Question for high post members

How since your beginning here on POTN have you evolved?
How has POTN helped your game and how much experience did you bring to the party when you joined?

Thanks in advance!

A lot!!!. I joined the group when I had my 30D. Now, I have become confident and knowledgeable enough to shoot films and scanning my own negatives. So far, I am please with the result. I am so pleased that I actually, for a second, thought about dumping my 1dmarkIII and shooting film all together. Given that I can still digitize my negatives, I still have full controls of my post processing. Shooting digital gives you the ability to produce sharper and cleaner shots at higher ISO and under low night, then in films. However, film shots have certain dirty, film look to them which somewhat have certain realism.

Well, gosh, I was pursuing photography for some years using numerous cameras of the "advanced compact zoom" styles as well as P&S styles prior to jumping into the DSLR realm, as well as working with film "stuff" and scanning/digitizing and learning the basics of post processing. I read a lot, built up a library, and, in the early years of the growing internet, interacted with photographers online via the Usenet News connection (as the Web was in its infancy).

In time, I had the funds and the inclination to make the leap to the next level of my photography and had decided that Canon offered a good range of gear with good quality. By now, the 30D had come out and I grabbed it with a few lenses. This was in '06. I had been shooting with an S3 IS "superzoom" for some time and was working in both Manual and other "creative" modes so that I was not not new to "serious shooting", just was ready to get the gear to enable me to stretch my wings.

It took me a year or so to find POTN. I don't remember exactly how our paths crossed, but I was pretty much ready to jump in with both feet so that I could both learn and contribute. And, that's pretty much how it's gone for the past 3+ years since, this has been both a place of ongoing learning/discovery and it's also a place to hang out and help others, and in general a good bunch of folks to interact with. And, some of us have had meetups! Fun times!

Yes and no..

Before joining POTN I had 28 years of professional photography under my belt, 17 of those years with a newspaper.. I retired from pro photography before joing POTN..

What I have picked up though are better post processing skills and have made a few good friends (internet) along the way..

I too have made a few friends here and actually hook up with them for photo shoots, quite often.

I've learned a bunch, nothing too specific, but every little thing helps, right?

POTN is a great place and one of my favorite sites on the web.

Like Jurgen, I had decades of experience (unlike Jurgen--not all of it was professional by any means). But I was new to digital when I joined POTN, and I joined during the "10D wave" in 2003. The only reason I'm not at twice the post count that I am is that POTN has so much activity that I can't get a sense of where to be that involved. So, I've devolved to a sort-of drive-by poster, coming in for a close orbit once in a while like a comet.

I met lots of great folks on POTN, but it became nearly impossible to keep up with them amid all the sea of posts.

Also, my interests have shifted back to large-format photography, and I have found the forums devoted to that tiny niche much easier to manage.

But I learned a lot about how digital sensing works as a medium. POTN also provided an opportunity to offer back some of my general photographic knowledge and experience, too, and despite the jokes about teachers, any teacher will tell you that the true test of knowing something is being able to explain it clearly. POTN really became too big for that, too--I just could not keep up.

Rick "who, even at the height of activity, never saw more than 1% of what was posted" Denney