Thoughts on "Getting into Photography" with a prize.

An email I get often is,

“Hey friend, could I get some advice from you? I am looking possibly at getting into photography and I am considering buying a camera. Any ideas or places to start? Thanks!”

So I thought I might share my story about how I came about my photo gear and some lessons learned along the way.

My first “real” digital camera was a 2 megapixel fuji point and shoot. It was amazing to take a picture and see your image instantly, let a lone print it on your crappy color printer… but still, you could print your photos at home. In November of 2004 I upgraded to a Fuji FinePix 5000, a 3 megapixel camera, for a trip I was taking to Uganda, Africa. It was with that camera I fell in love with photography. I still have it and I’m finding it hard to think of letting it go… even though I can’t remember the last time I used it.

When I decided to get serious about photography, I didn’t start by looking for a camera… I started by looking for an image, scene… something to capture rather. I must have looked at thousands of images posted in forums like flickr reading the info on what lens and body the photo was taken with. It was only when I knew what I wanted to capture that I discovered what tool I would need to get the “shot.” The simple Fuji 5000 had enough to get me started on my journey. Because the image I wanted was the typical African wild safari shots as seen in National Geographic. It had a 10x optical zoom which I knew would be important for my trip. However, it wouldn’t be wildlife I would fall in love with, it would be people. As a matter of fact, the Fuji is the only camera that has produced an award winning image for me which was displayed in Time Square, New York.

So none of this, I need more gear. Gear is good… Vision is better.

My only unseen setback, as I started to develop my craft, with the Fuji, was camera speed. Most point and shoot cameras really lag when trying to focus on a moving object. They also struggle in writing the image to the memory card. This “camera lag” can be very frustrating when trying to take action shots of your kids soccer team or any other fast action/continuous shooting.

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