Me N Myself: Happiest Day of my life...

Finally the day came for which I was eagerly waiting since so long, the happiest moment of my life. I bought my first DSLR yesterday :)

I wanted to share with you all on the day I ordered my Nikon D7000 but the first order got cancelled and I thought I should not jinx it :)

I can't tell you guys how much happy I am . Not only this is my first DSLR, its something for which I was waiting since last many years and something which will give the much needed purpose to my life.

Before I write further , I will like to thank my sister and parents for letting me buy such an expensive equipment. Especially my sister, if my parent brought me to this world, you have given me my life Didibhai.

Upgrading from a Point & Shoot to a DSLR in itself should be a major improvement and that being D7000 itself takes me to a different world. (Its a mid level DSLR costing round 62K with lens)

I ordered it on Wednesday and was supposed to pick it by Saturday but could not stop myself and went there Thursday itself :)

Just sharing some initial thoughts. I am yet to take it out in daylight as I picked it at around 7:30 in the evening yesterday . But I already took 300 shots while travelling back from store to my home(around one n half hour trip).

So since I have only shot at night and that too from a moving car with my less than novice technique, I din't have much keepers out of those 300.

I bought it with 18-55 kit lens as any other lens was out of my budget and anyways the reviews of this kit lens were quite good.

1. The first shot that I took after the shopkeeper handed me the cam was the below potrait of my dad and now when I checked on my laptop ,its something I could never take with my P&S, a potrait with just the person and rest all blurred. (The below photo is the cropped version of that.)

2. After that I shot while travelling and that too in low light condition. Since I have never used a cam that could give me any kind of control on Aperture or Shutter , I shot first in Auto mode, which popped out the flash the moment I tried to click.

Don't take it as a negative comment but I found it hunting a lot with me missing some shots. Actually the P&S would have clicked those irrespective of whether it could lock focus properly or not. I am not comparing the quality here, I am just saying that since it has way more IQ then a P&S, it is more choosy :).

P&S would have clicked it irrespective of whether anything is in focus or anything is sharp or not. But the few keepers I had itself gave me the idea that if I had played around with the camera or had been stationary, it would have locked many more shots in near perfect way.

3. Then I switched to Aperture mode and owing to lack of knowledge when I reduced the aperture to say till f22 it increased the shutter speed by quite a few seconds and owing to my constant motion and novice techniques all of them had blurred (although I could still see some interesting light patterns due to its long exposure :))

4. So next I moved to Shutter priority, and again due to my stupidity , I clicked it at fastest possible speed initially and as expected they all were blacked out. Then I reduced the speed and I clicked a series of photos where I can see the scene illuminating as I slowed the shutter.

5. The Viewfinder is AWESOME. Man I din't even checked the live view till I reviewd my shutter priority mode photos and found them blacked out. The Viewfinder is something to die for and I don't think I am going to use live view ever when I have such an amazing view finder.

6. The Camera is heavy but I found it quite sturdy and grip was amazing.

7. Coming from a Canon P&S and with Canon being quite user friendly as far as button layouts is concerned, I found the buttons quite easy to use. And there are so many buttons at the back that I was just wondering if I am ever going to use them :-D

8. Then I shot in without flash mode and man I was hugely impressed. The shots have come too good at times without flash in low light. By good I don't mean keepers but in that low light I never expected it to lock and capture so well and once my technique improves I think there will be many keepers.

Below is my first attempt at Bokeh (about which I will definitely write a post once I get more hang of it)

If I have to summarize in one line then it will definitely be I'm Loving It :)

Since my Di is not here so the only muses that I have at present are my helpless Mom and Dad , who are going to be most frequent subject of my photography.