Taking the Plunge

In four hours or so I should be the proud owner of a Nikon N80 SLR camera, and a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens. This is considered the 'normal' perspective lens, with shorter lenses being wide-angle, and longer being telephoto. Following the advice on Photo.net, I'm starting with a normal perspective lens and expanding from there. Philip Greenspun points toward wide-angle next, but agrees that some people have more interest in telephoto. I'm a telephoto guy, after trying to take 'distance' photos of Kelly at her recital .

I've got two goals. Goal one is to learn to think more like a photographer. Getting used to SLRs and having to think about at least a few of my shots may tend to improve my yield of 'good' photos. With my digital camera, the controls are awkward, but the gratification is instantaneous, so I tend to just point and shoot at anything.

Goal two is to get somewhat better 'archival' images than I can currently get with the digital camera I have, or the digital cameras I can afford. Assuming I can get one or two worthwhile images per roll, I want to be able to blow them up and display them, at work or in the den at home. I'd also like to be able to take a few informal portraits of Kelly without hauling her off to the photo studio. With a reasonably nice quality zoom such as the 80-200mm f2.8 or a fixed portrait lens, like the 85mm f1.8, I at least stand a chance of doing that at home.

As with any of my toys, there's always the chance that it'll sit on the shelf after the thrill is gone. But the experience is half the fun, so I'm not worried about how long this lasts. In the short term, my goal is to shoot, at least a roll a month, and think about the results. We'll see if this grows or stagnates from there.