The New Toy
A few days ago, in a fit of consumerism brought on by the anticipation of a tax return, I went out and treated myself to a Nikon D50 Digital SLR.
I’m not the kind of person that makes big purchases easily — I’d been mulling this one over since last fall. Friends will remember that five years ago it took me nearly 11 months to screw up the courage to go buy a new Honda Civic. A Honda Civic! It’s not like it was a Benz or something; it was the epitome of the sensible car purchase.
Anyhow, my old, manual Nikon FM got stolen about two years ago, something that makes me sick to the stomach everytime I think about it. Despite my inability to make big purchases, I’m generally not very attached to the inanimate objects in my life. That camera, however, was given to me by my father when I was in junior high, and all mixed up with it are memories of him teaching me to shoot and teaching me to develop photos in the darkroom at his ad agency. I’d shot photos with that camera for over 25 years, everthing from high school yearbook photos, to friends’ weddings, to girlfriends, to pretentious self-portraits, and more. Losing that camera broke my heart, and I think I put off getting a new SLR, simply because I didn’t like thinking about that loss.
In the end, though, I wanted to experience the creative outlet of photography again. I’d bought an el cheapo digital point-and-shoot, but it was actually so far from what you can do with an SLR that it made me more frustrated not less.
So, hello new Nikon. Welcome to my life. You won’t ever replace my old friend, but we’ll find some new adventures together.
I hadn’t been able to put it through its paces until this weekend, because I tend to go to work not long after sunrise and get home in the dark. (Hate winter!) I finally got out yesterday evening and this morning to start getting acquainted with the new photographic partner in crime. Here’s a few samples of our output (click on the photos for a larger version):
The Supreme Court at Dusk
National Museum of the American Indian
It takes nice photos, but I’ve still got a lot to learn about this camera, its features, and “thinking digital.” The thought of playing with things like color saturation via camera settings, instead of in the film selection or developing, is exciting. And I can tell that my eye is rusty; compositions aren’t jumping out at me and I took a lot — and I mean a lot – of boring photos today. It’s going to take me awhile to get back into creative shape. And I guess I’m going to have to fork out for a Flickr subscription, because I’ll use up my space on the freebie account in the next few days probably.