I guess I’ve gone from a little kid who hauls their binky or blanket everywhere to someone who hauls their camera everywhere in hope of The One Great Shot.
When I got my camera bag, I opted for a backpack type, so I could haul my heavy lenses around with me. The Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 (VR) lens (which I should really be leaving at home more often, as little as I use it) and the Nikon 18mm – 105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX (VR) lens are my constant companions. I’m waiting on a Nikon 18mm – 55mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S DX (VR) lens that should arrive in the next week. For the unititiated, VR stands for “Vibration Reduction”, which helps to mitigate the blur you might otherwise get from shaky hands when taking a photograph. At this time, my bag carries those two lenses, a couple sets of filters, an extra battery and the plug that lets me transfer pictures from my camera to either my desktop or my laptop.
That can get heavy in a big hurry.
Most of the photos you see on this site thus far were taken with the 18-105mm lens. You know, it’s amazing how many new accessories I find for my camera. I’ve ordered some 67mm magnifying filter lenses to try to get some better close-up shots with that lens.
It’s frustrating when you’re in close for a macro shot and you can’t quite get the focus necessary to show the dainty details at the center of a flower, for instance, or the detail on a bee’s pollen-dotted carapace. I already have the magnifying filter lenses for the 18-55mm lens, but as they are 52mm each, I have nowhere to use them at present.
My family has shown an amazing amount of patience with my new hobby. As I said in an earlier blog post, I have always loved photography, but that at first, my perceived personal insufficiency affected my self-confidence in using film cameras, and then those fears were alleviated somewhat with the advent of the digital camera. I was still getting blur with the point and shoot digitals, so that hampered me a bit. I’ll admit that when I picked out cellphones, the megapixel count on the included camera was important to me. When my first Blackberry had a flash, I thought I’d hit spontaneous photo nirvana. No more dark pictures taken in odd places. I, too, could make my cat hate me by snapping a photo when s/he was being sneaky! Some pictures ended up blurry, which was annoying, but since I could easily delete the photos that didn’t work out, it wasn’t too much of an issue, but I still wanted clarity and quality with my photos, and the camera phone just wasn’t enough anymore. I needed something else to feed what was slowly becoming an addiction.
However, it was only with my first DSLR that I truly fell madly in love with photography. The Vibration Reduction feature was the bouquet of roses and box of chocolates that ultimately grabbed my attention and made me accept the alluring advances of photography. It sang its siren song to me, and I found myself blindly drawn into its web of lenses, filters, accessories and whatnot. When a lens doesn’t do what I want it to, I start looking for the lens that will meet my needs.
Then I scream into a pillow and try to find a much less expensive alternative.
I have a couple lenses on my wish list. They run anywhere from $500 to $1200 dollars respectively, so they’re not zhowing up anytime soon, which, frankly, sucks, but I’ll learn to live with it and start my lens fund now. With luck, I’ll have enough saved in the next couple years that I’ll be able to pick up at least one of them.
Who knows how long that wish list will be at that point.
You’re still laughing, aren’t you?
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