Best
viewed at 1024 x 768 or greater screen resolution,
16 bit color or better. All content &
photographs copyrighted, all rights reserved.
E-mail John with questions or comments: john@lonestardigital.com
About Lonestardigital.com
Lonestardigital.com is based in Texas and is owned & operated by John Cowley. Lonestardigital is linked as a review, reference, and information source from hundreds of digital photography web sites throughout the world. It has also been featured & referenced in several digital photography publications, including Spring into Digital Photography, PCWorld, Kodak Professional's ProView magazine, Digital Camera magazine, and eDigital Photo.com magazine. John is a former member of the National Press Photographers Association.
Always prepared
... At home, at work,
on the road, or at the ranch, I keep my camera bag
handy, batteries charged, memory cards formatted,
lenses clean & polished. No matter what I'm
doing, I'm always looking for picture
opportunities, even when I have my hands full of
other things. At left: With my
hands full of other things, here's a self-portrait
flash picture I shot with my Nikon D2X using the
camera's built in timer.
The Texas Flag and the web site logo
The State Flag of
Texas, called the "Lone Star Flag", was
adopted in 1845 when Texas became the 28th state of
the Union. The official Texas State Motto is
"The Lone Star State". Texans love their
State Flag & Motto.
The phrase Lone
Star is embedded in Texas culture from border
to border. Everywhere you go
in Texas, you'll see Texas flags and the phrase
Lone Star. Restaurants, parks, schools,
businesses, clubs, events, and more are named
Lone Star. Lone Star
and the Texas flag are symbols of the heart &
soul of Texas.
In the Beginning
Photography first
caught my interest when I was about twelve years
old. I started out with a Kodak Reflex 620
camera. I began with black & white film, and
took the time to learn about the basics of
photography. And I liked
it. Fascinated with the
idea of "doing it myself", I saved up enough to buy
some basic darkroom supplies and a contact printer.
Next came an enlarger. And soon I had my own
darkroom cordoned off in a section of the house,
where I spent endless hours experimenting with my
new hobby.
What a treat it was to go through boxes of old family negatives and be able to crop, enlarge, enhance, and develop my own prints. (That was great!)
The Submarine Years
Years later, I served as a crew member aboard the fast-attack submarine USS Gudgeon. A camera enthusiast already, I jumped at the opportunity to be trained at the U.S. Navy Periscope Photography School at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii as the backup photographer for the boat. Equipment used: Nikon & Hasselblad.
In addition to
periscope photography, the school provided hands-on
training in color film processing, advanced camera
technology, and aerial photography. And my interest in
photography surged to a new level.
Pumped up with knowledge and enthusiasm, I bought a new Mamiya-Sekor 500 DTL single lens reflex 35mm camera during a port-of-call visit to Kobe, Japan.
The 500 DTL was one
of the first cameras with on-board TTL (spot or
area) metering shown in the viewfinder as an
exposure guide. It was an all manual camera, with
on-the-fly exposure set by adjusting the aperture
dial on the lens. The kit I bought included a 50mm
f/2 Auto Mamiya-Sekor screw mount lens.
And then came digital
In late 1992 I saw an ad for the new "FotoMan" digicam by Logitech advertised in a computer supply catalog. The ad caught my attention seriously ...
"FotoMan!
Capture, review, edit, and print pictures using
your computer!" What? A camera I
could use with my computer?? It was just a black
& white camera, but the mere concept was
absolutely breathtaking. Just imagine, I was
thinking ... I could do take & process pictures
on my own computer... and even print them out on my
own printer!! I couldn't resist -
and the new camera arrived by FedEx a couple of
days later.
I struggled with the new technology... But eventually, I got the hang of it. And soon I really was processing & printing my very own digital pictures right at home! The picture quality wasn't very good, but it served me for the time being. (And it was certainly fun.)
The first color digicam came out about a year later, but the pictures were still pretty poor compared to pictures from "real" cameras. So I stuck with what I had for a couple of more years.
1996 - The breakthrough year
The Kodak DC-50 color digital camera was introduced in 1996.
After an on site
demonstration by the local Kodak field
representative, I bought one immediately. Now
this was a real improvement in
digital camera technology! The DC-50 became
a valuable tool at work, completely replacing my
Polaroid camera for production documentation
.
My ties to film were broken.
From that point on, I've been strictly digital ... and never looked back.
Since the DC-50, I've worked my way through quite a few cameras. Some kept me happy for a while, others were in & out of my camera bag in just a few days.
(In alphabetical order)
|
|
What am I using now? A Nikon D3, a Nikon D300, and a Canon S3-IS. The D3 is my primary camera. The D300 is my backup. The Canon S3-IS is my "pocket" camera (jacket pocket) and takes the D3's place when I need to go with a smaller package. All three camera systems feature long lasting battery systems good for hundreds upon hundreds of pictures between charges. |
