New Camera - Nikon D3200 DSLR

My husband said he had to have a serious discussion with me,

he had to make a decision and wanted to know if I wanted

to be surprised or have some say in it.

Oh, oh.  That sounds like a huge red flag to me!

Never fear, it was not a bad thing.

He reminded me that my birthday is coming up in June

and he'd been putting money aside to give me a great present.

I started thinking about some of his "great" choices from years past:

the matching set of trash cans, on wheels to make it easier for me

to get them to the curb probably leads the list.

It's something you have been wanting, he says.

I start thinking.

No, he couldn't have saved up $10k for a used long arm quilting machine.

What else did I want?

Oh, a camera?

Yes.

(Click to enlarge, they will look better).

I have wanted a nice camera ever since I was a kid.

Not your normal point and click, but a SLR with multiple lenses.

My husband has had one since he was 16 or 17 and it was fantastic.

Now, you can hardly use them since everything went digital. The 

paper and chemicals needed for his dark room are extremely expensive now.

So he saved up and waited for great sales on a DSLR.

Apparently everyone else knew this was coming except me

and I had to get it early, before the great sale was over.

We purchased a Nikon D3200 DSLR that came with two 

lenses, a free class and a coupon for 100 free prints.

I came as a kit so it has a bag as well and we purchased some

extras like lens protectors and a polarized filter.

I have to reduce these for size because Blogger sets limits

so you really can't see how great these look full size.

Even the reduced files look better on my computer than

when I post on Blogger.

It has an auto setting which will do all the work for me

and manual (shooting RAW) that saves all the data recorded

by the sensor when you take the picture. You get better photos

and can adjust it to remove any flaws and control brightness

and contract better than when it's compressed into a JPEG automatically.

In this photo the jar is crystal clear but images are out of focus

in the background, softening it.    Some day I want to get a macro lens,

something that will show the hairs on a grasshopper's legs.

In the meantime, I'll be reading up and practicing with settings as I 

learn to shoot manual settings.