Now I Just Need to Learn How to Use It

For the last year and a half, my parents have very graciously loaned us their digital SLR camera.  DH and I have a decent digital point and shoot camera that we bought shortly before the Peanut arrived, however there is always that stinking delay from the time you press the button to take the picture to the time the image is actually captured.

Doesn't work too well with a little one. 

We have been saving to purchase a digital SLR of our own.  By saving, I mean asking for Costco Cash (gift cards) when asked what we would like for birthdays, Christmas, etc.  Well, we are almost there.  I am very excited.  Not just to get our own camera, but I found out some very exciting news just last week.  But let me back up.

For college graduation (many moons ago), my parents gave me a very nice SLR film camera with several lenses.  I also used some of my graduation money at the time to purchase a separate flash for the camera.  Needless to say, it's been collecting dust for the last several years, as digital is now the way of photography.  The SLR they purchased for me was a Nikon.  I firmly believe that once a Nikon user always a Nikon user.  In the same respect, once a Canon user, always a Canon user.  You go how you start.  I don't know much about Nikons, or Canons for that matter, but really any nice camera will take fabulous pictures with a little bit of practice.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

So I had these lenses and flash sitting there and we had tried using them on the digital SLR probably over a year ago and they didn't work.  Sad, huh?  All that money wasted. 

Fast forward a year, and I was dinking around on the Costco website, looking at the camera we plan to purchase here shortly, and I was reading the reviews of what others thought about the camera we plan to purchase.  (Not that I was worried)  This gentleman left a novel of a review and he was in the same boat as we were.  He had purchased a Nikon SLR film camera nearly 30 years ago and had purchased many lenses along the way...and he didn't want to have to "upgrade" to new lenses with all the money he had invested over the years in film lenses.  He just happened to be reading a photography magazine on a flight and lo and behold--you can use the lenses and flashes from SLR film cameras on the new digital models (at least with Nikons, I can't speak for others).  The only catch is that you have to have the camera in full manual mode.  And true to what he said, I put my parents camera in manual mode and attached the flash and it works!  How cool is that?

So I have been playing around with the manual modes and using the flash attachment...the nice thing about the flash attachment is that it bounces the flash off the ceiling rather than flashing straight at the subject, which often times washes the person out and creates massive shadows behind the subject.

All that said, being an amateur, when using the flash attachment, it looks like we have no roof or that the heavens have opened up--as there is tons of "light" from above: 

Aren't those chubbys cute, though?

She is still lining up the animals for nigh,nigh.

It seems that for right now, the only good, non blurry pictures I will be able to get of the Peanut when not using a flash (at least indoors) are when she is sitting still.  So, like this:

But this one turned out decently and it was indoors with the speed flash:
 

Outdoor shots with manual settings seem to be the easiest:

Look at all those wrinkles...just keepin' it real.... 

This one is my favorite of the bunch (Daddy is blowing bubbles {bubbaws} and she is quite exited):

That's what I hear over and over from professionals and non-professionals alike, is that the key to really good photos is to take the camera out of auto mode...now I just have to dig deep and try and remember all that knowledge of high school photography.  Things like F stops and shutter speed and ISO.  But it could be fun, right?