Friday, January 22, 2010

Day 22: Borrowed Camera

Wow, wow, wow!!  I am in LOVE with the Nikon D90!  I also tried another coworker’s Canon T1i, but it didn’t feel as natural as the Nikon D90.  I borrowing the Nikon over the weekend, but I’m positive this is the camera I want.  The controls are all in very intuitive places and it’s fairly easy to figure out how to use, even without reading a manual.  Overall I just like the feel of it in my hands better than the Canon, and much better than the Pentax.

Tonight I was trying to get used to the new camera but I still shot in manual mode.  For just pulling the camera out, without reading a manual and making a couple adjustments to the settings (I’m still figuring out how where to look to understand if I’m metered correctly since it’s different than my Pentax), the pictures turned out pretty well. 

I can say that I noticed a better quality with this camera versus my Pentax when I use the same settings.  For example, I took this photo in a dark room (all the lights were off since we had just gotten home) while it was dark outside, used my Lightscoop, and set the shutter speed to 1/100, aperture to f/5.6 and ISO 800.  Even without any editing, the camera and flash exposed the picture fairly well, got some catch lights, and didn’t have as much noise as my Pentax with an ISO at 800.Picture 010

And edited:Picture 010_Edit

The other thing I noticed is how quick it responds to taking a picture—or maybe the shutter lag (I think that’s the correct term…the time it takes the camera to capture the image after I push the button).  I haven’t figured out all the focus points yet, since it’s very, very different than the Pentax.  However, I was surprised to get Cooper’s shoe mid-air since my Pentax wouldn’t have captured that.  I wish I would have framed the photo better.  The kit lens has a bigger range (18-105 mm) than my Pentax does (18-55mm) so I was getting used to that as well.DSC_0183_edit

And because our little beagle, Scout, is largely ignored in photos with two kids now, here she is looking all cute!DSC_0204_Edit

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