clear about what it is that triggers our shift from auto-perception to conscious-perception. I think I have a pretty good idea. It is basically when we miss some information to complete the picture. Another important thing I saw in the process was that we can learn to be conscious of our unconscious behavior. So you always know what state you are in. This enables you to make a shift and I think that it might be the single most important thing to learn today. If not, we will always be running after the yellow tennis balls like dogs.

If we asked a dog: “Why do you run after it?” It would probably answer: “It’s a yellow tennis ball man! I have to catch it!”

Yes, it might seem irresistible, but if we run after a ball every time somebody throws it, we are not free. We become dogs. In today’s media landscape, everybody’s throwing yellow tennis balls. Take Trump for example. Even clever people fool themselves into believing that it’s meaningful to read, post or comment on yet another crazy quote coming from him. Why? Just because he’s a madman doesn’t mean that you have to waste hours of your life on his foolishness. You haven’t changed the world even a bit by doing so. All you have accomplished is becoming yet another dog of his.


    The photos from your series “Stereo Vision” are pretty different from the rest of your photographs. Do those images have an undetected third dimension you would like to talk about?

The “Stereo Vision” images is an experiment about comparison. And it’s still in progress. Some of my earliest memories are of reading my grandmother’s gossip magazines as a child. On the second last page, there were two, almost identical, pictures. The task was to find five differences. I could look for them for hours. I didn’t understand why they were so hard to find.

The secret may be that you have to change your perception from looking at symbols to looking at shapes in order to see the difference. But at that time it was a mystery to me. I became curious about comparison more generally. We constantly compare ourselves with others to decide if we are “okay.” Why is it so hard to look at your self without comparing to others? I don’t know, but I have to dig further into it and it’s exciting!

A side-effect I’ve noticed while working on “Stereo Vision” is that I fell into a meditative state several times when I was looking at the pictures. My eyes began swinging like a pendulum from one side of the picture to another and suddenly I could do nothing apart from being with all those colors and shapes.

    You photograph places that might appear melancholy to some. Where does all this solitude and sadness come from, what drives you to express your feelings in this poetic way?

At the age of nine, I was left outside the door of a foster home by my mother. She thought I was an evil child and she just wanted to get rid of me. Apparently, I drove her crazy by my presence. Today she likely would have been diagnosed with something on the Autism spectrum. When I got out, she gave the custody to my father only after 10 months. You have no idea how traumatizing it was. Most of the boys I met at the foster home either killed themselves or became drug addicts later in life. Working with art saved me; it was a way of healing myself from loneliness, sadness, and shame I felt inside. I forgave her completely. And even though I feel all of this belongs to the past now, it has somehow gotten into my handwriting. I can’t remove it.

    Do you think your photography is particularly Danish or Scandinavian? Why or why not?


Do you? It’s not an issue that interests me. I see artists in all parts of the world with whom I feel connected.

    If we turn to your ’80s paintings, you often portray humans. In your later works, they seem to have disappeared. Where did they go?


Good question. I hope they will come back one day. I guess I found them problematic. Showing a person is not just showing a person. Each of us carries evidence of our time and social class. They couldn’t just be humans in a picture like I wanted them to be. For instance, let’s say you have a picture of a girl. I am quite sure you’ll be able to tell when it was taken with an accuracy of three years only by looking at her dress. You could also tell her social class pretty precisely. Even if naked, slightly less accurate, but you would still be able to tell these things. That’s a huge problem if it’s disturbing, or if it’s irrelevant to a story you want to tell.

    What do you think of the current Danish or Scandinavian photography scene? Is it inclusive? Hard to get into? 
Generally speaking, and this goes for all scenes.

If you come as an outsider and take a look inside, you’ll think: “Why don’t they let me into their circle?” When you are inside the circle, you don’t really feel its existence. But I would say that photography is more open than other scenes. There are many possibilities to get your work out there. It often seems like a community of enthusiasts more than anything else. That’s probably related to the absence of money, which is both good and bad.

    What are you working on now? Where can people buy your works, if possible?

Right now I’m working on a book. I’ve neglected the book format for years, so now is the time to do it. The good thing is that I am in a fantastic work flow. The “bad” thing is that I have turned away from my original idea of an art book. For now, I’ll go with the flow and see where it ends up.


  Balder Olrik is represented by the Hans Alf Gallery in Copenhagen and Gallery Charlotte Lund in Stockholm, You can also find more information on his website.

Artist Spotlight: Danish Photographer Balder Olrik published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Throwback Thursday: Our first cameras

What was your first camera?

For this week's Throwback Thursday, I asked fellow DPReview staffers to write a few paragraphs about their first cameras, film and digital. I'll go first.

Jeff Keller

Unlike most of my colleagues, I wasn't a huge film photographer. I recall owning one of those flat 110 cameras, followed by a standard-issue clamshell compact, which was promptly stolen by someone in the baggage department at London's Heathrow airport. I ended up running to Harrods to pick up something similar. I probably paid way too much.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on digital cameras really early – like 1996 early. After toying around with early Kodak, Casio and Apple cameras, I finally bit the bullet and dropped $900 on the Olympus D-300L, also known as the Camedia C-800L. This powerhouse had an F2.8, 36mm-equivalent lens and a sensor with XGA resolution. 

My real pride and joy was the Olympus D-600L (Camedia C-1400L), which cost me $1300 in 1997. It had an unusual design, large-ish 2/3" 1.4MP sensor, and a 36-110mm equivalent F2.8-3.9 lens. Its optical viewfinder had 95% coverage and was supplemented by a 1.8" LCD. I don't know what I did with it, but I wish I still had the D-600L in my possession!

Olympus C-800L photo by Erkaha

Allison Johnson

I’m counting my first camera as one that I used early on, and am now entrusted with, but isn’t strictly mine. I had some kind of point-and-shoot film camera of my own when I was young, and shared a Game Boy Camera with my sister, but Dad’s Nikkormat FT3 was the first 'real camera' I shot with. Let me tell you, that camera is built for the ages. It’s heavy and indestructible and as far as I can tell, still works like the day it was born. I take it out with me nowadays when I know I’ll be able to slow down and think about what I’m doing, and when I know I won’t be devastated if I screw it all up and come back with nothing. I haven’t been disappointed yet.

The very first digital camera I bought is slightly embarrassing: a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700. It was one of the super-slim Cyber-shots of the late 2000s that was all touchscreen. What can I say? I was taken in by its sleek looks and pocketability. It started up when you slid the front panel down to reveal the lens, and there was a real risk of the whole camera flying out of your hands every time you did that. It also had the world’s tiniest zoom lever in one corner on the top, which was pretty annoying to operate. The photos were fine in daylight, though I was just taking casual snapshots and didn’t exactly stress test it. I can confidently say my smartphone now does a fine job of everything that I was using this camera for. Therein lies the whole compact camera market, I guess.

Nikkormat FT3 photo by BastienM

Barney Britton

My first camera was a Pentax MX, inherited from my Dad (who is still very much alive), along with a 50mm F1.7 prime and a couple of Tamron Adaptall-2 zooms. It was the camera I learned photography with, and the only camera I took on a round-Europe rail trip when I was 18. I sold it when I went to university to fund a Canon EOS-3, and always regretted it. I found an MX in a junk shop last year, and I’m not going to sell this one.

My first digital camera was the Canon EOS 10D. I saved up for an entire year, working in a hotel restaurant during university holidays to pay for it (a story told in part, here) and it was my main camera for a couple of years.

The EOS 10D was the first ‘affordable’ DSLR that really stacked up against high-end film models in terms of build quality and functionality. Although its AF system was primitive compared to the EOS 3, it was extremely well-built, and very reliable. At the time, the 10D also offered the best image quality of any enthusiast DSLR (and arguably, the best image quality of any DSLR, period). Noise levels were low across its standard ISO range, and an extension setting of ISO 3200 offered filmlike grain, which looked great in black and white. I still see 10Ds 'in the wild' occasionally, and for a long time, we used an EOS 10D as our main studio camera at DPReview.

The EOS 10D had a magnesium-alloy body.

I shot my first published work on the EOS 10D, which felt like quite an achievement given how poorly its autofocus system performed in low light. If I’d never become a professional performance photographer, I might still have it. After the 10D I upgraded to an EOS-1D Mark II, when I started getting more serious about theatre and music photography.

Pentax MX photo by Alf Sigaro

Dale Baskin

I truly have no idea what my first camera was. When I go back and look at old family photos, even ones in which I’m barely a toddler, I always seem to have a camera in my hands, running the gamut from my Dad’s rangefinder to a free plastic camera someone chose over a toaster when opening a bank account. When I got serious about learning photography, however, there was one camera that appealed to me like no other: the Miranda Sensorex.

Why? Probably for the same reasons a lot of people started photography with a particular camera: it was available to me. I didn’t care that the camera was older than I was and heavier than a rock. It looked the way a camera was supposed to look, and it had the latest in sensor technology. (For the youngsters out there, this technology was called ‘film’, and my Dad insisted on the Kodachrome or Ektachrome varieties).

It was a great camera to learn on as there was no auto, no program and no aperture priority mode to fall back on. I recall reading somewhere that the Sensorex was the first 35mm SLR with TTL metering, and to this day I love the match-needle method of setting exposure. It may be a dinosaur by today’s standards, but it still works and will probably continue to do so for decades.

My first digital camera was the Canon PowerShot S300, a 2.1MP point and shoot. (Back then, that extra 0.1MP was important!). I agonized for weeks over whether or not I should spend literally hundreds of dollars more to get a 3MP camera, but in the end couldn’t justify the spend. I immediately fell in love with digital photography, especially the the ability for easy sharing on social networks. (Social network being defined as someone in your personal social network to whom you could snail-mail a CD-ROM of photos they were never going to look at anyway.)

As fun as digital was, it still didn’t give me the same quality as scanned slides, so I stuck with film for a few more years until the Canon EOS 20D came out, and the rest is history.

Carey Rose

The first camera I have any sort of memory of actually using (besides disposable cameras and my Grandpa's Canon EOS 650 film camera, which was so cool) was a PowerShot A75. It was a hand-me-down from my dad, and the perfect 'first digital camera' for a socially awkward high-schooler. It was fairly small (though that didn’t stop me from wanting a camera phone as soon as such things became practical and available), ran on easy-to-find AA batteries, and the photo quality was great for the time.

It was also called 'PowerShot,' a brand name that, to this day, sounds way cooler than competing models like such as FinePix, Easyshare and Coolpix, all of which should have died out along with animated backgrounds and auto-play music on your favorite Geocities ‘links’ page. It even survived a tumble onto concrete for a while, though eventually it succumbed to the dreaded ‘lens error’ where the lens wouldn’t properly extend or contract.

It was superseded by a Samsung NV10, a camera which looked cooler, was a lot smaller and had a lot more megapixels (plus a funky Smart Touch control system with soft keys surrounding two sides of the display,) but I ended up preferring the overall ‘look’ of the PowerShot images I used to get. So when I left the NV10 on a train while traveling across Europe, I replaced it with another PowerShot, the S3 IS, and never looked back.

Sam Spencer

The first camera I used was probably the same as anyone born before 1990-something: a disposable point and shoot. Being six years old, I had no idea about focus, flash, or anything of the sort and tried to take a macro picture of a spider at less than six inches away….

A couple years later my father proudly came home one evening with a Ricoh RDC-2. I wasn’t allowed to get my prepubescent mitts on it until later when computer monitors grew to 1,024 pixels on the long side, making the VGA Ricoh obsolete. I remember using the AC adaptor for it almost exclusively since it ate through AA’s almost as often as its now-diminutive memory filled. I also seem to remember using its OVF more often than the (optional) flip-up screen on top. I mostly used it to try and capture various members of my remote control car collection airborne after launching off jumps I made out of tape and cardboard. Remember, I was about 8 or 9.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S75 had a 3MP CCD, 34-102mm equiv. lens, a rear LCD info display and plenty of manual controls. Its lens, labeled 'Carl Zeiss,' could be found on numerous other cameras under different names (e.g. Canon, Epson).

That camera was replaced with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S75, which was the first time I had ever seen or heard the name ‘Zeiss’. That camera offered a bit more manual control (like focus!) than the Ricoh, was what got me truly enthusiastic about photography in Junior High, leading to signing up for darkroom photography my freshman year. Then I was handed a ‘real’ camera, a Minolta SRT200, which worked well until Nikon released the D50, a DSLR affordable enough to convince my generous father to help me purchase (he definitely paid for the majority).

Simon Joinson

The Fujica ST605N was an M42 screw-mount SLR made in the 70's and 80's. Photo by Alf Sigaro.

I have my father to blame for my lifelong love affair with photography. Not because he was a particularly accomplished or prolific photographer (based on the wallets of photos I have from my childhood I’d characterize his technique as a bit hit and miss, with a lot more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’), but because he gave me my first camera at age 12 or 13. I got this hand-me-down because he was replacing his camera – a Fujica ST 605N – with something a lot fancier (a Minolta X500, chosen after an excruciating amount of research including, much to my mother’s consternation, two visits to a camera show from which he returned with a roll full of pictures of semi-naked models on motorbikes).

Anyway, I didn’t care because I now had my own real camera, complete with 35mm, 55mm and 135mm lenses packed into an ancient gadget bag that released a heady aroma of moldy old leather and film every time I creaked open its lid, and whose numerous pockets were home to a fascinating collection of dusty accessories and starburst filters. It was the most amazing thing I had ever owned.

The Fujica ST605N was one of dozens of similar no-frills M42 screw mount SLRs made during the 70s and early 80s (although it appears that the mere fact you could see the currently selected shutter speed in the viewfinder was quite the selling point in 1978), but it was compact, nicely made and had a decent focus screen and a fast (at the time) silicon exposure meter.

And I loved it. And, like all photographers who started with a fully manual camera and a small selection of prime lenses that took about 10 minutes to change (thanks to the screw mount), I quickly learned the basics of photography (specifically apertures and shutter speeds), partly by reading but mostly through trial and error. 

I can still remember the first roll of I put through it, at the local zoo, and the thrill of getting the prints back only 5 days and 2 weeks' worth of allowance later (on this point my father made it clear I would need to reign in my enthusiasm and that a 36-exposure roll normally lasted him for at least a few months).

After many years of enjoying his Fujica, Simon moved on to the Nikon F-301, known as the N2000 in the United States. Photo by John Nuttall.

I kept - and used - the Fujica all my teen years, adding an old flashgun that took 5 minutes of high-pitched wheezing to charge up, a slightly moldy 70-200mm Vivitar zoom I found in a junk shop, and a sizeable collection of blower brushes and cap-keepers that came free on the covers of photography magazines. My time with her only ended when I went to college – all students were required to arrive on the first day with a Nikon SLR, so I had to trade-in my trusty old ST605N for a Nikon F301 (aka N2000), which seemed like something out of Knight Rider by comparison. But that’s another story…

The Casio QV-10, with its low resolution CCD and rotating lens, was one of the world's first consumer digital cameras.

My first digital camera? Well, the first I used was a Casio QV10, but since I started writing about digital cameras in 1995, I never really had to buy one (we had a house full of them), and I just borrowed what I wanted when I wasn’t shooting for work. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn’t actually buy a digital camera for myself until 2011 (funnily enough it too was a Fuji – a first generation X100).

So what was your first camera (film or digital – both are fair game)?  Let us know in the comments below! Suggestions for future Throwback Thursday articles are also welcome.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2m3TR9N

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Throwback Thursday: Our first cameras

What was your first camera?

For this week's Throwback Thursday, I asked fellow DPReview staffers to write a few paragraphs about their first cameras, film and digital. I'll go first.

Jeff Keller

Unlike most of my colleagues, I wasn't a huge film photographer. I recall owning one of those flat 110 cameras, followed by a standard-issue clamshell compact, which was promptly stolen by someone in the baggage department at London's Heathrow airport. I ended up running to Harrods to pick up something similar. I probably paid way too much.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on digital cameras really early – like 1996 early. After toying around with early Kodak, Casio and Apple cameras, I finally bit the bullet and dropped $900 on the Olympus D-300L, also known as the Camedia C-800L. This powerhouse had an F2.8, 36mm-equivalent lens and a sensor with XGA resolution. 

My real pride and joy was the Olympus D-600L (Camedia C-1400L), which cost me $1300 in 1997. It had an unusual design, large-ish 2/3" 1.4MP sensor, and a 36-110mm equivalent F2.8-3.9 lens. Its optical viewfinder had 95% coverage and was supplemented by a 1.8" LCD. I don't know what I did with it, but I wish I still had the D-600L in my possession!

Olympus C-800L photo by Erkaha

Allison Johnson

I’m counting my first camera as one that I used early on, and am now entrusted with, but isn’t strictly mine. I had some kind of point-and-shoot film camera of my own when I was young, and shared a Game Boy Camera with my sister, but Dad’s Nikkormat FT3 was the first 'real camera' I shot with. Let me tell you, that camera is built for the ages. It’s heavy and indestructible and as far as I can tell, still works like the day it was born. I take it out with me nowadays when I know I’ll be able to slow down and think about what I’m doing, and when I know I won’t be devastated if I screw it all up and come back with nothing. I haven’t been disappointed yet.

The very first digital camera I bought is slightly embarrassing: a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700. It was one of the super-slim Cyber-shots of the late 2000s that was all touchscreen. What can I say? I was taken in by its sleek looks and pocketability. It started up when you slid the front panel down to reveal the lens, and there was a real risk of the whole camera flying out of your hands every time you did that. It also had the world’s tiniest zoom lever in one corner on the top, which was pretty annoying to operate. The photos were fine in daylight, though I was just taking casual snapshots and didn’t exactly stress test it. I can confidently say my smartphone now does a fine job of everything that I was using this camera for. Therein lies the whole compact camera market, I guess.

Nikkormat FT3 photo by BastienM

Barney Britton

My first camera was a Pentax MX, inherited from my Dad (who is still very much alive), along with a 50mm F1.7 prime and a couple of Tamron Adaptall-2 zooms. It was the camera I learned photography with, and the only camera I took on a round-Europe rail trip when I was 18. I sold it when I went to university to fund a Canon EOS-3, and always regretted it. I found an MX in a junk shop last year, and I’m not going to sell this one.

My first digital camera was the Canon EOS 10D. I saved up for an entire year, working in a hotel restaurant during university holidays to pay for it (a story told in part, here) and it was my main camera for a couple of years.

The EOS 10D was the first ‘affordable’ DSLR that really stacked up against high-end film models in terms of build quality and functionality. Although its AF system was primitive compared to the EOS 3, it was extremely well-built, and very reliable. At the time, the 10D also offered the best image quality of any enthusiast DSLR (and arguably, the best image quality of any DSLR, period). Noise levels were low across its standard ISO range, and an extension setting of ISO 3200 offered filmlike grain, which looked great in black and white. I still see 10Ds 'in the wild' occasionally, and for a long time, we used an EOS 10D as our main studio camera at DPReview.

The EOS 10D had a magnesium-alloy body.

I shot my first published work on the EOS 10D, which felt like quite an achievement given how poorly its autofocus system performed in low light. If I’d never become a professional performance photographer, I might still have it. After the 10D I upgraded to an EOS-1D Mark II, when I started getting more serious about theatre and music photography.

Pentax MX photo by Alf Sigaro

Dale Baskin

I truly have no idea what my first camera was. When I go back and look at old family photos, even ones in which I’m barely a toddler, I always seem to have a camera in my hands, running the gamut from my Dad’s rangefinder to a free plastic camera someone chose over a toaster when opening a bank account. When I got serious about learning photography, however, there was one camera that appealed to me like no other: the Miranda Sensorex.

Why? Probably for the same reasons a lot of people started photography with a particular camera: it was available to me. I didn’t care that the camera was older than I was and heavier than a rock. It looked the way a camera was supposed to look, and it had the latest in sensor technology. (For the youngsters out there, this technology was called ‘film’, and my Dad insisted on the Kodachrome or Ektachrome varieties).

It was a great camera to learn on as there was no auto, no program and no aperture priority mode to fall back on. I recall reading somewhere that the Sensorex was the first 35mm SLR with TTL metering, and to this day I love the match-needle method of setting exposure. It may be a dinosaur by today’s standards, but it still works and will probably continue to do so for decades.

My first digital camera was the Canon PowerShot S300, a 2.1MP point and shoot. (Back then, that extra 0.1MP was important!). I agonized for weeks over whether or not I should spend literally hundreds of dollars more to get a 3MP camera, but in the end couldn’t justify the spend. I immediately fell in love with digital photography, especially the the ability for easy sharing on social networks. (Social network being defined as someone in your personal social network to whom you could snail-mail a CD-ROM of photos they were never going to look at anyway.)

As fun as digital was, it still didn’t give me the same quality as scanned slides, so I stuck with film for a few more years until the Canon EOS 20D came out, and the rest is history.

Carey Rose

The first camera I have any sort of memory of actually using (besides disposable cameras and my Grandpa's Canon EOS 650 film camera, which was so cool) was a PowerShot A75. It was a hand-me-down from my dad, and the perfect 'first digital camera' for a socially awkward high-schooler. It was fairly small (though that didn’t stop me from wanting a camera phone as soon as such things became practical and available), ran on easy-to-find AA batteries, and the photo quality was great for the time.

It was also called 'PowerShot,' a brand name that, to this day, sounds way cooler than competing models like such as FinePix, Easyshare and Coolpix, all of which should have died out along with animated backgrounds and auto-play music on your favorite Geocities ‘links’ page. It even survived a tumble onto concrete for a while, though eventually it succumbed to the dreaded ‘lens error’ where the lens wouldn’t properly extend or contract.

It was superseded by a Samsung NV10, a camera which looked cooler, was a lot smaller and had a lot more megapixels (plus a funky Smart Touch control system with soft keys surrounding two sides of the display,) but I ended up preferring the overall ‘look’ of the PowerShot images I used to get. So when I left the NV10 on a train while traveling across Europe, I replaced it with another PowerShot, the S3 IS, and never looked back.

Sam Spencer

The first camera I used was probably the same as anyone born before 1990-something: a disposable point and shoot. Being six years old, I had no idea about focus, flash, or anything of the sort and tried to take a macro picture of a spider at less than six inches away….

A couple years later my father proudly came home one evening with a Ricoh RDC-2. I wasn’t allowed to get my prepubescent mitts on it until later when computer monitors grew to 1,024 pixels on the long side, making the VGA Ricoh obsolete. I remember using the AC adaptor for it almost exclusively since it ate through AA’s almost as often as its now-diminutive memory filled. I also seem to remember using its OVF more often than the (optional) flip-up screen on top. I mostly used it to try and capture various members of my remote control car collection airborne after launching off jumps I made out of tape and cardboard. Remember, I was about 8 or 9.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S75 had a 3MP CCD, 34-102mm equiv. lens, a rear LCD info display and plenty of manual controls. Its lens, labeled 'Carl Zeiss,' could be found on numerous other cameras under different names (e.g. Canon, Epson).

That camera was replaced with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S75, which was the first time I had ever seen or heard the name ‘Zeiss’. That camera offered a bit more manual control (like focus!) than the Ricoh, was what got me truly enthusiastic about photography in Junior High, leading to signing up for darkroom photography my freshman year. Then I was handed a ‘real’ camera, a Minolta SRT200, which worked well until Nikon released the D50, a DSLR affordable enough to convince my generous father to help me purchase (he definitely paid for the majority).

Simon Joinson

The Fujica ST605N was an M42 screw-mount SLR made in the 70's and 80's. Photo by Alf Sigaro.

I have my father to blame for my lifelong love affair with photography. Not because he was a particularly accomplished or prolific photographer (based on the wallets of photos I have from my childhood I’d characterize his technique as a bit hit and miss, with a lot more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’), but because he gave me my first camera at age 12 or 13. I got this hand-me-down because he was replacing his camera – a Fujica ST 605N – with something a lot fancier (a Minolta X500, chosen after an excruciating amount of research including, much to my mother’s consternation, two visits to a camera show from which he returned with a roll full of pictures of semi-naked models on motorbikes).

Anyway, I didn’t care because I now had my own real camera, complete with 35mm, 55mm and 135mm lenses packed into an ancient gadget bag that released a heady aroma of moldy old leather and film every time I creaked open its lid, and whose numerous pockets were home to a fascinating collection of dusty accessories and starburst filters. It was the most amazing thing I had ever owned.

The Fujica ST605N was one of dozens of similar no-frills M42 screw mount SLRs made during the 70s and early 80s (although it appears that the mere fact you could see the currently selected shutter speed in the viewfinder was quite the selling point in 1978), but it was compact, nicely made and had a decent focus screen and a fast (at the time) silicon exposure meter.

And I loved it. And, like all photographers who started with a fully manual camera and a small selection of prime lenses that took about 10 minutes to change (thanks to the screw mount), I quickly learned the basics of photography (specifically apertures and shutter speeds), partly by reading but mostly through trial and error. 

I can still remember the first roll of I put through it, at the local zoo, and the thrill of getting the prints back only 5 days and 2 weeks' worth of allowance later (on this point my father made it clear I would need to reign in my enthusiasm and that a 36-exposure roll normally lasted him for at least a few months).

After many years of enjoying his Fujica, Simon moved on to the Nikon F-301, known as the N2000 in the United States. Photo by John Nuttall.

I kept - and used - the Fujica all my teen years, adding an old flashgun that took 5 minutes of high-pitched wheezing to charge up, a slightly moldy 70-200mm Vivitar zoom I found in a junk shop, and a sizeable collection of blower brushes and cap-keepers that came free on the covers of photography magazines. My time with her only ended when I went to college – all students were required to arrive on the first day with a Nikon SLR, so I had to trade-in my trusty old ST605N for a Nikon F301 (aka N2000), which seemed like something out of Knight Rider by comparison. But that’s another story…

The Casio QV-10, with its low resolution CCD and rotating lens, was one of the world's first consumer digital cameras.

My first digital camera? Well, the first I used was a Casio QV10, but since I started writing about digital cameras in 1995, I never really had to buy one (we had a house full of them), and I just borrowed what I wanted when I wasn’t shooting for work. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn’t actually buy a digital camera for myself until 2011 (funnily enough it too was a Fuji – a first generation X100).

So what was your first camera (film or digital – both are fair game)?  Let us know in the comments below! Suggestions for future Throwback Thursday articles are also welcome.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2m3TR9N