For my 40th birthday, Stephanie got me a great new DSLR camera. I’ve been dithering around about wanting one for quite a while, but hesitated for a couple reasons; I just got a new camera in 2006 and kinda felt guilty about wanting another so soon. I also couldn’t decide what I wanted – compact or DSLR. I carry my point and shoot everywhere with me, and take tons of photos, and was afraid a DSLR would be too bulky to have with me at all times. I was also hesitant because it’s been 20 years since I last took a photography class and taxed my brainz with apertures and shutter speeds and such.
But at the same time, I’ve really been feeling the limitations of my point and shoot camera, and wanted to take better pictures; to shoot photos with greater depth of field or in low light situations that compact cameras really don’t handle well.
For a long time I’ve been reading reviews, looking at stats on Flickr about camera usage, and lurking around the websites of photographers that I like and learning about what equipment they carry.
For a long time I had my eye on the Canon G9, a high-quality point and shoot. I also considered the widely popular Canon Digital Rebel series, but never could quite bring myself to go that route, given the $800+ price tag. That’s quite a bit beyond what we spend on birthdays or Christmas, and is hard to justify spending on something recreational when we’re trying save all we can.
But my birthday rolled around, and Stephanie completely vetoed my campaign for a new toilet for the upstairs bathroom. I couldn’t decide what I wanted at all. And then Digital Photography Review came out with this review on the Olympus Evolt e420 DSLR Camera. It was highly rated, small and light-weight, but a real DSLR. And it was under $600. That’s still a lot of money for a birthday, but I only turn 40 once. And it’s cheaper than a mid-life crisis sports car.
The e420 is pretty great so far. It’s quite light and easy to carry around, although bigger than point and shoots. There’s a lot I need to learn about it, but it takes some pretty great photos so far. This is a shot I could never have gotten with my old camera, which would have flattened out:
A nice night shot that wouldn’t have come out:
And the colors are really rich:
I’m looking forward to really digging in and learning how to use it.
happy birthday!
sometimes having an excellent tool is so, so worth it even if the monetary cost is high. if you think of the money spent on that camera, and then think of an equivalent amount of money spent on gas to commute to work, the personal value you’re getting out of that money is incredibly high by comparison.
in other words, a wise investment.
You’ve always seemed to take great photos whatever device you were using.
I love my Canon Rebel SLR for serious picture-taking what with its good zoom lens etc.
My latest photo “discovery” is my iPhone which I naturally take everywhere and takes surprisingly good 2 megapixel photos. I love the integrated Email so that if I see something interesting, I can send it off to friends easily. People are getting lots of “pretty flowers” pictures these days…
I love the instantness of the iPhone, too. I’ve been snapping a pic and sending to my blog via Flickr for instant documentation, then adding the link to the Flickr set of photos to the same post from my camera later when I have them downloaded.
Thanks for the info about sending iPhone pix to Flickr – I didn’t know you could do that! I’ve got it set up now…
I don’t have a blog yet although I do own the domain name of AdvanceIndianapolis.com 😉