I’ve had an itch for the past 2 months and yesterday I finally got around to scratching it.
I’ve been playing with cameras as far back as I can remember, I tended to have a knack for getting good shots every now and then, so I was usually the one handed the camera for outings and family get-togethers.
When we moved to the states my dad gave me access to his Nikon F2(?). Now this is a very manual camera, the only automatic thing about it was the analog light meter in the view finder. So I got lost in the world of (iso, shutter speeds, apertures, f-stops, exposure compensation, etc). I learned from trial and error how things worked. Now don’t confuse this with technical know-how, I’m still perplexed by the things like setting “push processing” and manipulation of exposure compensation, etc.
Eventually I stumbled into the land of timed exposures and night photography. I love playing with light and perception, a friend and I once traded “trick pictures”, he sent me the standard (double exposure) ghost shot of himself standing in his room, so I followed up with my own, except I upped the stakes because I was able to get half my body fading in (this is much harder to do, you can see the pictures I’m talking about at the end of this post). Since then I’ve slowly nurtured a love of photography.
In 1998’ish I got my first digital camera the Kodak DC260, and boy did I have fun with it. Some of my earliest trick photography was done with this camera. (see the album at the end of this post). I had some fun with long exposures and a flashlight. I also wanted to play with high speed photography (freezing something in space).
Then around 2000, I upgraded to a Nikon Coolpix 990 which was a more professional camera, but it had some problems. It suffered from a very slow response time when taking a photograph (so I ended up missing some good shots), it didn’t handle low light very well, and it was not very portable (it needed its own bag). One place it excelled at was macro photography, I’ve gotten some really good nature photography (when there was ample light), and it’s swivel lens was useful to getting some odd angles. I used this camera all the way up until I moved to Australia, but in general, it’s use was depreciating.
I’ve been wanting a new camera for a while, but have had the hardest time trying to find one that met my needs. Either I’d find a camera that met all but 1 or 2 of my requirements, but that was enough for me to keep looking (and it didn’t help that some thing better was always just on the horizon).
Since I was moving to Australia, I knew that I’d have a lot of free time, and I was in the market for a camera, so I decided to not bring my Nikon 990 (bad decision, do you know how painful it is to experience so many new things and not have a camera with you..GUH!!). I was relegated to borrowing Kristen’s camera when possible (and it is one of those pocketable point-and-shoots that allow very little artistic play).
So here I am, itching to get a new camera, working with a (small budget), and my most recent “just released” camera option turned out to be a flop (it had the good 10x zoom, high ISO, anti-shake, etc) but absolutely no manual controls. (that was a deal breaker, argh!). I’d LOVE to get my hands on a nice digital SLR (like the Nikon D70) but the reality is: I’m in Australia, next to the beach, the outback, flash rains, etc. I need something flexible, portable, and won’t make me cry if it happens to drop off of Uluru. A nice digital SLR does not fit this description. You normally need different lenses, extra batteries, cleaning equipment, large carrying bag, etc. So I compromised. I got my self a small portable camera, that still has manual controls, 6x zoom, built in creative color filters, and an acceptable low light sensitivity. The Canon PowerShot A700. The only thing missing was an image stablizer.
So be forewarned, my photo galleries are about to start filling up as I get more comfortable with my new toy 🙂
The ghost photos I traded with a friend
My album of time lapse photography