Photography, not something I ever thought I would enjoy. I’ve had a camera for a few years and I used to bring it out for the usual School Band Concerts or awards night but little else. Then over the summer I went on Vacation with a friend of mine and we took upwards of 800 images in about a week and I had a great time doing it. Maybe it has something to do with my new Macbook and how fun and simple iPhoto makes it to edit photos, or perhaps I just caught the photo bug but I just can’t stop taking pictures now. I found it both relaxing and energizing plus how better to remember a trip, a place or a time.
On our recent vacation into the mountains as well as into Boston I brought my camera but almost never used. The friend I was with had a camera that wasn’t great but was much better then mine. I have a 3MP Kodak Easy Share, he has a Point-and-Shoot Nikon 5MP (I’m not sure of the exact model). Nothing special but it took a pretty good picture. After that trip and with winter coming I decided to take the plunge and buy a nicer camera for me to use. I bought a Canon PowerShot A630. 8MP, 4x Optical, nice big bright LCD and it’s nice. I like the camera but on Christmas Eve something terrible happened. I was doing sound and projection duty for the two evening services at our church and one of my friends mentioned that since he had to be upfront during the service that I use his camera and snap a few shots for him. He placed into my hands his shiny new Nikon D80. I was in love. It was everything I had always wanted but never new about. I could wrap my hands around it and just take pictures. No worries about all the usual things I had come to expect from a Point and Shoot. I could take a few sample shots, tweak a couple settings and stop worrying about it. The camera wasn’t trying to be smarter then me. I could just go. I had to have a device like this. Until I had an SLR type camera my life would be incomplete. There was just something about grabbing the lens and rotating it to get the zoom just right and the sound of the shutter. It took taking images from a passive ‘I hope these come out’ to an active action of manipulating the camera to do as I wanted. I was no longer at the mercy of the device, the device was under my control.
Now, I recognize that I will still take loads of bad images and have tons of struggles to figure out how to make it run just right but at least at the end of the day it’ll be my fault and I can work to fix it.
I talked to the owner about it a bit and was a little discouraged by the price. The pictures I take are not worth what he paid, not by a long shot. I began doing my research. I’m a tech guy, it’s what I do. It took me only a few moments to find my dream camera: The Nikon D40. I’ve been reading a lot of reviews and the little guy seems to keep coming out on top, often beating cameras with more megapixels such as Canon’s Digital Rebel. As it turns out, the almighty Mega-Pixel is not really all that important. I’m looking forward to heading down to the local photo shop and taking a look at the device. I hope to keep learning about how to take better photos and how to better process them. It’s a good hobby for me I think. The up front cost is a bit steep, I know, but with a good camera and my Mac in hand I should be Ok. Time will tell…
Topslakr