Always an interest of me, and kind of a hobby, but I was not into the technical part of it (dark room, chemicals, etc.). Developing graphic design also made me a better photographer. and with ditigital photography, I can follow my path: making nice pictures, and giving a different perspective through my pictures. And then, having the taste, Ii think that the early days of photography, with the seemingly clunky but amazingly sophisticated techniques of making the final photographic picture, also have a qulaity that is unique and maybe gone. Digital photography is too objective, nothing is hidden. You have to look for unusual conditions (like fog) to take pictures which in itself have an appealing fuzzyness that earlier pictures have. It is nice and a creative enhancement when one can manipulate pictures to get extreme effects, but for picturesque quallities, where the medium plays a big role, digital photography is very straightforward. As you understand, I am not too keen on extensive 'photoshopping' to get my results.
I have done several jobs as a photographer, for St. Pauls Anglican Church in Vancouver, for the foundation Stichting Christelijk-Sociaal Congres, and for the Eemlandhoeve.
I use the Olympus E330, with the 12-60/f2.8-4 zoom and the 40-150/f3.5-4.5 lens. This camera has had a mixed reception, from reviewers telling Olympus that they could do better, to a reviewer who saw it as a straitghtforward professional camera, even in some respects superior to a Canon 30D. I have always liked Olympus, and when they joioned with Leica and Panasonic (and also Fuji) with the four-third standard, I had the trust that it would be a viable road.
I started out the digital age with the Minolta Dimage D7, which for a lot of reasons is a class apart. But, it is no SLR, and though it has a super lens, one is also limited to that lens. And, functions such as autofocus are too slow on this model.
Then Sony took over the camera division of Minolta, and the first product was the Sony alfa 100. I just did not like the plastic feel of this camera. Though it promised to have Zeiss lensen available, and the whole exiting series of new and secon hand Minolta lenses, it took them too long to come out with a next model. So, I looked at Olympus, and after I had had the E330 in my hands, I thought this ugly ducklilng to be my camera. The life view capability was one issue: though it is implemented a bit clunkily, it allows you to take pictures from a low or high perspective, in the same way as I had gotten used to with the Minolta and the tilting EVF. And otherwise, it is a very fine camera, maybe for some speedy occasions not competely up to the task, but I am not a sports photographer, so for most of my use, it is doing a perfect job.
Make your choice on the gallery-page, where you can find pictures of where we live, were we and I travelled, and all kind of other subjects.
Not so much for the photographic qualities, but rather for telling the story: see my story on my visit of the KZ-lager Auschwitz.
© 1998-2008 j.f.groen
This page modified: 08 April 2008
www.hansgroen.com