Behold.
She (note the female pronoun!) is a Nikon D3100, but I refer to her more as my ‘baby’, ‘precious’, or ‘don’t you dare touch, she’s mine‘. I think I even sound a little like Gollum when I say that last one.
She went on her first workout at the park on Sunday.
We went with friends…(one is taking this shot with extra special permission!)
… and Keira was mildly amused about the whole thing.
As many of you will know, I’ve been talking about upgrading for a while, collecting kit quotes and trawling price comparison websites. I finally bit the bullet after Blogopolis, but I wouldn’t say that alone triggered the jump – however talking with professional photographer Fiona was invaluably helpful.
I won’t go into the story of how I played off one store against the other – and involves a still rather unconvinced husband – but in the end I got a good deal with 12G worth of memory cards for the price of 4G. My lens is the basic 18-55mm and I am fine with that. Got to start somewhere and I can upgrade when I have the money (which will be a while yet!!). The video quality is fantastic (I filmed my upcoming vlog on it).
I had hoped to begin a photography course this week at the local living and learning centre, but it was booked out, alas. Last night I went to bed with the thick manual to try and familiarise myself with all the functions and got a bit overwhelmed. I think it has more technology than the Apollo 13 did. I daresay nothing will overcome that quicker than a bit of practice and experience.
In a nutshell, my top tips for buying a new camera
- Shop around and get printed quotes (I only got the price I did because I handed over one quote and said ‘Can you do better than that?’)
- Talk to people who have cameras and ask for advice (that includes you fine people, thank you for your help!)
- Go into the store and hold/test them out. My cousin told me that because “If you’re going to be spending any amount of time shooting with it, you’ll want to be pleased to be holding it.”
So there you go. Hurrah!
