This section of my website used to present a gallery of some of my
better photographs. However, due to having obtained a domain and
hosting with decent storage and bandwidth limits, I am moving the
actual photos offsite.
My online photos now appear in this gallery. The remainder of this page discusses my legal and sales terms, my equipment and philosophy.
Every now and then I do a series of controlled experiments as a means of becoming more familiar with my equipment and practicing techniques. I plan to put some of them online as a resource for other amateurs. So far only one is ready.
Here's an annotated inventory of my current photo gear. I put this first because I'll be referring to it later. Down below I talk about how I got started in photography, how I built up this collection of equipment, and how I feel about it all.
Asahi Pentax ES II body.
This is an ordinary 35mm SLR camera. It's almost fully manual. The
only non-manual feature it has is an internal light meter that
optionally sets the shutter speed. It uses through-the-lens (TTL) metering,
and there is a switch to turn depth-of-field preview on and off with
fully-coupled lenses.
This camera uses a relatively uncommon screw-mount system for attaching lenses; it's a little harder to find lenses for it than for most other common 35mm SLRs. This camera and its 50mm lens were bought used for about $100 and given to me as a birthday present by my parents around 1992. I later obtained photocopies of the user's manual from Pentax Canada.
Asahi Pentax Spotmatic.
Picked up for $50 at the semi-annual swap meet in Vancouver. I wanted
a second body so that I could shoot two kinds of film at once on
outings. This camera has the same lens mount as my ESII, and it was
cheap. Unfortunately I didn't notice that the battery compartment was
corroded shut, so I ended up paying another $100 to get that replaced
and to get a general reconditioning. It works well now, though the
right batteries are hard to find.
Pentax SF1
I picked this up cheap used to see what a more modern Pentax is like,
as part of my planning for future kit improvements. It's got a zoom
lens, auto-focus and auto-wind. It's not bad, but it feels more
cheaply made than the older Pentax cameras. I don't use it much.
Yashika-Mat
I also have a Yashika-Mat medium format TLR camera that used to belong
to my mother. She gave it to me as a graduation present. I've only
used it a couple of times, and I think it needs repairs. It does give
nice results when it works though.
Mustek G-Smart Mini 3
I was looking for a really small digital camera that would be
convenient to carry around in a pocket for those spur-of-the-moment
shots that always come up when you don't have your main camera with
you. This one came up on ThinkGeek for cheap. It was small and I
didn't really care about the resolution since it wasn't for
"real" photography, but I got burned. Its color response is
bad, heavily red-tinged when the light isn't perfect. It's slow to
scan, storing the pixels row-by-row as they're exposed, which means
you get some interesting distortions if you move the camera while it's
exposing. There were a few other minor issues with it too. I used it
for a while, but now that I have a better one it's just cathering
dust.
Canon PowerShot A620
After the disappointment of the Mustek digital camera, I started
looking for something better. After a bunch of research I settled on
this - it was high-resolution for the time (7.1MP), had a decent 4x
optical zoom, and decent weight due to use of 4 AA batteries. I'm
still using this camera for casual digital photography, and it's
pretty decent. The main complaint I have about it is that it's
not really pocket sized. It will fit in some of my larger winter
coat pockets, but in summer I pretty much have to carry it in
a backpack or camera bag. I like the fold-out multi-angle LCD screen
a lot, and this model has a software SDK available - that influenced
my decision to buy because I have some plans for a computer-controlled
camera project in the future.
Takumar SMC 28mm f3.5.
Bought for around $100 at a swap meet. For a wide angle lens this one
is fairly slow, but I have no real complaints about it. Camera shake
is not as much of a problem at 28mm. By the way, SMC stands for Super
Multi Coat, which is a Pentax lens coating technology that is supposed
to greatly reduce unwanted reflections inside the lens, but I think
such things are pretty standard.
I have another of these, given to me for free by a friend of a friend. This second one is scratched, but no distortion is apparent when looking through it.
Takumar SMC 50mm f1.4.
This is the lens that came with my ESII body. It's great - f1.4 is a
pretty decent speed for any lens. It's a very clear, fast lens and
gives excellent results.
Asahi Super-Takumar f1.8 55mm.
This lens came with the Spotmatic. I didn't really need it, but I doubt I
could have got a reduced price on the body by refusing it. It's a
pretty decent lens and one of my faster ones, but I prefer the 50mm.
Soligor f3.5 35mm-105mm zoom w/macro mode.
Given to me for free by a friend of a friend, because he had no use
for it. A heavy but useful lens. My first zoom lens. It takes
acceptable pictures, but seems to introduce a slight prismatic blur
around edges - I think that's typical of all but the best zoom lenses.
I wouldn't use it for fine-grained films like Velvia.
Takumar SMC 135mm f3.5.
Bought at a swap meet for only $25. I later noticed that I couldn't
seem to get a good focus at infinity with it, which is probably why it
was so cheap, but I can't be positive that it isn't just my eyes that
are the problem. I don't use this lens very often, mainly because
I like the 200mm one much more.
Takumar SMC 200mm f4.
Bought at a swap meet for around $120. This is one of my two
favorite lenses, the other being the 50mm. It's heavy and not fast,
but it has really sharp focus and is small enough to carry with me on
most outings.
Tele-Astranar 400mm f6.5.
Bought at a swap meet for $80, but I later saw one for $50. This is a
manual lens, meaning I have to manually close the iris to take a
picture - it doesn't happen automatically when I release the
shutter. Not a big problem. It's a slow, heavy lens with its own
tripod mount; it outweighs the camera body by a lot, and when the lens
is on the tripod, the camera hangs forgotton at the rear end like a
man sporting a whale's erection. I don't really care about its
limitations though; it was cheap, it takes reasonably good pictures
and it's great to be able to take closeups of things half a mile
away.
Takumar SMC 100mm macro f4.
Just recently obtained this for $80. Haven't had much experience with
it yet.
Naturally I have a selection of filters and other accessories for my lenses. I find circular polarizers indispensable and I have one for each of my lenses. I also keep a 1A or 1B filter around to protect the lens glass when I don't have the polarizer on. I have a selection of color filters and special effect filters, and recently started buying in to the Cokin filter system.
At the other end of the lens, I have a 2x tele-convertor to bring things a big closer, and for close-up work I have a reversing ring and a set of extension tubes. It's really amazing the detail that can be captured by using the extension tubes, reversing ring and 28mm lens together, though lighting and depth of field are major problems with this setup.
I use a variety of equipment for holding my camera. I often shoot in low light or using slow film or a slow lens, so I can't rely on my hands to hold the camera sufficiently steady. I have an old Kitstar tripod that works well, but it's very heavy and I don't like to take it on outings with me. I also have a monopod, which is very light and supports the weight of the camera, but does not provide lateral stability.
I also have a few miniature tripods, but my favorite camera holder for situations where I can place it on a surface is the good old-fashioned beanbag. You can easily make one for yourself by dumping some spherical beans into a pillowcase and sewing the opening shut. Don't pack it too tightly or you won't be able to shape it to fit the camera and supporting surface.
The best piece of equipment I have for macro photography is a bellows for my Pentax bodies. It's equivalent to extension tubes except that the length is variable. It increases the distance between the lens and the body so that the image the lens projects on the film is enlarged. It does require longer exposures though; bright lighting is a must.
Braun Flash. Clips onto the top of the ESII, where there is an electrical connection that sets it off when the shutter does its thing. This is a simple, feature-free flash, so I have to figure out how to use it right myself. Picked it up for $10 at a swap meet. Unfortunately the Spotmatic body doesn't have a hotshoe so I need to get a trigger cable. I very rarely use the flash.
Wire cable release, 4 feet long. Absolutely essential equipment for any sort of long exposures. Generally, if your exposure time is longer than the inverse of your lens length, you're risking camera shake. That's when the natural unsteadiness of your hands causes the picture to be blurred. So, for example, if you're using a 200mm lens and your exposure time is longer than 1/200 of a second, you should consider putting the camera on something stable and using a cable release to trip the shutter. This one was $15 new. It has a locking mechanism so you can optionally use it to hold the shutter open without needing to keep your finger on the button, which is great for long exposures.
Air cable release. Another kind of remote shutter release. This comes with a squeeze bulb, a roll of air hose, and a connector that attaches to the shutter release button on the camera. I think the total length is around 20 feet. You squeeze the air bulb to trigger the shutter. I can't remember how expensive these are but it's not much. The advantage of the longer length here is that you can easily get in the shot and hide the cord behind your leg. The disadvantage is that the air slowly leaks out of the tube, meaning you can't use this to hold the shutter open manually for more than a few tens of seconds. For long exposures, use a wire cable release.
Lens Pen. $15 or so at any camera store, and well worth it. One end has a fine, gentle brush, and the other has a polishing implement. You use the brush to get dust off your lenses and filters, then use the other end to get rid of fingerprints and stuff. This is a terrific product. It replaces those fiddly lens cleaning cloths and lasts longer. The Lens Pen is by far the best non-disposable lens and filter cleaning tool I've used.
AP bulk film loader. I bought this while looking into the possibility of doing group purchases of bulk film in the SFU photo club. It turned out to be cheaper to buy pre-rolled film with processing included, so I kept the loader for myself. I did obtain some bulk Ilford black and white film at a discount and rolled it myself. It works well.
Belt pocket. A velcro-flapped waterproof pouch that I can put on my belt. It's big enough to hold my 200mm lens or a bunch of filters. Bought it new for something like $15. It's a little awkward in terms of sitting down or obstructing access to my pants pockets, but it often proves very handy when I want to switch lenses in a hurry.
LowePro camera bag.
Given to me by my mother for Christmas 2002. It holds one 35mm body,
several lenses, and a ton of smaller accessories with room left over
for my jacket and water bottle. Plus it's comfortable. The chest
strap really helps take the weight off my shoulders.
When I was a little kid, my mother had black & white darkroom equipment that she would set up in the bathroom to make her own prints. She let me help out and taught me a bit about photography. She used a Yashica-Mat twin-lens medium-format camera, and took great pictures.
I started out with a $20 110mm tourist camera from Consumers Distributing. It had a beside-the-lens viewfinder (great for getting your thumb in the picture), built-in flash (always on), and two focal lengths (everything past 5 feet, or everything past 5 feet, magnified 2x and blurred). I took quite a few pictures with it on our frequent travels, but I was always unsatisfied with the blurriness caused by the combination of small negative size and that strange textured paper they printed the pictures on back then. I didn't take photography seriously as a hobby at this time; it was just a way of documenting interesting things I saw.
In my early teens I got a 35mm point-and-shoot for about $35. It was also a tourist camera, with two focal lengths, offset viewfinder and built-in flash, but this time the flash could be turned off. Also, it took much better pictures. I mainly used this one for documenting things too, but the better and better images I got with practice started to awaken my interest in photography as an art-hobby.
Then, some time around my 20th birthday, my parents bought me the Pentax ESII 35mm SLR shown above. At first all I had was the camera body and the 50mm lens. The picture quality was fantastic in comparison to what I had before, and because of that I started to pay much more attention to the composition of my images. I still took a lot of boring documentary shots, but I started to experiment with "artsy" subjects as well.
A couple of years later I started to buy my own add-on equipment, starting with a tripod, some filters and a cable release. By this point we were living in Calgary, which has a lot of great photo opportunities for architecture, landscapes, social events and cloudscapes/sunsets. During the time between moving to Calgary in 1993 and finishing my BSc in 1998, photos taken for art and hobby's sake began to outweigh documentary photos. Not all of them were good, but there were a few that I considered great and that was really rewarding.
I stayed at the stage of having a small SLR kit with 50mm lens, tripod and a few small accessories for a long time; there is a LOT you can do with just that.
In late 2000 I moved to Vancouver and joined the SFU Photographer's Corner Club. I started to experiment with a wider range of film types, and used slide film and black and white film for the first time. Club photo outings and critique sessions gave me a chance to practice my growing preference for abstract photos and compositions, and I began to feel the desire for additional equipment to permit me to take pictures more like what I wanted. The equipment I had was certainly not exhausted in terms of potential, but I had begun to encounter its limitations.
Through the club I learned of a semi-annual camera show and swap meet that happens in Vancouver. I've attended it frequently since discovering it.
At the first one I went nuts. I spent over $300. I picked up my flash, my 28mm, 135mm and 200mm lenses, and some assorted other junk. I also bought my mother an old Olympus 35mm SLR to replace her long-since broken Yashica-Mat; she hadn't taken any pictures in the many years since it died. Now she's starting to get into it again, I think.
I spent the next year getting aquainted with that gear, and learning the new composition options presented by the new lenses. At the next sale, my main purchases were the 400mm lens (a bit of an excess), a 2x teleconverter and a set of close-up filters. The third show seemed to creep up before I had had a chance to learn how to use those effectively, so I spent less there; I bought some extension tubes, a reversing ring and a few filters. At the next event I picked up my Spotmatic body.
This is where I stand now. I have sufficient equipment to do everything from extreme telephoto to extreme close-up macro shots. I'm slightly lacking in terms of lighting and equipment bags, but I can make do. I still don't feel I've fully explored the potential of the basic, unaugmented 50mm lens. It's going to take me decades to really get to know my new equipment.
However, the new equipment is there for me to use. I can experiment with it and learn faster. It's there for when I have something very specific in mind. I think that's important at this point in my development as a photo enthusiast.
First, read the above section on how I got started.
I tried to put a subtext there. It's to the effect that, like many newbie photographers, I was too quick to buy lots of equipment.
You don't need a great camera to take great pictures. That's a common misconception. The truth is a little more complicated:
I think that last point is important. I think that you will learn faster if you start out with equipment whose limitations you can find. That will teach you to tell the difference between bad photos caused by equipment limitations and bad photos caused by your lack of skill.
Of course, this is not to say that you should struggle to become a famous photographer with a $10 camera. When you feel confident with the gear you have, buy more and challenge yourself to become as proficient with that. Challenge yourself. That's the key. Starting out with a complete high-end system may make life so easy that it will take you ten times longer to learn how to create truly outstanding images; in fact, you may find this lack of progress frustrating and give up, letting a good set of equipment go to waste.
I think I was a little too quick to buy a lot of new equipment. I should have bought the stuff I got at the Vancouver swap meets more gradually, giving myself time to explore each piece individually. Now I'm faced with too many choices, and must make an effort to learn each piece seperately from the others. I guess I just couldn't pass up the good deals.
Of course, this is all just my opinion as a 20-year amateur photographer and relative newcomer to the SLR scene. I can't claim to be an expert at any aspect of photography, but I've now produced a lot of images that I'm very happy with. Take this grain of salt and form your own opinions.
NOTE: All gallery images created by me (Soleil Lapierre) are automatically Copyrighted by me. You may not publish these images in print or electronic form without my written consent. You may freely save and circulate electronic copies of these image files to your friends as long as you do not remove any visible Copyright, do not add anything to the images, and do not charge for them.
I feel stongly about creator ownership of artworks. If you violate my rights to these images, I will find a way to punish you for it. This may range from simple legal action all the way up to publishing your name on a public black list.
You can order prints of my photos from me if you like them. Contact me for prices. Note however that it is impossible to make reprints look exactly like what you see on the web. The images you see in my gallery have been produced by my eye and camera, film, somebody at the lab, photographic paper, my scanner, post-scan adjustments by me on my monitor and finally by your monitor. Each of those production steps affects the brightness, contrast and color balance of the image. Plus if you want cropping or brightness adjustment on the reprints, I have to wave my hands at the lab people to try to convey that information. Therefore any prints you order from me will look very much like, but never identical to, the images you see here on my web site.
You are at Soleil's home page Index -> Creative -> Photos.
Copyright (c),© 2003-2007 by
Soleil Lapierre.
Last updated April 14, 2007.