Well, I bought it. No regrets. I love the camera. It’s honestly no more work to use then my Canon Powershot and I get such better pictures. It is so great to be able to grab the camera pop in a couple of settings and snap off 100 pictures.
As I’ve mentioned before this is my first SLR of any kind. I have no other lenses (though I do have my eye on a couple) and aside from the camera it self I have made no other serious investments for it. I use my Apple Macbook and iPhoto to edit the images for the most part and dabble in photoshop or whatever else when needed. I do have a monopod (ironically a Canon) and I bought a $25 Tamrac bag to carry the camera. I shove it into my laptop backpack. With all of that being said.. eloquently I might add the following has been my experience with it.
I love it. I carry it around with me all of the time and I have found myself at the beach during sunset when it’s 19 degrees fahrenheit and breezy. For me the learning curve of the camera was pretty low. I figured out what each setting does pretty fast and find myself using the camera in manual mode almost all of the time. This does of course leave me with some images that are not all that great but I’m learning so much about photography so fast it’s worth it.
The camera is very light and I honestly cannot tell if it’s in my backpack or not. Not much else to say about that. I grab it out of my bag, put it up to my eye and just go. Feels great and is very solid.
Something that I find truly great though is just how fast I can take images and when I press the shutter release the image I see on the screen is the image I was expecting. I don’t find myself pushing the button and hoping the image is correct. I push the button and when I release I know that the image that comes up on the screen is what I told the camera to do. That right there is worth every penny. Sure not all of my images come out great but in the end I know that I can learn to take better images and am not simply at the whimsy of the brains inside the camera.
I’m always looking for something new and interesting to shoot now and find my self looking at a lot of things differently. Before I would shoot pictures during picture taking times. I would pull it out on scenic drives through the mountains or when we had lots of people over but now instead of me waiting for the pictures I find the pictures. An interesting difference. I have been taking more time not to smell the roses so much but to look at them and appreciate them for what they are. My arty side is showing…
I don’t really have all of that much to say about the camera itself. I don’t have any real perspective on it. I tried out maybe a half dozen other SLRs and while I can’t say I noticed all that much different in the Nikon I did like it’s feel over the Canon Rebel. I also knew I was buying the camera for the lenses and didn’t even really consider any other brands. I will say though that this camera has changed the way I look at things and certainly how I take pictures. I’ve been using it for 2 weeks now and I can say without a doubt that this camera at the very least makes a great first SLR.
Topslakr