A close up photo of me wearing a red dress and a number of big pearly bead necklaces. I'm grinning/ smirking and my hair is a little bit wavy.

New camera!!

Photo of Nick looking through the viewfinder of a Canon EOS 1000D.
We bought a new camera the other day! I’ve been pining for a DSLR for years, and when we came across a good deal (posted by one of our Twitter friends) we basically rushed out to get it! It’s a Canon EOS 1000D, just an entry level camera, but I think it’s a good place to start especially when I’ve completely forgotten all the stuff I knew when I was using my Dad’s old Minolta SLRs when I was 14.

Photo of a big bowl of delicious looking vegetarian laksa.
I’m looking forward to learning more about photography and documenting things with a lot more… finesse. Like dinner. This dinner, a monumentally frigging delicious bowl of (vegan) laksa from Loving Hut, was very worthy of documentation!

Photo of a single serving of vegan passionfruit cheesecake on a big square plate with black "fishscale" pattern bordering it.
Likewise, this passionfruit cheesecake (cheesefake!) was scrumptious.

Macro photo of rain droplets on a window with blurry dark shapes outside.
It’s been really rainy in Brisbane for the last few days so my photo taking opportunities have been somewhat hampered. Lucky I like taking photos of rain drops.

A macro photo of a multistrand turquoise beaded necklace with a broken thread poking out of the tightly beaded rope. The offending single bead sits in front of the necklace.
This is what happens when you jump around too much in your favourite necklace :(

A close up photo of me wearing a red dress and a number of big pearly bead necklaces. I'm grinning/ smirking and my hair is a little bit wavy.
I’ve been experimenting with lighting and whatnot… it’s pretty challenging doing self portraits while fiddling with all the settings. I set my tripod just a bit too high, whoops there goes my double chin.

A portrait of me wearing a red dress and multi strands of pearl necklaces, one with a big ivory bow at the side of my neck. The colours in the photograph are faded and a bit dreamy.
Nick had a go at taking some photos and I really, really liked this one.

Photo of a bunch of splatters of light projected on a wall in the darkness.
As fun and awesome and exciting as the new camera is, I won’t be neglecting my iPhone camera… it’s just so handy. However, I am really looking forward to getting a 50mm f/1.4 lens in the mail in the next week!

Do you have any DSLR photography tips or links? I’d love it if you shared them, I have a feeling I’ll be pestering all my photographer friends a lot in the next few months. I really don’t want to shoot on the automatic modes (mostly because this model won’t let you turn off the flash in those modes, ewww) so I’m looking forward to experimenting and picking brains!

9 comments

  1. love that self portrait image!
    as i’m sure you have photoshop, shoot in raw format, that way you can edit your images much easier and better in the raw dialogue box that will open up in ps :)
    they are much larger file sizes though so you might need to invest in a bigger memory card

  2. I’m a graphic designer and photographer (please check out my Facebook page ‘Fiona Pagnozzi Photography’) and just bought a new Speedlight flash for my DSLR. I’ve always been a natural light photographer but now need a flash for weddings, so I’m experimenting too (plus YEARN to buy a decent lens – jealous of your 50mm purchase!) I’ll be posting my flash-fuelled experiements on my Facebook page soon, so please like it! (everybody!) haha.

    I’m pretty sure like me, you would have your photographic style down pat. But I’m ALWAYS learning new things about ‘technical photography’ so I’d be interested in any tips and tricks you find too.

    Stay beautiful!

    Fi xoxo

  3. I just bought a canon eos 550D DSLR but it’s wrapped up under the christmas tree! So tempting to give it to myself early but I don’t think I can explain that to my husband or kids lol

    Such a HUGE upgrade from our little sony cyber shot.

    Have fun with your new camera :)

  4. External flashes are awesome! Make sure you use rechargeable batteries with them, they recycle much faster.

    Using stroboscopic flash is really fun.

    If you shoot with Canon, the 50mm f/1.8 lens is almost as good optically as the 50mm f/1.4 and usually less than $100.

  5. My dad had an old Minolta too!

    Shoot in RAW, import in Lightroom. An amazing app. Great for sifting through thousands of photos.

    A cheap homebrand cabled shutter release button is *really handy*, stops camera wobble and you can lock the shutter open for longer bulb exposures.

    I recommend a decent Hoya or B+W UV filter on your expensive lenses. A filter is cheaper to replace than a whole lens if something stabs it. Also lens hoods are fantastic. (Reduced flare, increased contrast, added protection.)

    A $10 reversing mount will turn your lenses into very cheap macro lenses!

    I find that putting my hand at an angle in front of the built in flash (bouncing it off the ceiling) gives nicer flash results without having to buy an expensive Speedlite.

  6. Tipz:

    – Use Adobe Lightroom for postprocessing raw images & file management!! Editing raw is one of the main benefits of using a digital slr, and the canon raw software kind of sucks. There are lots of presets for it you can download from the internet or create your own. I love this program and barely ever use photoshop anymore.

    – Pick up a copy of the “… for dummies”/”complete idiots guide” for your camera’s model or the closest one in the series… This really helped me master the manual features when I first began using digital SLRs, cause the manual is pretty brief.

    – Mastering the manual functions is really important, but don’t underestimate the program (P) mode!! You _can_ toggle flash on and off and adjust most manual settings outside of aperture and shutter speed, or allow the camera to choose all the settings. It makes all the difference if you don’t have the time to set up your shots. I shoot weddings sometimes and use P almost exclusively with little adjustments here and there. I usually only use full manual when I’m shooting at night!

    – A 50mm lens is just about all you need! So good choice. I love mine :)

    – The canon remote shutter release is relatively cheap and since you take lots of outfit photos it will come in handy!

    – I think one of the most important things you can do is learn how to properly white balance. But if you shoot in raw you can do all of that in post, losslessly.

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