My first week with a DSLR: Nikon D40

When I bought my first camera, I knew the type of pictures that I wanted to take. My budget was tight, so I bought a Fuji point & shoot. It took great pictures that were sharp and vivid, but the pictures didn't come out how I wanted. A year later, that camera was dropped and gave me the perfect excuse to buy a better one. I went up a notch and bought a Panasonic DMC FZ8, which gave me manual controls, could shoot in RAW, and had a wicked 12x zoom. The style was getting closer to what I wanted, but it still didn't look like what I imagined in my head. Fast-forward a year later, specifically last week, when I bought my first DSLR: a Nikon D40.

"I felt like I had lost those memories."

It was a mix of wishful thinking and photography ignorance that led me to buy my Panasonic. I was hoping that having Manual controls and the ability to shoot in RAW was the advantage of having a DSLR so I was trying to save money. And I didn't know that the lens makes the camera, not the camera's features. I found that my pictures, while sharp and vibrant, were coming out flat, or with little depth of field, which gave them a point & shoot feel.

My wall of defense crumbled Christmas Eve. I took hundreds of pictures while opening presents (yes, we open them on Christmas eve) in a medium-lit room, and they all came out extremely noisy and under-exposed. I felt like I had lost memories

I know that I could have used the flash, but I can't stand the look of pictures that were taken with a cheap flash. A month later, at a birthday party, there was a sequel to this tragedy. 

While looking at the latest batch of pictures, I said no more! I'm still cheap, but I knew that the only way to get the pictures I wanted was to get a DSLR. I'm not ashamed to say that I shopped by price: I went on a few camera store web sites, clicked view all, then arrange by price. What I found was that the Nikon D40 was one of the top two or three. Like I did with my previous cameras, I Googled the D40 for reviews and picture samples. The pictures were exactly the style I wanted to take. A day later, I was looking for stores that had the camera in stock. Long story short, I walked half an hour in the snow after work and picked up my first DSLR.

"Long story short, I walked half an hour in the snow after work and picked up my first DSLR."

It's going to be a week tomorrow and I have easily taken 500 pictures, 75% of them making me smile with glee at the clarity, lack of noise, and depth of field. I haven't even scratched the surface of this new world of photography, but believe me when I say that if you have any inclination to buy a new camera, make it a DSLR. If you cheap on a budget like me, make it a Nikon D40: it is light, very easy to use, and a review favorite.

If you were able to make it through all that, take a minute to check out my growing Flickr gallery and let me know what you think.