Sunday, February 6, 2011

What Have I Done?

This seems crazy. Even for me. But my Nikon D40 has gone wonky over the past few months. Really wonky. And I take pictures every day. Literally. I'm doing a 365 project this year where I'm taking at least one picture a day as a way to improve my photography and an excuse to take random pictures of things that aren't my child. I have been trying different things to fix it but nothing was working. The D40 is pretty "old" in terms of technology (I bought it on closeout when it was discontinued 2 years ago, it had been in the market for several years before that) so Greg finally convinced me to give up on fixing it and just upgrade. So I did. After much internal debate, I switched to a Canon. I'll have to replace one lens and my remote, but I don't think it'll be that big of an extra expense in the long run. The lenses on the Canon are generally cheaper than the Nikkor lenses anyway. But that's neither here nor there.

Today was gorgeous. After a week of total nastiness, the sun came out, the temp warmed up, and I had a Superbowl related errand to run. So I threw my camera in the car, make quick work of a trip to Walgreens, then hit a couple of photographic spots on the way home to give the T1i a test drive.





I should say up front that when I started this project I did invest in Photoshop Elements software and I did throw a few basic edits on these, but I'm not really talented enough to do anything intensive. I'd like the flag picture better if the cloud wasn't behind it. That one will probably get retaken at some point during my project. The fountain is my picture of the day for today. I loved the sparklies from the sun. The last one is a marble globe on campus at MC. It seems like a great photographic subject until you realize it's totally reflective so every picture is a self portrait. And it's scratched up pretty bad anyway. But I liked this shot. I didn't even crop it, just toned down the light some (the sun was BRIGHT today).

I think I'm going to like my new camera. I'll like it a lot more when I get another prime lens to go on the end of it. I've been spoiled by my Nikkor 35mm/f1.8 AF-S. It makes gorgeous portrait and bokeh shots. Going to get a 50mm/1.8 for the Canon, but not today.

2 comments:

Allison said...

WOW! Those shots are beautiful! I think all three shots are great. I'm hoping to visit that globe in person this week. Keep your fingers crossed for me. We might get to do lunch a LOT........

Susan said...

OOOH! Bring it! That would be so much fun! I was wondering which school you were talking to, since there's kind of a limited selection in this area. Wasn't sure if you were heading north or south!