TonyGrowden

Born in Pukekohe, New Zealand, 1961

I am an Amateur Photographer that like most people can never find enough time to do everything they want to do - like update this website lol.

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I received my first camera as a 7 year old for Christmas and my first shots were taken at my other passion - a Speedway track on the very next day.

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My family were/are all keen photographers and my father/brother helped me learn the basics with the little "Diana" camera.

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The Diana camera was a plastic-bodied toy camera using 120 roll film. The camera had a simple plastic meniscus lens. Originally marketed as an inexpensive novelty gift item, the Diana has been used to specifically take soft focus, impressionistic photographs somewhat reminiscent of the Pictorialist Period of artistic photography, branded in contemporary times as lomography.

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When I was about 10 my father passed down to me his Pentax ME camera and my passion was really started.

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Several Pentax film cameras later I took a break from photography in about 1993/4 when family took priority after moving to Australia and only got back into it again with a Fuji s5600 Digital camera in 2007 and my love was rekindled.

I soon outgrew the Fuji and became frustrated when it would not do what I wanted it to do. Not because the camera was faulty or bad but because I was used to the old ways where you had to compose the shot and make sure everything was set correctly or you had wasted your film.

It was too easy to become snap happy and just shot away as it could just be deleted and replaced.

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I purchased a Pentax K200D/lenses and still wish I had kept it as it was a fantastic little DSLR camera.  I followed that with a Pentax KR, again a fantastic camera but still wanted more so I sold the camera bodies and just kept the lenses to save up for the proposed Pentax Full Frame camera which was rumoured to be coming out.

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Why wait for a rumoured camera that may never come - all the other major manufacturers had already released a couple of different Full Frame models so it was really just a waiting game.

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In 2017 I purchased the Pentax K1 Full Frame 36Mp camera and a couple more lenses to match. 90% of the images on this website have been taken with this combination since then. Do I want to upgrade again - NO!, well not yet as I have still not learnt all there is to know about this camera and it still has functions that I have never tried.

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On the subject of camera brands and what is best, DO NOT buy into the "CANIKON" is best nonsense that you will read online in forums. I have used a couple of Canon DSLR cameras through work (40D and 650D) and they were very nice BUT they had no more features than the Pentax KR I had at the time and were nearly double the price. Could I see nearly double the quality of images - NO, I could see no difference at all. I have yet to try a Nikon but it would be the same situation.

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A camera is only as good as the person using it and the best person using it will have many years of old school photography experience behind them. Give Steve Parish a modern phone in the bush and try to take a better photo with any DSLR Camera - you will not!

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Enjoy

Tony Growden

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