My first digital photograph

Continuing from the last post.. Digital photography.. has got me hooked on to photography. I always had a penchant to photography and videography.. but I never knew I would be so interested..

Before my digital camera, I had a analog film camera, point and shoot, with a 28-70 zoom. The photographs from it were decently okay.. but then nothing like an SLR or a SLR like Digital camera. Moreover the camera I had, started malfunctioning. So anyway that was the story of my old camera..

Then I bought this Nikon E 4300 way back in 2002. This was one helluva camera.. Did a lot of research on the cameras available at that time, considered Kodak, Canon, Nikon, Olympus etc. Finally ended up buying the Nikon. I must have taken at least 2-3 months before deciding on the camera to buy. I did not want to just go and buy any run-of-the-mill camera, neither did I want to pay through my nose to get myself a nice expensive camera. At this point of time, I was not sure whether I had real inclination to use my camera to a great extent. I was sure that I would not use it just to shoot picnic and get-together photographs but put the camera to better use. But the degree of better varies from good to best, and I tell you, its a large range. So my decision on buying a camera was to be based on where I would see myself in that large range.

After lot of research and equal amount of introspection to place myself in the range, I said, I would spend around 400 dollars, for starters. Then upgrade myself to better cameras based on my proficiency at it. So saying I shorlisted couple of them and voila, Nikon 4300 fit the bill, but it was a tad expensive with the flash cards thrown in. But then, I said, I will go for it.

Internet in a way has given us a great platform for getting information at a click of button (okay may be a few). I was just wondering how I could have made the decision of actually buying this camera without internet. But then, this is only an example. I feel, I can hardly do anything without the ubiquitous internet and the computer now. Well that is a separate topic to write about.. will reserve it for later.

Coming back to the camera, finally I got the camera and was all excited. Coming to think of it, the risk element was slightly high. I had actually bought the camera from an internet store. Now we all know how internet can be misleading at the same time it being so useful. So I was hoping that the camera would work, with the fact that I had invested around 450 dollars in it. And it did work :-) Cool.. Loved it.. I could immediately see what I had shot.. wow !!! That's it.. I had stepped into the world of digital photography.

The photo seen here is one of the first photograph I took with my camera on a cold snowy day in Chicago.