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Photography … part 1

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Last year just before Christmas I bought a new Nikon D5000 kit from ebay.

d5000-1d5000-2d5000-3d5000-4

Every time I’d bought a new camera over the last 5 or 6 years I’ve wanted to get a DSLR, but I never did solely because of the cost.  Well, I finally decided to pull the trigger and jump in.  The D5000 was a good starter DSLR, perhaps one day I’ll upgrade to something closer to professional, such as the Nikon D7000 (or whatever is out when I’m ready to buy again).

Anyhow, as with most hobbies there are always little things (and not so little things) to add-on, and photography is without a doubt a hobby full of add-ons.  The extra bits you can buy are truly endless.  I think the thing that has kept be from buying too many add-ons is, again, the cost.  You can get lens from a £100 – £10,000, flashes, light boxes, reflectors and countless other items.  Another reason that’s held me back is my current lack of skills to make full use of the kit.

I’ve taken around 7,000 photos with my Nikon since I got it about 10 months ago.  Pretty good going I suppose.  I’ve tried to play with all the features of the camera and figure them out on my own, usually with the help of videos on Youtube or from forum postings.  This has worked quite well for me, but I’m still missing some hands on instructor led sort of learning, professional guidance.

Back in the mid’80’s when I was, well, much younger, I’d taken a photography course while I was an Air Cadet in the R.C.A.C #7 Penhold (Markerville) Squadron.  This was a 2 week course if I recall during the summer camp at CFB Penhold.  Without a doubt, those were was good times.  Anyhow, that course while clearly not working with Digital cameras really got my interest going in Photography.  I remember we’d all used the Pentax K1000, a very popular 35mm camera back in the day.  We’d had to learn to develop our own photos in the darkrooms provided, I’m not sure to this day which was more fascinating for me … taking the photos or developing them and printing them.

Tamron-70-300Oh well, back to the now.  As I said I’ve been adding to my camera collection so aside from the D5000 and it’s stock 18-55mm lens I’ve also bought a Tamron 70-300mm lens.  It’s very nicely priced lens that gets some mixed reviews but I think overall it’s mostly positive.  It’s a decent compromise of cost and quality.   I’ve also got some of the other usual bits, a couple of tri-pods, and a recently purchased camera backpack all nicely compartmentalised for the safe storage and protection of the gear inside.  I’m not 100% how I feel about the backpack yet, but it does work better then how I use to carry my camera and lenses around.  I’m sure it’ll grow on me.

So, in the interest of trying to get back into photography and hopefully end up with better photos I’ve signed on for a two day course with Red Cloud, being taught in Nottingham this coming weekend (Oct 8-9).  The details of the course sounded interesting and designed for newbies and the cost wasn’t out of this world either.

I’ll close this posting off now and hopefully I’ll get more posted shortly after the course with an update / review of the course and hopefully show some photos taken during the course of the weekend..

Watch this space …

Check out Photography – part 2