Light, Lines & Color

N is for Nikon (vs Canon vs Olympus vs Pentax vs Sony vs Leica)

When you jump on the digital photography curve and you're looking for your first digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR), there are a lot of great manufacturers out there making great cameras for amateurs and professionals alike. A low-end DSLR with a wide angle or telephoto lens, or maybe even both can be obtained for less than $1,000 and some very high-end DSLRs cost in the 10s of thousands of dollars. More money means more functionality and probably more pixels, but any camera can perform well in the hands of a photographer who knows the equipment. (Gee you've never heard me say that before.)

Back in the days of film, just out of college I bought my first "real" camera, a Nikkormat FT2 and thus my "marriage" to Nikon began. It is true that once you choose a particular manufacturer for a camera, you're very likely to upgrade to other products in their line as you grow. It's very simple, you learn their language, their terminology, their general product engineering, e.g. where the dials are and how you turn the camera on.

Many a photographer will promote the features of his/her camera as better than another and Peter and I are no different. Peter has been shooting Canon cameras for a long time as I have with Nikon and neither of us is inclined to change, although I've made a concerted effort to move him to Nikon in the last couple of years. He just doesn't think Nikon. It's easier for him to pick up his Canon and shoot right away without thinking because he knows innately where everything is and how to operate it on the fly. Trust me this will happen to you too.

Starting out? Choose a manufacturer you trust, that you've researched and the products of which you find comfortable, suit your needs and fit your budget. If you master an entry level DSLR, understand all of its bells and whistles, and how to get results from them, you will be able to truly make an informed decision about what camera you want to get next.

Our DSLR equipment today?

2006 - :  Canon 30D, 8.2 megapixels.

2008 - :  Nikon D60, 10.2 megapixels. 

2010 - :  Nikon D90, 12.9 megapixels.

2013 - :  Nikon D7000, 16.2 megapixels.

G is for Gear

I cannot tell you how many articles I have read on the subject of gear - many advocating the importance of gear (usually sponsored by someone who can benefit from taking that position) and many saying that gear isn't important that it's the photographer's use of the gear he/she has. I happen to fall in to the latter camp. Beautiful, even award-winning, images can be made with low-end DSLRs, point-and-shoots, and even handheld devices like iPads and iPhones. In my opinion, what needs to come first before expensive equipment and gear, is a good working-knowledge of the gear you do have and an understanding of light, lines and color, and how to capture them.

Taken January 2013 with Nikon D60 200mm
Shutter Priority 1/2000 second at f/6.3 on ISO 400

Three and a half years ago I was "downsized" from my job at a Wall Street bank, and thus began my journey deep into photography. My husband joined the digital revolution in the late 1990s and I succumbed in 2008 with the purchase of my first digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR). It was a Nikon D60 kit that included a wide angle (18-55mm) and a telephoto (55-200mm) lens and cost me around $630 which I thought was a fortune at the time. 

Taken December 2010 with Nikon D60 55mm
Aperture Priority 1/8 second at f/7.1 on ISO 400 with tripod 

In the four plus years since that purchase, I have taken an average of 8,000 pictures every year. I have read and re-read the camera's manual returning whenever I wanted to refine an image - learning more and more about the features that could help me achieve the results I wanted.

Taken September 2008 with Nikon D60 55mm
Aperture Priority 1/60 second at f/5.6 on ISO 200  

At first I used mostly automatic settings like Landscape, Sports and Close-up, then I graduated to semi-automatic settings like A (Aperture) and S (Shutter Speed), and last year I began shooting in Manual Mode. Originally I shot on default settings like automatic white balance and matrix metering whereas today I will make choices about these things. I never looked at the images I made in the LCD screen let alone at the histogram, both of which I do regularly these days. If this all sounds very daunting - it isn't. I learned all of this on the "amateur" gear I had, simply by shooting nearly every day and learning what I needed when I needed it. It was "on-the-job-training" - the kind that stays with you.