Lets have a moment of silence.

An end of an era.

Today marked the final leg of this era– NIKON era. My Nikon Coolpix4500 has been finally put to sleep. I suppose it was about time; over a few months ago I lost the button that was used to snap a picture. I replaced it with a shinny brass thumb tack, several times. I applied tape to keep it in check. Next the entire power button housing completely came off. This was traumatic as I could not even start the camera up. So I glued it back in place ant then when it dried, I could no longer turn the camera on. I was so saddened. I needed a camera to shoot pictures for the Dlb’s graduation party, as I was pulling it out of the case this frozen button came completely off and exposed the connectors to turn it on. I found a paper clip and used that to trigger the camera on. It worked for a few more images and then that is when I struggled with the concept to invest (read INVEST) into a digital SLR. I was so pleased when I got the ok from the dlb (she is sooo supportive of my creativity). I began looking for a camera. Last week I narrowed it down to a Canon EOD 30D. This camera does everything I need it to and even though its an 8.2MP, its an SLR! (8.2MP with a Canon CMOS is completely different than a 10-12MP camera with a CCD or a point and shoot; think film size, its all about the size of the CCD/CMOS) I have not used a real SLR camera in over 7 years. The last time I really used one was when we rented a 20D and a D2x from the local commercial camera shop.

Yesterday my package came and I could not think straight. I was sweating all day waiting to come home and bust it out of the box. I was so excited! This was my first real big camera investment since the purchase of my 4×5 9 years ago. I was able to get a nice price on it with a nice lens. This kit came with a lens hood, and a 2GB card (133x). Image #1 with this camera was of Dreamy; it had to be. She is my inspiration.

This image was what the Nikon looked like this morning. It was so banged up from over 5 years of images. Just today I noticed that I took over 5K images with this camera. Here is a close up of the button that was broke; notice that I had to make sure the contacts were in the right spot to take a picture.

Here is a picture of me, the last picture this camera took. And here is me with the new camera. Follow the Photography link at the top to see the first few images I took last night before sun down. This weekend I am bringing home some of my studio lights and having some fun with them.

Welcome to the new era of DanMerk.com!