Welcome To The World of Digital Single Lense Reflex

Last weekend we had a little family event for my 15-month old daughter. To ensure the occasion was captured correctly, I busted out the Nikon D5000 that had been lent to me by Nikon for review.

I’ve used a number of digital compact cameras over the years, but I’ve never USED a DSLR for capturing a family event. To be honest, I’ve always been too busy with the BBQ or whatever, so I couldn’t walk around with a large camera slung around my neck!

I’m far from a good photographer. I know the technology inside the camera, how it works, what to look for when buying one, but when it comes to lining up the shot, I am, at best, an amateur.

I decided it was better to take a lot of pictures as many would be duds. I was wrong. I would say about five percent of the pics I took had to be deleted and most of these were because the dog got in the way, someone blinked, or the image was blurry because the person moved. Virtually none of the images I deleted were because the camera took a bad shot. I have a 28-inch monitor on my desk, and taking the images at a pixel rate (about 12 megapixels) has made cropping and shaping of my favourite pics easy.

I’m told by the camera industry that DSLRs are growing in popularity as more of us become amateur photographers (I think they mean ‘enthusiast’ photographers, I am already amateur enough). I am so impressed that I’m now in the market for a DSLR. I have some other models to try, such as the D9, and the D3S. With Christmas and New Year coming up I have plenty of places to try them out.