My new baby

Ooh la la. I am loving my new toy. I still love my D40 and it has served me well but it was time for a little upgrade. After much, much, much deliberation and research in cameras I settled on the D90. It has quite a few more bells and whistles than the D40 and it was in the right price range. I went back and forth between staying with Nikon or switching to Canon. Seems I know quite a lot of people with Canon brand DSLRs which made me think Canon must be better. After some research I learned that's not the case and since I'm familiar with Nikon it just made sense to stick with what I know. The lens it came with is pretty nifty too and my first lens with vibration reduction. Plus the lens is also huge which makes me feel really cool when I'm using it. I think I'll likely continue using my favorite 35 mm most of the time though. Anyways, I am bound and determined to learn how to shoot better in full manual. It takes pretty nice shots in auto like this one.

But I just know it is capable of more! So I've been playing around with all my settings and staying up way too late and I think I'm finally starting to get it a little bit. My biggest challenge has always been indoor shots and, while I still can't get great ones in my basement, they do seem to be improving and they are definitely looking better than the shots I take in full auto. My kids are getting so sick of me. Even Camryn is learning how ignore mommy's constant "hey look over here!" .

One of the things I am most pleased with is being able to take a shot where the kids are moving a lot without all the blur. (Yeah I am totally letting on to how much of an amateur I am. I am just now learning how to take indoor shots that aren't blurry or overexposed.) Tanner rarely ever sits completely still for the 2 seconds I need him to. So I told him to jump up and down on the couch for me to take a picture, which he was happy to do. Usually the hands get the most blurry, but after some fiddling around with the aperture, ISO, and shutter speed I got a pretty decent picture! I can actually see all of his fingers! He's pulling a weird face and the composition could use some work but that wasn't my focus.

Anyways, once again I'm an amateur who is wanting to learn how to take really good pictures. I've always loved taking pictures ever since my parents got me my first little red 35 mm camera when I was 8. I walked around our whole house that Christmas and took pictures of everything I saw. And my dear supportive parents actually paid to have my rolls of film developed. I don't imagine I'll be striving to turn this hobby into a paying job. I don't know that I'll ever have the skills or confidence to do that. There are so many photographers out there and I'm not much for competition. I'm just doing this for me and because I enjoy it. So feel free to give me input on any photos I post!