The Humans Are Dead

A couple days ago I got my first chance to venture out of the backyard with my new camera. I know, I know… cemetery photos are totally “photography 101″. At least it’s not more flowers and I did make some atempt to stay away from the typical cemetery shots on a few of these. I’ve figured out most of the camera features but I’m still getting to know how the camera reacts to different lighting situations. The instant feedback of a digital camera really helps to speed the learning process becasue you can instantly see how something like changing the shutter speed affects the shot. If a shot is over exposed you just trash it, make an adjustment and take another.

I finally decided on and bought a new camera. I’ve been looking at both the Nikon D50 and the Pentax *istD L trying to decide what to get. I had a Pentax K1000 back in Uni with a macro/wide lens that I loved, but somebody walked away with it. I haven’t done any serious photography since I lost that camera. I few years ago I received a Nikon EM with a couple nice lenses as a gift, but unlike when I was in school, I no longer have easy access to a dark room. So I’ve never even used the Nikon, but of course there is the possibility that the lenses I have would work with the digital Nikon body.

The decision was made when I went out to Circuit City this weekend to check both cameras out in person. Handling both cameras I liked the feel of the Pentax much better. The hand grip on the Pentax has a kind of hollowed out area where your fingers grip the camera which I thought made for a more comfortable and solid feeling grip of the camera. The Pentax is a bit smaller and a lot lighter than the D50 even tho it features a bigger 2.5″ screen.

Now I already think I’m pretty biased towards the Pentax anyway, but the feel of the camera reinforced it. Then I looked at the price. The Pentax *istD L is on sale this week and offers a $100 rebate, bringing the price of the camera to around $450!! I went home to check prices on the web to see if by chance they had dropped elsewhere. I didn’t find any other retailers offering the rebate, so I went back to Circuit City yesterday and bought it and a high speed 1GB SD memory card that was also on sale.

I’ve only had time to mess around with it a little bit, but I have to say I’m pretty impressed. I headed out to the back yard to take a few shots and they turned out very nice.

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