Hopeless Geek

The wife and I were coming back from a movie two nights ago, the same day I bought my new-to-me camera, and on the overly-hilly road that gets us into the neighborhood we saw a Harvest Moon on the horizon. Well, what else am I going to do with a new camera, eh?

So I got the tripod out when we got home and went out front only to be saddened that no place on the street would let me see the moon because of the houses and the trees. No matter, I thought, we’re on one of those hills and surely I can go to the downslope of the hill and catch it. So I got into my car and drove (because I’m lazy) to the end of the street and then down the main street a bit until I came to the downslope.

I parked on a side street and went to the corner, camera on the tripod already, and started to setup when I noticed a patrol car whiz by on the opposite side of the street. My very first response in my head was “Oh crap, he’s going to bug the crap out of me, isn’t he?” He kept going for a bit and then turned around and whizzed by me again, this time heading to my right. Then his lights (all of his lights) turned off and he parked on the side of the street, maybe 50 ft.

As of today, I’m the proud owner of a Canon Rebel XT. Yep, I’m just a few years behind the curve, but it’s a good camera and it’s right in my price range (well, still a little above it).

The story of why I have it is quite sad, however.

I love my Fuji F30. That camera has, single-handedly, kept me from buying a DSLR for two years now. It may not have the zoom power that I really want, but absolutely everything else about it is what I needed. In fact, I just recently cycled the odometer on it, so to speak, and blew past 10,000 photos. It went back to one. I was so sad…

Anyway, it’s a great camera, but it has a veritable Achilles’ Heel: the lens barrel is not sealed properly and dust gets inside. Large amounts of dust.

Now I’m SLR shopping. The Fuji Finepix F30 P/S (point-and-shoot) is an incredibly great camera, and I’m completely impressed with it and the pictures I’ve been taking with it (and occasionally posting here). However, there are some things that simply do require an SLR with the proper lens and as I get more and more involved with my F30 I’m finding those walls in more and more places.

But, I have a problem. (Of course, this is me.)

I have a budget of $500 (easy) to $700 (hard) to get a camera kit.

I’ve narrowed this down to a short list, but I’m more than open to adding cameras to it:

• Nikon D50 ($500, one lens)

Thus ends day four of being trapped in my apartment complex. Why? Well, you see, this is Texas, the land of two seasons: fucking hot and kind of mild. This year, apparently, a shipment of winter got lost in Oklahoma City and instead of keeping on I40 it took a right and came down I35.

I finagled my way into a Fuji F30 for Christmas, and I have to say that it’s easily the nicest P/S camera I’ve used. The way it handles getting some kind of usable photo in any light condition is amazing, but the detail it can pick up when used in good light is just astounding.

For instance, look at the fur in the nose area of this shot at original size:

Yes, you do, in fact, have to know a little about photography to get something out of this camera in a lot of cases, but since I do happen to know a bit, I’m happy to have a camera of this quality and ability that fits in my pocket.

Watch the Flickr feed or the metablog for more shots as I take them.

When I upload more than ten photos at a time to Flickr, the metablog will only show the last ten.

A holiday message from a photo geek: using your flash correctly is rather easy and quite worth it. Just knowing what each mode does will improve your photos as you’ll know when to change that setting; the camera will do the rest.

A lot of folks keep flash use simple and use the flash indoors on automatic and then turn it off in bright daylight. That’s functional, but you can do better. It’s not much more work at all to use the right mode for the right shot. You don’t need a light meter or anything involved like that, just a good camera and about three seconds before the photo to do the right thing.