Somewhere in the 80's, I believe it was 1988, I had enough of shooting snapshots using a mediocre pocket camera and started looking for a decent camera. Luckily I found a nice second hand set. No second thoughts though. From that moment on I was the owner of a Pentax ME super with 4 lenses, a 28, 50, 70-200, 400 and a 2xTC. I'vo shot a lot of slides with it, although there were costs to think about. Every shot did cost money then... Those were the days, right?

In 2001 digicams had become a bit more reasonably priced and a new member of the family on the horizon this was the time to enter the digital world. Thinking about price, possibilities and reading a lot of reviews I chose the Casio QV-2800UX. (DSLR's being way to expensive at the time.) Never looked back, I made the switch to digital. Shoot as much as I wanted without costs, immediate results and learning from my mistakes, great!

Ofcourse I wanted more and found myself limited by the camera. Things like shutter lag, low-light problems, slow startup and resolution. At the time Canon had launched a new and affordable DSLR, the Rebel XT (350D). When my Casio didn't survive a fall and I had to look for something else I didn't have to look far. What a difference! Instantly on, hardly any shutter lag, fast focusing and... and... I didn't know what happened!

What I did miss were the tele-possibilities of my Casio (up to 320mm, compared to 35mm format), so soon I bought a cheap Tamron 70-300. (My first concertphoto's are made with that lens. They will stay in the gallery, it gives a good idea of the progression over time.) After a while I learned the kit lens wasn't the best ever. On top of that I have a hand as steady as someone with Parkinson's disease, so when I got myself a 17-85 IS I noticed a huge step forward..

I took pictures of everything that came by, but did not really have a goal. I wanted to change that. I liked photographing bands, so that's what I was going to do. The Tamron was clearly not very good for this, tele without IS and apertures of 5.6 in tele didn't help making picures that were sharp. Although I would have loved to have the Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS (and still do...) I thought it was too expensive, so I went a step lower. I'm very happy with the f4 though. I think the f2.8 will less important for low light anyway because of the low light capabilities of the new cameras. So if I got enough money to spare somewhere in the future and can afford a 5D or 1D I'll be happy. I think...

The rsult of this story is this website. If you like the pictures (or if you don't), let me know in the guestbook or via the contact form. I'll be glad to hear from you!

Robert Michiels