The expensive world of photography
Posted by boombadeus on August 12th, 2007 in hobbies, photography
So, we bit the bullet. We went ahead and bought a Digital SLR camera.
I’ve long been interested in photography. When I was maybe 11, I took a summer camp class* on photography. We used manual SLR film cameras with black and white film, learned about exposure, aperture, and even how to develop B&W film and make prints from it. In retrospect, frankly, I was in way over my head. I know I didn’t totally grasp the concept of aperture, and why you wouldn’t just always leave the camera at the widest aperture for every shot. Not to mention with a complete lack of a dark room and equipment at home, I wasn’t terribly likely to be developing my own photos either.
Still, I’m glad I took the class all those years back. And now, with the low barrier to entry of digital photography, I’m getting creative like never before.
I got a Canon PowerShot A700 a little less than two years ago, my first camera with a full manual mode since Age 11. I quickly started messing around with the “creative” section of the dial, including the fully manual mode. I also quickly reached the limit to what the PowerShot A700 could do. I almost won a local photo competition with this camera:
In a sense, it was too good: it whetted my appetite for more.
Then, our friend Scotty got a Canon Digital Rebel XTi with the “kit” lens and also the very nice bargain EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. He let me mess around with it for a few hours over several times we got together and I knew we had to have one. Only instead of the 50mm lens, we ordered the EF 35mm f/2 lens.
It’s good stuff! 35mm on a cropping image sensor camera like the XTi is close to a 50mm equivalent on a standard film SLR camera (about 56mm, ever so slightly telephoto). It’s a much higher quality lens than the kit lens the XTi came with (though still definitely not professional quality). I’m enjoying getting to know the ins and outs of the prime lens and camera.
Which brings us back to expensive. Good glass costs money… and I want some pretty nice lenses! Well… there are worse things to spend money on I suppose. 
Hopefully, Craftyangie and I will have some interesting shots to share and observations here real soon.
* I can’t believe that College Gate and College Academy still exist, after all these years!