Or, the bonus at work arrived earlier than I thought it should. See, last year the bonus came in the first half of December. I thought that was the standard time; I was wrong. Instead, bonuses are supposed to come out around… well, now. Ok, not today but at the end of September.
Anyway. Christina and I have been talking about this year’s bonus and what to do with it. Yes, some of it went into savings. However, savings was admittedly on the tail end of the list of things to do with the bonus.
Here’s a list of the things we did with the bonus:
new camera (I’m looking for a hobby)
new hard drive for computer (to make space for more pictures)
new DVD writer drive for computer (to back up all our important pictures and files)
new music player for Chris (’cause I have been known to borrow Christina’s)
new vacuum cleaner for the house (ours is not working so well these days)
pay bills (but none of them needed the bonus in order for us to pay them off, so this isn’t much)
put in savings (what was left after all of the above)
So, in a way, Christmas has come early.
Also, for the new camera, here’s a few example shots of what I’ve been able to do with it:
The Fish, a common subject. Ignore the dirty state of the tank.
A sunset picture. I really like doing landscape pictures.
A friendly spider taking down some of the population of grasshoppers.
A rainbow that Christina alerted me to. About ten minutes later and this was gone.
And of course, Aleah. I love this shot with just her face in focus. I think it captures the motion well.
Check out The Gallery for more pictures, or click on one of the pictures above for a bigger version. Full size versions are available and they are huge.
Love the photos – what is the camera? I really like that you can take close pictures. How about inside with no flash?
None of those pictures were taken with the flash on.
And, when I said I was looking for a hobby, I mean that I’ve wanted to get into real photography for a while. Getting in with a good camera has, however, been out of reach in the past. Especially for digital cameras. (Film cameras are /way/ less expensive on the front, but you pay out for film processing…)
The bonus fixed that, and Christina and I talked about it for a long while. (a month at least?)
Anyway, here is the camera:
Be expecting camera accessorites/lenses/ect to show up on my Christmas wish list.
Oh, and would anyone be interested in me posting shots? I’d love feedback, especially feedback on how to improve on shots/what makes you not like a shot/etc.
Congratulations on the camera. Yes, I would like to see pictures posted – or perhaps notes when you have new pictures on the Gallery. If you’re interested in a critique, please indicate that & let us know what kind of response you’re looking for – don’t want to judge the composition when you’re asking about the lighting & vice versa.
This reminds me of the years Mom spent with her photography hobby, particularly the interest in landscape shots. Do you remember, those, Chris? The drives out into the country during the spring so Mom could capture the wildflowers, all that? I only have a few in my album, but they’re so good.
Love the camera… it is one i would choose.
I remember my budding photography hobby. It was only the cost of developing that made me put it away. I often think i will start again with my digital camera, but, as Chris points out, you need a better digital than i have and only now are really good digitals coming within reach.
What fascinates me most is the small stuff, like Chris’s spider (and please, no flash). I also like to play with light….
I have to pause here and say, in all honesty, that i have not spent a great deal of time trying to capture what interests me with my camera. Luke even bought me some close-up lenses and if i had tried harder i think i would have learned how to get better pictures than the few i got. I must, if i am honest with myself, add photography to a too long list of things i used to want to pursue and could pursue now, and wish i did, and do not understand why i don’t.
As for seeing your photos, absolutely yes… As for critiquing them…. are you sure you want that?
Honestly, you can get into the dSLR (Digital SLR) cameras cheaper than I did.
Setting aside the used market (the canon 10D,20D,30D are still out there and are capable cameras), there are other brands of camera.
Nikon is, more or less, the biggest competitor to Cannon. Going by feature set, the Nikons do more than the Cannons, but you’ll see it in the price too. There is a raging debate on which is better between Cannon and Nikon. (I went with Cannon partially for price, but also because they are supposed to be a bit faster on taking pictures)
Anyway, I’m getting myself off track. Two highly recommended cameras come from Pentax: The K100D and K10D.
The K10D is the bigger brother of the K100D. (there is also the K110D)
Here is a feature compairison: DPreview.com
And a review of the K100D and the K10D
Anyway, when people on Ars ask about what camera they should get into the K100D always comes up as a strong alternative for people that don’t want to drop a mortgage payment on a camera. The K110D also comes up as a cheaper alternative to the K100D. The K110D is the same camera as the K100D minus two major features: Internal Camera Shake Reduction and ~$150 cheaper. If all you wanted to do was landscape pictures and didn’t mind carrying around a tripod, the K110D would be perfect. And if you had a really steady hand, you might not miss the Shake Reduction. (for me, I don’t think I could live without it for hand-held work)
I’d also recommend looking into the Cannon Digital Rebel line. The XTi is recommended over the XT line due to feature set. The Xti is a touch under $700 if you get it from amazon. (that’s with a basic kit lens) I was originally planning on a Digital Rebel…. but it didn’t fit my hand well. I figured that if I really wanted to get into this, I wanted something that I could see myself holding for extended times.
One last point: Everything I read about cameras these days has one main point: The body does not matter as much as the lens does.
I was going to put this in the post above, but that thing got longer than I thought it would. Might have been best as a seperate post instead of a comment!
To answer questions:
Yes, critiques are wanted. How else am I going to improve? And I don’t mind constructive critisizm.
Here’s some thoughts on the pictures above:
Nemo.
Could have been better with a light source behind me. The lights above the tank set the light level for the picture… which means that Nemo is much darker than he could have been if he wasn’t back-lit. Lost detail because of that.
Sunset.
I had others of the same sunset, but I liked the composition of this one the best. The trees in the corner add some interest to the photo. But the top right part of the sky is a bit blown out. Cropping the picture to take that out improves the picture to me.
Spider.
This shot came out well. I like the blurring of everything in the background. On auto, the camera wanted to bring all that stuff into focus too, so I went into one of the manual modes to set the aperature lower to get the background blur effect. Otherwise, I don’t think there is much I could have done to make the picture better asside from having a tripod. The lighting at the time was rather good, and using the flash really made the picture ugly. (I tried it to see)
Rainbow.
I really wish I had a tripod for this one. I would have used it and let the camera stay open for just a bit longer to pull in more detail from the rainbow. From my location, I think this was the best composition I could get. To get the light poles out of the picture would mean I’d be zoomed in enought to start cutting out rainbow. To get all the rainbow with the minimum of light poles meant some of the light poles got cut in half… which looked jarring. So I went wide, included all the light poles and even the truck. I think it came out well.
Girl on the Move.
She was on the move when I got this one. It was actually one shot out of about five. This is the one that her face actually came into focus. If you look at the fullsize image, you’ll see that the focus is soft. (meaning not a sharp focus) However, I think it works in this case. For a 4×6 print, you’d never know. Of course, having the floor clean would have made the shot better as there wouldn’t be a large yellow thing distracting us from the main subject.
So.. yeah. Tell me what you *really* think. I’ll probably even post pictures that I think /don’t/ work at all, just to see if ya’ll have a different opinion than mine.
it is just that if someone rips up a picture that pleases you…. I guess if i was taking pictures and had a shot that troubled me i would put it out there for comment. Maybe someone else would see what i was missing. But if i was pleased i would not want someone telling me all the things that could have been better. So much of art appreciation, and photography is art, is subjective.
Perhaps if a photo pleases or troubles you, you should say so… or do as you have done here and explain what you were after. That way if you strive for a motion blur i will not tell you it is out of focus and if you want to catch a tree in silhouette, i will not tell you the tree in the foreground is too dark.
Enjoyed the lecture on cameras… now i need to take the time to look up all the things you were talking about so i can better understand. 🙂