I created this blog mostly for myself, so that I write down new things I learn in photography, post my pictures explaining how they were taken. I think this information will be interesting to read after a while as details tend to leave memory quite fast. Hopefylly, some posts will be useful to you - my reader. If so, please feel free to add your coments or contact me by email.

About five years ago I bought a new Olympus C760 camera. It is a point and shoot model equipped with a 10 times optical zoom and just 3.2 megapixel. I did a lot of research on the internet at the time of purchase and made my decision being informed about what there was on the market. DSLR cameras were out of consideration back then.

I like this camera despite of its obvious weaknesses as:

1. no optical image stabilazer;
2. high noise in low light situations;
3. not too fast.

I have been using it all the time and frankly I managed to get some pretty good shots with it. I shall give in the next post a few examples of what I shot with Olympus.

Two years ago I obtained a SonyEricsson cybershot mobile phone K800i with 3.2 megapixel. It proved to be a very handy tool for taking pictures when I had no Olympus on me. The lack of optics and other weaknesses could not be left unnoticed but nevertheless, the convinience of ALWAYS having it in the pocket ready to take a shot outweights the very basic quality in pictures.

About a year ago I started to read various photography related web sites, books and even attended a free master class held in a local library. I learnt new things like aperture, shutter speed and how they relate to each other, depth of field and how it can change, lens being fast and not so fast and lots more to realize that I cannot do much with my Olympus any more.

So I made a firm decision to upgrade to a DSRL camera. In my current opinion no point and shoot camera, no matter how advanced it is, can give me what I need. I also did some internet research and found the optimal (to my mind) option - a Pentax k10d. It is rich of features, it supports old lens and it is not very expensive at all. I was choosing among Nikon D80 and Canon 400D.

Retail prices in Russia where I live are 30% to 50% more than in the US, so I asked a friend of mine to bring me this Pentax k10d kit and I also ordered 50 mm prime lens 1.4 to use for portraits.

I expect to get the stuff on the 17th of January and after I get it, I will document here in this blog my experience of learning it from day one. Please remember I have never played with a DSLR camera before, I only held in in my hands for a few minutes in a local store.