New toy!
If there's one aspect of the Taurus personality I have in spades, it's the rampant materialism; the need to own the newest, bestest, coolest thing. I'm horrible at controlling my shopping impulse when it comes to gadgets and electronics and the like.
I've been making more money than usual these past few months, and always get a decent tax refund every year, so with those two considerations in mind, I went out and bought myself something shiny.
A Canon XSi digital SLR camera. Mmmm. I've been wanting a DSLR for a looong time now. Photography is still mostly just a hobby, but I do tend to take a lot of pictures for the club, and hope to expand my graphic design business into photography at some point in the future. So it's important to have a really good camera. The Sony I got a few months back, while cute and thin and easy to carry around in my purse for everyday use, turned out to be pretty disappointing in terms of picture quality. And my Kodak, while good quality, doesn't have the higher resolution capability that most graphic projects (especially print ones) need these days. I've been wanting something better, that takes really clear, crisp pictures, and gives me more options so I can start to learn real photography, not just the point-and-shoot stuff. But DSLRs are expensive.
As timing would have it, my momentary upswing in income has fallen alongside Circuit City's liquidation sales. And this week, they put their digital SLRs on 30% discount. Woo! Naturally, by now, a large number of cameras have sold out, so the selection was limited, but I got lucky enough that the Canon was still in stock, and after researching SLR types, that one kept popping up as being top of the heap in the range of cameras for beginners on a budget. A sale is all fine and good, but I still wasn't going to shell out nearly a thousand bucks for one of the really fancy ones! The Canon is more than enough for my needs, and in the future I can invest in a better, longer lens to add on to it (or even better, ask for it for my birthday in a few months) once I get the hang of it and do more research. But for now, I'm pleased with it, even though I haven't had much chance to play around with it yet. It took me almost 2 hours just to read the instruction manual. I took a few shots when I first opened it, before reading anything, and even they came out pretty good. Then later, once I'd read the book, it was dark out, so I had to use the flash, which always makes pictures look a little worse. Still, for indoor flash pictures, they're pretty decent. And this is before learning all the tricks of ISO and aperture settings and shutter speeds. I figure that knowledge will take a while, and a lot of trial and error.
This is from this afternoon. The sun coming in the window was a little bright on her, but she's still pretty. :) Also... dirty window. Yuck.
Taken tonight, after reading up a little. I'm going to have to go outside by the pool with them tomorrow and see how photos in natural light come out. You can also kind of see our new carpet in it. It's the green part.
I call this Princess's "I will kill you in your sleep" face. :) I don't think she liked the flash.
I have promised myself that I won't make any more big purchases like this for a long, long while now. I can't afford any more debt! Hopefully my refund will cover it (I haven't actually done my taxes yet. Heh.), or if not, we'll get another stimulus check this year. Otherwise... well, what's a little more credit card debt, right? You only live once. And maybe if I end up using it a lot for work, I can write it off on next year's taxes. *g* Let's just hope I don't wake up tomorrow with buyer's remorse, because all sales are final at Circuity City these days.
I've been making more money than usual these past few months, and always get a decent tax refund every year, so with those two considerations in mind, I went out and bought myself something shiny.
A Canon XSi digital SLR camera. Mmmm. I've been wanting a DSLR for a looong time now. Photography is still mostly just a hobby, but I do tend to take a lot of pictures for the club, and hope to expand my graphic design business into photography at some point in the future. So it's important to have a really good camera. The Sony I got a few months back, while cute and thin and easy to carry around in my purse for everyday use, turned out to be pretty disappointing in terms of picture quality. And my Kodak, while good quality, doesn't have the higher resolution capability that most graphic projects (especially print ones) need these days. I've been wanting something better, that takes really clear, crisp pictures, and gives me more options so I can start to learn real photography, not just the point-and-shoot stuff. But DSLRs are expensive.
As timing would have it, my momentary upswing in income has fallen alongside Circuit City's liquidation sales. And this week, they put their digital SLRs on 30% discount. Woo! Naturally, by now, a large number of cameras have sold out, so the selection was limited, but I got lucky enough that the Canon was still in stock, and after researching SLR types, that one kept popping up as being top of the heap in the range of cameras for beginners on a budget. A sale is all fine and good, but I still wasn't going to shell out nearly a thousand bucks for one of the really fancy ones! The Canon is more than enough for my needs, and in the future I can invest in a better, longer lens to add on to it (or even better, ask for it for my birthday in a few months) once I get the hang of it and do more research. But for now, I'm pleased with it, even though I haven't had much chance to play around with it yet. It took me almost 2 hours just to read the instruction manual. I took a few shots when I first opened it, before reading anything, and even they came out pretty good. Then later, once I'd read the book, it was dark out, so I had to use the flash, which always makes pictures look a little worse. Still, for indoor flash pictures, they're pretty decent. And this is before learning all the tricks of ISO and aperture settings and shutter speeds. I figure that knowledge will take a while, and a lot of trial and error.
This is from this afternoon. The sun coming in the window was a little bright on her, but she's still pretty. :) Also... dirty window. Yuck.
Taken tonight, after reading up a little. I'm going to have to go outside by the pool with them tomorrow and see how photos in natural light come out. You can also kind of see our new carpet in it. It's the green part.
I call this Princess's "I will kill you in your sleep" face. :) I don't think she liked the flash.
I have promised myself that I won't make any more big purchases like this for a long, long while now. I can't afford any more debt! Hopefully my refund will cover it (I haven't actually done my taxes yet. Heh.), or if not, we'll get another stimulus check this year. Otherwise... well, what's a little more credit card debt, right? You only live once. And maybe if I end up using it a lot for work, I can write it off on next year's taxes. *g* Let's just hope I don't wake up tomorrow with buyer's remorse, because all sales are final at Circuity City these days.