Monday, July 1, 2013

New camera preview

Hi folks!

So thanks to the incredible kindness and generosity of my dear bloggy friend Ally, I have checked off half of my first "25 in 25" item: Acquire a DSLR camera. (Check out Ally's post here for more on that — or if you don't wanna click over, suffice to say that she is just freaking awesome.) So now I'm trying to learn how to use it. I've already advanced past the auto settings, thanks to a ton of online tutorials, and am trying to shoot in aperture-priority and shutter-priority modes as much as I can.

So I was going to post a ton of photos illustrating the cool things I'm figuring out. But I shot them in RAW format, and I didn't realize that Photoshop can't read RAW files. It's already pretty close to my bedtime (ha) so I guess that'll have to wait until tomorrow or Wednesday. But in the meantime, here's one of Spazzy that I happened to shoot in JPG. How awesome is this detail?!

7-1-13

Here's the camera. It's a Nikon D3000 and I love it so much. So, so, so very much. It's awesome. I'm geeking out. I've already had to stop myself several times from ordering too many accessories, telling myself to keep it to the bare minimum — a remote, a tripod that will hold it (because my tripod is cheap and flimsy), a spare battery, a snap-on wide-angle lens (which is cool enough to deserve its own post), a lens brush, and a camera bag big enough to hold it all. I've also named her. May I introduce you to Nellie:

Untitled

I thought it was a fun name, because when she does something I'm not expecting (which, given my novice status, is quite often) I can say, "Whoaaaa, Nellie!" Plus it sounds kind of like Ally, so it's a nice reminder of my friend's generosity :)

Do you shoot with a DSLR? What was the hardest thing for you to figure out?

6 comments:

  1. Yay! I used to have a camera just like this. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats! I used to have a D3000 too!

    A few words of advice:

    1) RAW files can be opened in Photoshop. From what I know, shooting in RAW format gives you the capability to do the in-camera editing in Photoshop (exposure, white balance, etc.)

    2) I bought my remote on Ebay for maybe a dollar. It was from Asia, so it took a while to ship, but it worked just fine!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a fab gift - I hope you have loads of fun learning how to use it and that it gives you loads and loads of pleasure :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. HAHA Woah nellie. Great.. eBay was good for accessories for me but I didn't pick up much at all. Can't wait to see you get more use out of it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm one of Ally's friends. I looked at all the images you've captured with Nellie. Awesome! I look forward to seeing more.

    ReplyDelete

Hello, awesome commenter! I love feedback and try to respond to all comments (especially ones with questions) if I can find an email or blog address.

Thaaaaaanks for reading!