Happy Birthday To Me! My new DSLR Canon T4i.

 
For my birthday this year I just wanted a new camera.  I have been saving up money from giving the SAT and ACT tests and knew that if I saved up Amazon gift cards I could potentially get one by the end of the year.  I was very fortunate that my family knew I was wanting a dslr and they all gave me Amazon gift cards or cash towards this.  So I ended up being able to get it for my birthday. 

 

 

I did a ton of research on cameras and basically knew I liked the Canon or Nikon's.  The Nikon's just felt to small.  I know that was a big deal about the cameras and that they are small but I am use to my old slr and I like the heavier feel to the camera.  Plus, when taking pictures side by side, I just really felt that the Canon T4i was the way to go.  The clarity in the photo was amazing.  The Nikon's photos looked really good but they seemed warmer in skin tones while the Canon appeared to have the colors very close to the actual color.  And since I am going to be doing editing after taking photos, I wanted the clarity over having the camera warm up the pictures for me.

The Canon T4i was the most expensive camera I was looking at.  But I did get a really good deal on the camera, kit lens (18 to 55mm), and then bought the additional 55 to 250 mm lens for Paul to give me for Christmas.  I also purchased a 50 mm 1.8 lens which is by far my favorite so far!  Just today I purchased a speedlight and two lens hoods. 

 

I took photography throughout high school and it was my minor in college.  I absolutely loved black and white photography on my old school manual slr.  I loved developing the photos and working in the dark room.  And with dslr's getting so much more affordable I went ahead and knew that this was a purchase I really wanted. 

 

 

 

Now, I will be the first to admit that I have forgotten most everything I learned while in school.  I know the basics of what the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO means and how they work together.  But going straight to manual is a hard jump when I have a camera that does such a nice job on automatic!

 

So the photos throughout this blog are a mixture of manual (usually easier to tell because they don't look as great yet), aperture priority, and automatic.  I have a couple of books that I am reading to brush up on the technical details and am very excited that we will be having an imac soon to work on editing. 

 

So while I have a ton of work to do with relearning my photography, I am very excited to have an awesome camera to learn on!!