Started taking photographs when I was about 15 years old with a gift camera, an Agfa Click. A few years later I began with developing films in our basement. Bought an old 6x9 folding camera and an even older 9x12 cm camera with glass plates. An Opemus enlarger was added, soon followed by an LPL 6x6 color enlarger in a real darkroom. Developing in the strangest soups and enlarging, everything in black and white.
The number of subsequently "worn out" cameras can no longer be determined exactly, but it is considerable, even for a camera freak, from half-35 mm to 6x9! I took photographs privately, but also for my work as a journalist, editor/editor-in-chief of trade magazines, often traveling in the Netherlands and abroad.
Also a site with many (good) tests of cameras and lenses and - very special - a Comparometer, where you can compare cameras at a detailed level via standard test photos. Highly recommended!
Thomas Stirr is a Canadian professional photographer who at some point in 2015 decided to no longer work with heavy full-frame cameras, etc., after he had done a test with a camera from the Nikon 1 series. He worked several years with many of them. Since then he has had a preference for small cameras that he considers better suited to his work. He now uses Olympus cameras.
We already reported so on the homepage. This is the site for anyone who is looking for photos to use in his or her work or simply to make a poster for the wall at home. But also a site where every photographer, if he/she wants to make photos available, can easily upload photos.
In case you would like to give comments or receive a digital copy of an original photograph, please email me and I will be happy to send it to you. Photos of guests are excluded.
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Something about camera sensors
Here you will find an image showing the relative difference between some sensor sizes in cameras which is admittedly a bit outdated, but is still correct for the smaller formats.
Photo editing tips
In case you want to do a little more than taking snapshots, you will also like to easily be able to adjust the photos you have taken.
There are many programs out there that you can use to do that. It's a personal choice. Just to name a few:
- NX Studio (free on Nikon site), incl. image management!
- Photomator
- Pixelmator Pro
- XnView MP (incl. image-management), freeware for private users.
Our choice: simplicity and speed!
Personally, we prefer a normal, own folder structure from which we can directly adjust and save photos with a photo editor. Although we work on Apple computers, we are not fans of Apple Photos, because it is not easy to find out where your photo files are physically stored.
We are using ACDSee for Mac already many years for photo management and direct fast photo editing.
On this page we show a couple of the different editing options in ACDSee. There are more panels and wheels. The Brightening panel is special, where you can even adjust with up to 9 sliders to tune a photo very accurately in all details.
Pixelmator Pro
We use Pixelmator Pro as a plugin of ACDSee for good and easy removal of unwanted items, easy background removal, local sharpening, super resolution (super enlarging!) , make photos web-ready etc.
The latter program can even do much, much more, including text and designs.
Your own choice, of course!
The choice of a photo editor is personal. While one can work fine with a certain program, another one could hate it. It also depends on what you want to achieve and with what effort.
Nevertheless we hope this page provides some useful information for visitors of this site.
Photo scan tip
Many of us want/need to scan old photos occasionally and you want to do so with good quality. I have been using the universal scanning program Vuescan, developed by Ed Hamrick, for almost 20 years on my Mac's! Of course I changed scanners several times during that period, but I was always able to continue using a version of Vuescan.
It's hard to believe, but this program Vuescan for Mac and Windows now supports more than 7,000 scanners from 42 brands. You can make quality scans of documents, photos, negatives and slides with it, depending on the technical capabilities of your scanner. In various resolutions, with corrections, etc.
You can try the program for free with your own scanner or scanner/printer. Nearly a million users preceded you, including well-known large companies and government agencies.
In 2005, during the years that I lived and worked in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, I stopped carrying around heavy camera gear. Bought my first compact Panasonic superzoom which I liked so much that I always used a superzoom in addition to other cameras until mid-2024. Now I use a very small and very good Nikon J5 with some lenses from the unfortunately in 2018 discontinued Nikon 1 series.
But more and more I also use …… my mobile phone.
Create an autobiographical (photo)book!
Long ago I was asked to assist in the creation of a life story and ultimately produce it as a book. That was such a fascinating experience that it later led me to write such books myself for my children, grandchildren, family and friends.
Why wouldn't you, as an (amateur) photographer, do something similar and write an autobiography based on your own photos? Can you imagine a more sensible way to spend it?
