Introduction to Wayne Schmidt's Photography Pages
My level of photographic expertise and what my photographic pages are all about.

Let me be honest: I have no photographic expertise. I have never taken a single class in photography, am not well read in the subject and while I've used cameras for 40 years it's been mostly in the point-and-shoot mode. So, why is a photographic illiterate like myself writing and posting several pages about this extremely complicated subject?

First: to record the results of several experiments I'm conducting on various aspects of photography for my own use. I use this website like a notebook to record the results of many different experiments, tests, and comparisons. I regularly refer back to it for my own use. Second: to make these results available to anyone else who might be interested in finding answers to the same questions. For example, while trying to figure out the depth of field for the lens on my camera I discovered that there were on-line calculators in which you enter the distance to the subject, the focal length of the lens, and the aperture and the calculator calculates the depth of field. But, on another site I found a statement that modern experts are starting to think that depth of field isn't a function of focal length. (This surprised me because people have been taking pictures for so long I figured all such questions would have been answered long ago.) A third site boldly claims that it isn't a function of focal length. Who is right? My page titled ELIMINATE DEPTH OF FIELD CONFUSION presents a simple experiment that resolves this issue. Even though I'm not an expert in the field, I can define a problem and develop an experiment to solve it. By presenting the methodology of the experiment, which I do on every page, I open my results to peer review justifying my right to place the results on a public forum. I welcome anyone finding fault with them to send me an email and I will gladly make the appropriate changes and retractions.

Because I am not an expert in any facet of photography, I have a certain perspective that experts have long lost: I understand what confuses other nonexperts and can speak to them in non-expert language. I'm hoping that other photographically challenged people, like me, will find understandable answers on these pages that they may not have been able to find on other sites.

The camera I'll use for these pages, and the instrument that got me interested in pursuing photography as a hobby, is my new (in 2005) Canon 20D 8.2 megapixel camera with a Sigma 18-200mm lens. (I have since moved up to a Canon 6D full frame 24 MP camera with a Canon 24-105 as my everyday working lens.)

My primary interest is in photographing small objects (a hummingbird is a large object for me) so many of the pages in this section will focus on topics related to macro or near-macro photography.

I've had a lot of fun putting these pages together and using the results of what I learned from the experiments documented in them. I hope others also find them interesting and useful.

By training and inclination I am a research engineer. Visitors with a strong masochistic bent who desire a more detailed biography are invited to visit my ABOUT ME page, all I ask is that you don't laugh too hard if you look at my picture.

For visitors interested in browsing an outstanding site about every aspect of photography by a world recognized photographic expert, they can do no better the Luminous Landscape site at http://luminous-landscape.com.

 
Return to the mainpage and browse 90 other subjects including several other pages related to cameras, lenses and photography.