Ronnknee.com Studio About the Photographer "Family photos depict smiling faces… births, weddings, holidays, children’s birthday parties. People take pictures of the happy moments in their lives. Someone looking through our photo album would conclude that we had led a joyous, leisurely existence free of tragedy. No one ever takes a photograph of something they want to forget." - Sy Parrish from One Hour Photo (2002). Personal Life My name is Ronald Pai and I was brought into this world on February 28th, 1991 in Sydney. I attended Homebush Primary, followed by Homebush Boys High which I graduated with a UAI of 98.40 and now currently first year, studying Bachelor of Engineering (Aeronautical Space) at the University of Sydney. Belief I enjoy taking photos. I believe it's one of the most rewarding hobbies - and there's no doubt the camera is one of the most ingenius devices constructed. Every time the shutter clicks, the flash goes off and time is stopped. The moment, consisting of emotion, meaning and beauty, is preserved and can be appreciated forever and ever. Developing Interest I've liked taking photos ever since I was young. The first memory I recall of taking photos was when I was 4 years old. My family and I had just came back from Hong Kong and we were at Sydney International airport. My Mum had always carried one of those bulky inexpensive film cameras to take photos of us. I was pretty excited about it, and begged her to let me use it. She passed it to me and instructed me to take a photo of her and my sisters. Instead, I pointed it downwards and took a photo of my feet. Years had passed and by the time I was in Year 7, digital cameras and webcams were revolutionary. I was amazed by the fact that you could virtually take unlimited photos and store them onto the computer (before we had to scan them, and even that itself was amazing). They were also as light as film cameras; my sister had owned a Fujifilm F401. I would always plead her to let me use it - to take photos of myself and our pet mice. A year later, my sister became bored of carrying the camera so she would just leave it at home, making it more accessible. That's when I would sneak it out of the house and bring it to school or tutoring. I would take photos of friends, food, the moon - anything that had appealed to my interest. What fascinated me even more about digital cameras was that they were able to take videos, like camcorders. Even though the resolution and quality weren't that great, the additional feature was definitely something! I would also take random two minute videos of my friends playing soccer or just my surroundings. They are really valuable to reflect back on now. For the next few years of my high school life, it had been a habit of leaving the camera in my bag - just in case. In case anything funny had happened or would about to happen. I could just record those moments down. Most of the times I was able to. Sadly, most of my photos and videos from 2005 were lost when I was moving photos from one computer to another via my MP3 player and it had just corrupted. Not cool at all. If you love it so much, why not study it? It is not uncommon for me to meet new people while carrying my camera around. One of the first things they ask me is, "Do you study photgraphy at Uni?". I firmly reply, "No, I do Aeronautical Space Engineering". A common response to that is of shock, "But why? You're good at photography!". Thoughout my high school life, I've always enjoyed Mathematics, and appreciated its beauty and elegance when it came to solving problems. I like challenges. They reward me with satisfaction that follows after a solution is achieved. That's why I've picked the hardest engineering course one could do. Not only would I be able to utilise my knowledge proficiently, I can also help the broader community after I graduate. With photography on the otherhand, there is no doubt that it is fun and rewarding. It can even earn big money for anyone doing photojournalism or other related jobs in the media industry. However, photography alone would not be able to allow me to serve the greater purpose in improving the global community. That's why I set it as a hobby rather than a career. Equipment and Servicing Since the beginning of my DSLR camera hobby, I have accumulated a fair amount of equipment to suit my purposes. I tend to buy equipment from the original manufacturer as I believe it's more worthwhile to spend that few extra hundred to guarantee the highest quality and the sharpest photos. Here is the complete list. Body Nikon D90 Body Nikon D3s Body Lens Nikkor 18-105 mm f/3.5-5.6 Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8G Nikorr 14-24 mm f/2.8 Nikorr 24-70 mm f/2.8 Filter Hoya 52/67/77 mm UV (N) Hoya 52/67/77 mm Circular Polariser Hoya 67 mm Neutral Density 4/8 External Flash Nikon SB-900 Other SD 16 GB Memory Card Compact Flash 16 GB Memory Card SANYO Enelope rechargeable batteries x 5 Nikon EN-EL3e Battery (Spare) Meike Vertical Battery Grip Gietto Rocket Blower Tripod Lens repair Camera History till Now In terms of camera hardware, I had moved from Fujifilm F401 to its successor Fujifilm F450. There wasn't much of a difference except it was physically smaller, the photos had less noise, more megapixels (something I hadn't utilised back then) and large memory capacity (from 64 MB to 512 MB). That's right, eight times the previous memory capacity. I was foolish to think that it wasn't necessary, when I was (again, foolishly) taking photos at 640 x 480 resolution. In 2006, sometimes I would use my Dad's Sony S60. The best feature about it was that it could record videos at VGA resolution at 30 frames per second. Again, it was a revolution back then. Around mid-year, I would use my sister's Canon IXUS 65. It was awesome; photos taken at 6 megapixels were splendid. I bought my first digital camera from Hong Kong. It was Sony T50, which was heavily advertised on TV. It boasted to have a large touch screen, a drawing too, point focusing and most importantly it was a pocket camera. The lens would not pop out so there was no way of accidentally bumping it. It conveniently fitted into my pocket too! Those features really impressed me so I bought it. A year later, 2008, I bought its successor Sony T200. The back of the camera was completely touch screen and it had more megapixels. However I was disappointed with the picture quality and flash. They weren't as good as its predecessor. These two cameras were excellent in taking luvos. The latter became obsolete when the screen had cracked. I placed it in my back pocket with my keys. Just before my Hong Kong trip, I bought another camera Samsung NV24HD. It had a 10 megapixel image sensor and was able to record videos at 1280 x 720 resolution. Those features were absolutely brilliant. However, it stood no match to my Nikon D90, which I had decided to buy at the end of my trip. The timing was stupid actually. After a whole year of using my D90 to capture brilliant photos and make me more recognisable as a photographer, I decided to upgrade to Nikon D3s. It's another state of the art device, but better, allowing me to shoot better photos. It offers incredible shutter speed up to 1/8000th of a second, an ISO sensitivity rated up to 102400 and also it utilises the FX format for photos. Furthermore, the video recording feature is still intact but upgraded to ensure smooth motion. The bill for this hobby is growing, but for excellent photos, no regrets.

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