First Impressions upon returning to a DSLR

What was I thinking?
So it’s been a solid year & a half since I got rid of my old DSLR. In that time I’ve been trouncing around with a simple Point & Shoot. I knew it could never take pictures the way I could take them with the DSLR, but I figured that it was going to be “good enough” to tell my story. To hell with that last 5-10%, right? Not worth the effort. Or so I thought, anyway.

But when mine & my woman’s camera failed, it brought up these issues once again. I’m sort of a perfectionist, or at least have perfectionist tendencies, so yeah, that 5-10% kept calling out to me.

So, The Girl ended up with the Panasonic DMC-TZ5, and I ended up not going with this, like I said I would, but rather, I went all craigslist on it, and found a used DSLR with a long lens for a good price. Really good. I figured, it would let me “try out” the DSLR setup again without the associated costs. Make no mistake, the setup I have now – should I actually stay with a DSLR – will not be the setup I finish with, but it is acting as a good teaser.

Anyway, onto the images. Turns out, that 5-10% was made for me. I live there. I know these aren’t magazine cover quality images – yet – but I know there’s no way that I could have captured these any other way. The sharpness is a little lacking due to the lack of an Image-Stabilization-equipped lens, but geez, these were taken handheld, with a non-IS lens out to 300mm on a cloudy day (read: higher ISO). The depth of field, it has captured my heart once again. You just can’t get this with anything else:

click for larger versions


So What’d you get?
A guy on craigslist was listing a Canon Rebel XT with a whole sh!t-load of stuff: a 300mm Canon lens, the kit lens (of course), a fisheye lens, filters, flash unit, cards, readers, the works. Yeah, it’s older and doesn’t shoot video, but $300. Hell guys, I figured for that price, even if I used it once and decided “eh,” I could turn around and sell it for profit. I mean, it’s at least $500-600 of equipment.



What Now?
Nothing, really. I plan to get a backpack that will keep the camera at least mildly accessible with the long lens attached, seeing as how that’s how I roll. Got the one in mind already, but I don’t plan to even take that leap until I’m certain – CERTAIN! – that I do want to stick it out with the DSLR; I’m still in the “testing” stages at this point. But with such great new models to shoot now, I am thinking this is more or less a permanent development.