Ben Harris
06-14-2010, 06:16 AM
Good morning all. New guy here, found the link on thephotoforum.com and figured this might be a good place to learn and get honest critique.
A little about myself and my photography. I'm born and bred in Connecticut from old yankee stock. I always joke that my grandfather would have loved digital photography just because you're not "wasting film" if you miss a shot.
I started learning photography on an old Minolta SRT-201 when I was in high school. After that, I kind of set it aside due to costs of processing and gear.
Fast forward ten years and a friend of mine goes out and buys a Pentax K20D. I was pretty impressed and decided I'd look around for a DSLR for myself. Ended up choosing a D60. Shortly thereafter I went out and bought a 70-300 4-5.6 VR. I discovered that I liked shooting birds a lot. I'm currently trying to get some good shots of the Baltimore Orioles nesting in a tree behind my house. Apparently I also have two pairs of Ruby-throated humming birds around too, but I have yet to determine where they're nesting.
Which brings me here. I would love to become a pro or semi-pro bird photographer. The first hurtle I must overcome is creative. I'm on my way after a year. I have a long way to go, but with the gear I have, I think I'm doing okay. The second hurdle (which I'm sure most can attest to) is affording gear or making gear pay for itself. Hopefully I can get some advice on both topics.
Before I go and post any image for critique in the ETL forum, I had a question about posting here not answered by the FAQ or rules. Most other forums I frequent allow hot-linking from Flickr and other image hosting sites. Does one have to host it here or is hot-linking okay?
A little about myself and my photography. I'm born and bred in Connecticut from old yankee stock. I always joke that my grandfather would have loved digital photography just because you're not "wasting film" if you miss a shot.
I started learning photography on an old Minolta SRT-201 when I was in high school. After that, I kind of set it aside due to costs of processing and gear.
Fast forward ten years and a friend of mine goes out and buys a Pentax K20D. I was pretty impressed and decided I'd look around for a DSLR for myself. Ended up choosing a D60. Shortly thereafter I went out and bought a 70-300 4-5.6 VR. I discovered that I liked shooting birds a lot. I'm currently trying to get some good shots of the Baltimore Orioles nesting in a tree behind my house. Apparently I also have two pairs of Ruby-throated humming birds around too, but I have yet to determine where they're nesting.
Which brings me here. I would love to become a pro or semi-pro bird photographer. The first hurtle I must overcome is creative. I'm on my way after a year. I have a long way to go, but with the gear I have, I think I'm doing okay. The second hurdle (which I'm sure most can attest to) is affording gear or making gear pay for itself. Hopefully I can get some advice on both topics.
Before I go and post any image for critique in the ETL forum, I had a question about posting here not answered by the FAQ or rules. Most other forums I frequent allow hot-linking from Flickr and other image hosting sites. Does one have to host it here or is hot-linking okay?