Well, that's not completely true. It actually arrived on Monday but I didn't get an SD card for it until I was sure what type it needed. Since the card arrived this morning the camera, as a functioning tool to take pictures, has now arrived.
Technically, its a Nikon D3100 DSLR with an 18-55mm image stabilised lens and a 55-200mm telephoto lens.
Precisely what that actually means is: I now need a photography course. The 18-55mm is good for close up and the 55-200mm is an optical zoom lens.
I have wanted one of these for a while. I have always wanted to take low light photos - moon with clouds, fog, or motion blurred shots - star trails or waterfalls. This is quite hard to do with modern digital cameras. Since these new cameras are designed to take a sharp, focussed image in as many situations as possible, it tends to take control and restrict what you can do. For instance my previous camera had a starry night mode which would allow up to 60 seconds for the shutter to close. This was alright for night shots with no artificial light anywhere, but you could not use it in otherwise.
Needless to say I got a few completely black images or some washed out images.
So the plan is to learn how to take some long exposure pictures with deliberate motion blur - either sky shots with star and aircraft trails, or landscape with flowing water, or even just low light shots. I would like to get a good photo of the moon...
Our company rewards staff with a gift after 21 years service and since I hit that milestone on 11 Jan 2014 at the start of this year I decided that I would get a DSLR as my gift. Since I am now not going to hit that mark by 7 weeks I decided to jump the gun and get the camera for my birthday.
Now, just have to figure how to use it on any mode other than automatic.
