There is a historic and genetic connection in the Sivyer family to the camera and photography!!

My great uncle Arthur Ronlund (1897 - 1952) was a very accomplished photographer, building his own camera and doing his own photographic development. At the bottom of this page you will find a gallery of his work taken in Brisbane in the 1930s. The main picture shown here was taken by Arthur in 1916 at his WW1 camp at Chermside, Brisbane.

I took my first photographs with a Kodak Box Brownie in 1965. I purchased a Mamiya SLR camera in 1976. In 1978 the new world of advanced electronics in cameras arrived with the Canon AE1 Program. I purchased one in December of 1979 and used this for a number of years taking in those days slides and colour prints of the growing family and holidays. Of course many may remember leaving the film in the camera and having double exposures and all of the joys of film photography. This Canon AE1 was also used for my venture into action photography of motorsport. Using a Durst developer the wonders of the darkroom and chemicals and what was then called post processing was very different to the modern digital world of today. I developed my own black and white prints and also had a "try" at colour development. In 1998 on a trip to Japan I upgraded to a Nikon F60 film camera. Why Nikonand not Canon as I had been using in film previously? Because I always wanted to be a Nikon person. This is a little bit like always wanting to be a Jaguar car owner. I finally converted to the "digital world" in 2006 purchasing an Olympus e300 DSLR. Why an Olympus one may ask? Because it was affordable. Even though the optics in the kit lens were extremely sharp I realised with further knowledge that I had Nikon film lenses and they were still useable on the new NIKON DSLR cameras. In hindsight not a wise purchase but I cannot question the quality of Olympus equipment. 

The time came to make the move back to Nikon and the features of DSLR had progressed rapidly in a few years. In 2009 the Nikon D90 was purchased and the Nikon journey continued. The D90 is still an excellent camera but it was replaced in 2013 with a D7100 and in 2016 with a  venture into the FX world with a D750. In amateur photography I find that the model of camera preferred is comparable to the owners of cars!  You are either Holden or Ford or prefer a certain brand. In reality they all have slighty different characteristics but the finished product is really relying on the abilities of the user and knowing how to get the best from their camera. 

Even though we are convinced that the more expensive and the "bigger pixel" the better the camera will be. Unfortunately this is the salesman talking as the basics of photography have never changed since my great uncle Arthur Ronlund was taking photographs 100 years ago. The user needs to be able to capture the image in their mind before the shutter is opened and as a wise man once said the key is "photos" or light. In conclusion like the car analogy the driver of the car or the person behind the lens is the key to a great photo.