The very concept of someone positioning a metal box over me, followed by a blinding flash , leading to my face being imprinted on some glazy paper intrigued me no end, since my pre-primary days. The earliesT camera which I handled , was a Yashica. Cannot recollect the model number now, but it was some time in 1991. Back then, of course, it was difficult, considering the fact that there were no point-and shoot digital cameras, instead what we had were expensive film ! It had to be carefully dismantled, stored, washed, and developed into prints. If you wanted more prints, the stored negatives had to be brought out, scanned for the correct picture, and developed again. No wonder the elders were totally reluctant totally reluctant to give camera to an 8-year old!In any case, developing it as a hobby was just out of question!!
Then came the wonder called the digital camera, during the late 90's . All the hassle of loading the film, developing prints etc were done away with. What you had was a clicking device which with you could click away pictures to your heart's content, and have the liberty to delete it or modify( photoshop) it( limited to your memory capacity, of course!!)But, but, the catch... The resolution range left a lot to be desired and was prohibitively expensive( at least for me). Film was still considered to be in. I had shot with a film camera till 2004( my cousin's Minolta). By 2006, I had managed to stack up some cash, but buying a good point-and -shoot camera still seemed to lighten my pockets. So decided to go in for something that would serve some other purposes as well.. and what better option than to go in for a camera phone???!! So came the W810i, with a 2MP camera.For a beginner, it gave fairly good results, provided there were good light conditions.
Unfortunately, the phone got flicked one rainy morning in the August of '07, after which thoughts about photography were laid to rest for the next 18 months:) Then one day, in the April of '08, dad suggested me to look for a decent cellphone for himself, in his words,"not very hi-fi"! Now this was Godsend , and thus I explained to him that a 3MP camera isn't that "hi-fi". After getting the green signal, I chose the SEK810i, with a 3MP camera. The piece was procured at 10 grands, from a friend of Dad from Saudi. And thus, once again, I ( in a sense) was an owner of another camera.For a 3MP camera, it had quite decent settings, i.e tweakable White balance settings, scene selections, and focus modes(Macro, infinite, auto). It also had an in built flash, which gave out quite a decent output. But what stood out was the excellent macro shots. To sample a few of them:
Apart from the Macros, autofocus was also commendable, and gave out pretty much decent results:
Some quick uploads and some little appreciation coming my way got me interested in the technicalities of photography.'How to do everything with your digital camera' , written by dave johnson(osborne publications) was my first read into the technical aspects. Further more, Darren Rowse's site , is an excellent online resource for beginners, amateurs and professionals alike. And then, as a natural consequence, saw me wanting more( or rather lacking ) in choosing shutter speed, aperture, and a host of other variables. Finally, decided to buy a 'digital camera' , after evaulating my budget.
My criteria of a good buy was pretty much straightforward:
1.Full manual control over F-stops shutter speed, flash output
2. Decent zoom(10-15x)
2. Reasonable budget!
Talking about budget, one thing to always consider when buying a digital camera, is that your initial budget will always tend to escalate . This is because of certain mandatory accessories like a carrybag/pouch, memory cards, tripods etc, that will set you back by at least 2000 bucks depending upon the characteristics.Some manufacturers do give out pouches and memory cards bundled with the entire package, but I guess that's only in case of certain P'n S models.
Two months of constant R&D, and zeroed in on 2 models, sony's dsc-h10( 15k) and Panasonic lumix dmc-fz128(18k). The lumix model had advantages of wider focal length(28mm), as compared to the sony one(35mm), greater optical zoom(15x, as opposed to sony's 10x), and greater MP(10, as with sony's 8). I had almost gone in for the Lumix camera, but to my disappointment, found that there were very very few retailers who kept the Lumix in stock.(07/'09), here in Bombay. In sharp contrast, Sony was available practically everywhere. One idea was to get the stuff from the grey market, but after some discussions with friends, dropped the idea because the benefits in saving a few thousand bucks seemed to pale in comparison to a sturdy 3- year warranty offered by Sony. So that was it, went ahead and brought the Sony DSC-H10 from Vijay sales. Got a PRO-DUO 1GB memory card also bundled with it.
Now one annoying thing was the absence of a good case. Sony's custom made cases were available, but they were too steeply priced, roughly about 850 bucks. Got a perfect case for Rs.400 from E-zone, so that problem was solved. So now that was about the purchase, now to get on to the job.. Photography!!
