Sunday, March 11, 2012

From here to DSLR

Having used my point and shoot Nikon Coolpix S3000 in the usual non thinking about it fashion, I decided to move up into the digital SLR world. I did the usual types of research, googling, YouTubeing and venturing to the local bookstore. Faced with what seemed like more options than a Wall Street trader could shake his fist at, I consulted my all knowing wife. The issues for me were first, what type of camera? second, budget and third, whether or not this was my usual run of the mill quarterly band aid to fix my boredom? Let's digress for a moment. Being 45 and without kids to occupy my 1440 minutes of every day, and having just moved to London, boredom can and does set in. Over the past 12 years, I have lived in 4 different countries, having a network of close friends to drop in on just isn't available. Yes I have friends from work but come the weekend they are all doing what family dads do and should.

So my wife suggested, instead of agonizing over what camera to buy etc, why not take the point and click (p&c) and see what I could achieve with it. The principles are the same although the equipment may be shall we say, agricultural compared to the more modern DSLRs available. This way, I can learn and apply the principles and have some fun along the way. Once mastered (within reason), moving up to a DSLR will be a welcome challenge. A bit like putting in time before moving up to the next level. It also avoids the whole mine field of spending gobs of money on expensive equipment only for it to end up on a shelf or even worse, used as a p&c.

So I went online and downloaded the Coolpix operating manual to see how and what could be achieved and together with lots of reading on ISOs, shutter speeds and apertures, I dove right in.

Over the next few months, I will be documenting what principles of photography I've learned and how i've applied them to using my p&c. The next step will be to go through my decision making process in choosing my first digital SLR. Should be fun. Next post, "The Basics".

1 comment: