I don’t like doing this and I really don’t know why. I guess I feel it isn’t my place to make suggestions about what the board contains or not and with the recent inquiries about special interest forums I am a little hesitant to ask for another. Yet, here goes.
Photography. Many here take pictures. Many while on fishing or other outdoor excursions and some like myself that venture into the outdoors just to take photographs. Some of us use point and shoot cameras and some DSLRs. All posting up some fantastic photographs. Perhaps a forum dedicated to photography. Post your pictures. Ask questions specific to photography; equipment, methods, lighting or macro sertups to take shots of flies for example.
Your not the first to ask for this, Eric had asked about this and I think he still has a blog of some sort
posted here…
To my estimation he is one of the most knowledgeable and has answered many questions about photography
over the years on this board…
I’ll bet Nighthawk is lurking with his sharp talons right now
Since pixels enhance just about all aspects of what we post here as fly anglers, fly tiers, rod builders, leader furlers, etc., I think a Forum devoted to discussing photography and posting pix is a great idea.
i surely could have used this when i was trying to understand my camera. when the problems can and will be camera specific and personal preference in cameras so diverse it’d be really difficult to find someone with the same camera. basic questions like what’s iso, what’s exposure, what’s white balance, what’s aperture, what type of lighting to use could easily be answered. how to access and change all these settings is widely varied if available on each camera. I found the manufacturers web site to be most helpful and fortunately there must be about 1 mil photog web sited to glean info from. as far as displaying photos goes i think that may be best suited for display in each category, ie, flytying, rod building etc etc.
I believe that the more specialized forums you have the more you tend to isolate the members from each other and the weaker the site becomes. Take a look at Westfly.com. They have separate forums for several states and the members have became so polorized that they post items such as fly swaps or what type of rod would you use in the state forum rather than the general forum. I fear that the establishment of a whole bunch of specialized forum on FAOL will be regretted.
Besides if you go to Google & enter Photo Forum you getover 300 million hits.
I am a member of a couple of photography forums and they are great for photographers. My suggestion was for something that we as fly fishers could post pics to and ask questions about photography as it relates to fly fishing. Also I am a member of several other fishing forums and hunting forums many of which have photography sections. They don’t seem to distract from the other areas of the forums but serve as a landing zone for posts more specific to photography as it relates to fishing or hunting with some plain sharing of photos that may or may not be relevant.
Like several of Us I’m involved in Photography, Not like I used to be, was a Custom Photo Lab Darkroom Manager and Commerical Photographer.
Got “Burned-Out” for over 20 years, just a year ago got my first DSLR and am Re-discovering my love of it. This is just a thought but instead of a “Forum” of its own How about a sub-forum or a “Sticky” heading here on Sound Off.
I like this idea. If fits the Forum, it would avoid that fragmentation that Panman described, and it would be more likely to be accessed by a wider group of people. Not to mention less work for the Admins. Less work is always good.
Yes Steve you are correct. It was a group called Photographer’s Corner. I was not able to maintain it at the time as my health was getting worse. I appreciate your praise, Steve, however I am just the average armature who has had the privilege and honor of working with some really great photographers from time to time.
Cold I agree with you 100%. Here is a forum that I used to post on but quit because of the snobbery that goes on there:
Everyone can learn a lot from just lurking there regardless of what type or brand of camera you have. Believe me those people never let you live down anything they don’t agree with. I love FAOL because you can state your mind here and although folks may get a bit upset at you they don’t stay that way. Best of all is when you need an FAOLer they will be there for you. Period. Bygones be bygones.
I highly recommend purchasing one of these guides if they are available for your camera. They are called Magic Lantern from Lark publishing:
I got one for my Pentax K-10D from Amazon but they are available from other sources too. I find mine to be indispensable as a tool for operating my Pentax.
If you guys wanted we could always start a group again. Kerry if you don’t want to do it I am willing to give it a go again. It was really neat. The only thing I suggest is that we don’t posy anything there we don’t post any copyright materials that we don’t want open for public download. Everyone photographer or not would be invited to join.
Again, like with the camping forum, I think a catch all forum for stuff related to fly fishing, but not actually directly related to the fishing, would be a good balance between fragmentation and overcrowding. In such a forum, it’d probably be a good idea to ‘tag’ any thread you start. For example, a title might read: “Best nikon lens for bugs? [Photography]” or “Firewood restrictions in southern Idaho [Camping]”
Until the boss says yea or naye on this one, would a sticky post on this forum suffice? If so, I can do that. Never mind, I’ll just do it and see what happens.
It’s a decent interim measure, but “Tips for Photographing Flies”, “How to upload”, and say…“Will AI-s lenses Meter on my D200?”…really don’t belong in the same thread.
