New Camera Day

My hands are up, I’m guilty, I did it, I purchased another camera. The new addition brings my current total up to 9, though realistically only 3 are digital, the remaining 6 being various 35mm as well as pro medium format film cameras (120 format). Now don’t get me wrong, I love my Nikon D40, really, it’s a great camera that takes really wonderful pictures, I’ve just been missing some of the features that are found on more “professional” calibre camera bodies that really don’t make a huge difference to the everyday user, but I am finding more and more that I am wanting these features in a digital slr. Add to this that Christie really wants to learn to use the D40 in order to start taking and exploring photography, and its hard to separate me from my equipment, and it easily adds up to this equation (Ian + new camera = win). It’s a really rare occurrence that a couple can find a common ground through passion for things that go so well together, such as Food and Photography, and Christies passion for cooking has inspired me to really think about food differently. Well its my turn, I’ve got to step it up and help Christie with photography by sharing my passion for it with her, and hopefully become a wee bit better with my communication about the choosing and finishing of the photos as a team with Christie.

So what better camera for her to use as a learning tool than a Nikon D40? Seriously, the Nikon D40 has been my most used camera since I purchased it about 2 years ago, its nice and small, so its easily portable, and its really jam packed with features for a little guy. If you are looking for a wonderful camera that will allow you to jump into the digital slr world, at a price of about 500$ Canadian dollars brand new you cant go wrong (its not much more than most point and shoot digitals), and the difference that a large image sensor makes is just stunning. Point and shoot cameras are great to have, don’t get me wrong, I have one to put in my pocket and carry around for snapshots (a Samsung NV10), but even a 10 megapixel point and shoot cannot give you the quality of a 6 megapixel D40. Why you wonder? Point and shoot cameras use a tiny image sensor, about the size of a stamp, so even at 10 megapixel, it does not record as much detail as a much larger sensor on a digital slr, and the ability to change your lenses doesn’t hurt.

Armed with an empty bank account and a credit card, I set off Monday morning to pick out and buy a new digital slr and surprise Christie when I picked her up at the train station that afternoon with a brand spanking new camera. It wasn’t meant to be, first, the subway went down, so when I got to the store I did not actually have time to comfortably make up my mind. Another day right? I couldn’t do it. Once we dropped Christies luggage back off at her appt, we headed right back out to the store to look as she was excited too. The store was all out of what I wanted (a Nikon D80) and had replaced it with the newer D90, which they were also out of. I almost went for the D300 (1600$ body only geez) but the stores internet was down, leaving them with cash only sales, so I sat on it. Tuesday morning, I decided to check out Montreal’s largest Photo Equipment distributor, L L Lozeau. Wow, I love the place. I spoke with a sales rep for almost an hour, going over what I wanted to do, and what I needed vs. what I did not need. He let me know Id be crazy to buy a D300, and a D90 was just not necessary. The nice salesman actually advised me to save 600$ on a D90 by going for a D80, ½ the price, and it is what I wanted in the first place! Plus the extra money saved allowed me to buy a really nice Micro Nikkor lens, which will do food so stunningly I will want to eat the pictures. I will certainly go back there for any of my photo needs.

Christie has exams all day today, and is busy studying and generally stressing out about school, so she asked me to just write something up about my new, beautiful camera for the blog today, rather than make and photograph a recipe. So, rather than food, I decided to see what I could do with the camera on its first picture. Looking all over for something to shoot, I figured to mull it over in a hot shower… wait…. Found it. So hope you like the first shot with my new spanky, shiny Nikon D80