My Wonderful New Toy :D

For those of you who don't know, for years now I have wanted to get into photography. Any time a friend of family member has a DSLR, I eagerly offer to take the pictures for whatever the occasion. However, these cameras are extremely expensive and I've never had that kind of money to blow... BUT... thanks to some birthday money, some money I'd saved up, and selling a few things on KSL, I was finally able to afford one!!!

I got the most entry-level DSLR you can get (Canon Rebel XS), but hey... I am quite pleased with it. Also, since I have a ton of friends in photography (comes with the territory of working in film) I sought out many opinions on cameras and lenses. I initially was going to buy this awesome package deal online that came with the camera body, two lenses, a carrying case, a tripod, a memory card and card reader, a battery and battery charger, and a few other odds and ends. It sounded like a good deal... but right before I bought that one, I ended up chatting with another photography friend who told me that those lenses are "pretty much crap." He said that they were the stock lenses, cheaply made, and wouldn't last as long. So, I told him my budget and he recommended two different lenses instead.

Thanks to the beauty of Amazon, I was able to buy everything separately and pay almost the exact same thing. (I didn't get ALL of the odds and ends that the package had, but I got most of them). But instead of the 'crappy' lenses, I now have two very nice ones! Well... one at the moment. The other one still hasn't come yet...grr. Actually, about half the stuff still hasn't come yet; but I suppose that's to be expected - I only ordered it this past Thursday.

To my surprise the body, 50mm lens, and memory card all came on Saturday - just two days after I placed the order! However, I thought that the body came with a battery and much to my dismay, I was incorrect in that assumption. Luckily, (and thanks to facebook) I was able to locate a spare battery from a friend of mine and am using that til the end of this week. He saved me!! It was *torture* having the camera but not being able to use it!

I went out for quite some time yesterday and photographed a ton of flowers at the nearby cemetery. I don't know if this is a Utah-only thing or if Virginia is just weird, but here, Memorial Day seems to be treated more as a blanket "remember your loved ones who have died" day rather than honoring veterans and those who died in war. Anyway, for that reason the graves here are covered with flowers on Memorial Day. And it had also been raining 3 days straight at this point and I really wanted to catch the water droplets on the flowers before it all dried up.

I then spent about 2 hours today up the canyon becoming better friends with my camera. I'm still not a pro at the right shutter speed and aperture, but I feel that I am catching on rather quickly. Only time will tell. :P

Anyway, the pictures that are scattered throughout this post and below are some of the ones I have taken in the last 2 days. If you want to see all of them, just go to my facebook profile and the link should be right there. :)

PS, now that I have a reason to post again, expect more frequent posts from now on. :D