UPGRADE!

You are looking at the proud owner of a brand new Nikon D3000 SLR camera!  That's right, peeps.  This chic FINALLY upgraded from her Kodak point-&-shoot to her first SLR and she could NOT be happier!

I have been really considering and saving for a new camera for about a year now.  I really thought I would end up with a Canon -- for some reason I just was leaning toward a Canon.  But I've heard really good things about Nikons, too, so I wasn't opposed to having one of those either.  This Nikon deal just kind of fell in my lap when Jeff got an email from TigerDirect with an online 48-hour sale on this camera/kit.  After reading the reviews (all of which were really positive), I decided that this would be the perfect first SLR camera for me.

I've only had this camera for 5 days, folks.  So I still feel like I know NOTHING about it -- there are so many "bells & whistles"...I'm sure it will take me until Jesus comes back to even figure out all those but hopefully, in the near future, I will have enough knowledge and be comfortable enough with it to really take advantage of it and come out with some really nice photos.

Since getting it on Tuesday, I've had very limited time to "play" but I will show you a few photos that I've taken with it.  I'm amazed everytime I discover something new about it so the photos I take to "practice" with that new knowledge are really kind of ordinary but hey -- you gotta start somewhere, right?  :)

Everyone knows that I am NOTORIOUS for "self-portraits" as seen here.  :)  I've gotten pretty good at them and while it does appear that I cut off my chin in this one (give me a break, peeps, it's a brand new camera!), I think it has a certain artistic style...yeah, we'll go with that.  :)  Anyway, the camera has a "retouch" feature built right in to it that will let you do some basic editing to your photos before you even upload them to your computer.  The following photo is this same one but I used the "color balance" option under the retouch menu:

Pretty neat!

The next image is 2 photos I took using the manual focus -- I.love.this.feature!  I haven't worked with it enough to really be good at it yet (I forget about it since I didn't have that option before, only autofocus, and some of my photos end up blurry before I remember to focus them with the manual) but it does wonders when I'm trying to make something in the foreground or background sharp (in focus) while everything else around is blurred.  That's something I had to work REALLY HARD to accomplish with my Kodak and I love how simple it is now with this Nikon.  The photo on the left has the flowers in the foreground in focus while the photoframe in the background is blurred. The photo on the right is the opposite -- the flowers are now out of focus or blurred and the photoframe is in focus.  I did take these photos without flash so they're not even as crisp as they should be but you get the idea I was going for.

That's so cool... :)

The next photo was strictly just me taking a photo, on "auto", with flash, just a normal photo.  Nothing fancy.  But I think it came out really cool.  Like I had a spotlight on the flowers or something.  But I didn't.  It's really amazing to me how dramatic everything is with this camera vs. my other one...

Okay, one more photo.  This is the very first photo I took with my camera after I got it put together.  Before I knew anything at all about it.  While I was waiting for the camera to come, I wondered what my very first photo would be with it.  It shouldn't surprise me that I would take a photo of my most favorite person in all the world...

Aw.  :)