My New Camera & My New Blog (An introduction)

My Nikon D90 (she makes me happy)

So welcome to my photo journal. In this blog I hope to record my progression as an amateur photographer, record lessons learned and handy tips I picked up along the way. And who knows maybe even help a few fellow amateur photographers in the process.  I would love to hear your feedback, and please feel free to point out any mistakes I might make along the way or indeed share any tips you yourself may have picked up.

A Little About Me

Me playing with slow shutter speeds

Besides being a novice photographer I am also a Landscaper/ Stonemason/ Artist in Ireland, where I work for myself under the company name Stone Art.

 I also write a creative landscaping blog ‘Stone Art Blog’ where I share many of my passions for art, landscaping and stonemasonry along with anything else interesting that catches my eye.  It was originally for my profession that I decided to get myself a decent quality camera so that I could record good quality shots  of my work for my website.
For the last few years I have been using a nifty little ‘point and shoot’ camera my wife got me. It’s a Cannon IXUS 60 and I must say for a point and shoot it’s a great little camera, capable of taking very nice shots. In fact I still always keep it close to hand and use it for day to day use or on a night out (or for taking pictures of my D90)

My nifty little Cannon IXUS 60 'point and shoot' camera

Deciding on a camera.

So when I made the decision to by myself a DSLR, I didn’t know where to start. So I called on my good friend Google to see if he had any advice. Looking around one name that kept coming up was Nikon. I also emailed fellow blogger and fantastic plant photographer Britt Conley from Photo Garden Bee for her advice. She highly recommended Nikons D60 as it would be great for my budget and requirements. She takes a D60 and a D90 on all her photo shoots.

Taking this advice I found myself a great deal for a second-hand D60 online. Especially in resent years, I am more and more apprehensive about buying online, and fortunately for me, it was this paranoia about buying online that stopped me from being scammed out of €500. I wont go into this, but if you are interested in finding out what happened, or should I say 'almost' happened you can see the detailed message I left on the online sites 'scam watch' forum here. (I must also say, that this does not mean I think you should not buy online, just be sure to be vigilant. I still buy online all the time, especially nowadays for camera gadgets)

Shortly after this I was talking to fellow ‘Stonie’ and Blogger Mark Jurus from Rockin Walls who talked me into blowing my budget out of the water and going for the D90. I can now say I am glad he talked me into it.

First Photos

So when I finally got my Nikon D90 I went from excitement to frustration to joy. At first it all was a bit daunting. In the first photos I took, I could see the potential of the camera, however the photos were…..well, they were pretty crap. I was able to take nicer photos on my point and shoot. But after a little studying on the internet I finally started getting some better shots. Here is the first shot I took on my new D90 that I was actually quite happy with (I wont tell you how many shots came before that one)

Forest Spiral (ISO 450    45mm    f/8    1/60sec)