At Least the Nikon D3300 Made Me Look Like a Real Photographer

I am not a good photographer.  It sucks, any good shots I take are pure luck, no matter what I am using to take the photos.   Back in the olden days, my husband was the chief picture taker of the family and this was with a nice point and shoot, but when the phone’s with camera’s showed up, it has been me using the smart phone camera that takes the majority of the photos.   Our point and shoot is a good camera, but the EASE of using the smart phone means that gets used while the camera sits gathering dust.   This is not good for a blogger.  EVERY single article about making a successful blog tells you to take good photos.  There are screeds of videos and articles about HOW to take good photos.  I really need to pay more attention.

So.  Good cameras cost quite a bit and I had no clue even where to start, until I was lucky enough to have a chance to review a camera made by Nikon called the D3300.

The D3300 is a compact DSLR camera with (according to all the notes) a vast amount of the features of the larger (more complicated?) models.  It features 24.2 effective megapixels and the new EXPEED 4 image-processing engine, for those that know what that means. It comes without a lens and can be used with various Nikkor lenses.  I used the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR  and it was quite good for manual focus, but I still felt better letting the camera figure out what I needed.

 

I think with some lessons and practice, I could probably take and produce some quite good photos. I downloaded the photo-editing software that came with the camera but again, I don’t quite have the know-how to use it to it’s full advantage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took the camera with me to the 2014 We Day event at Rogers Arena.  I thought trying to capture the speakers and singers with both my smart phone and the Nikon would be a good experiment for me. Not to mention it made me actually LOOK like media.  When I first attended We Day, I was giggling at my media accreditation stating ‘Crunchy Carpets.’  There I was with nothing but my little phone surrounded by ‘real’ press ready to meet the likes of Al Gore and Jessie Jackson.  At least with the Nikon around my neck I actually looked the part.

As you can see, the colours in the Nikon photo are much more crisp and rich even with my clumsy machinations.   I am no expert in ‘zooming’ and focusing and cropping and I think my eyesight is going so my focus was actually a bit blurry in reality.   But there are a lot of fun auto settings you can play with.   The  sports setting is great as it is a high speed way to capture moving action.

The biggest problem with this camera is the price and the fact that the  lens is separate and has a MSRP of $249.95 while the camera goes for around $449.95  This camera is an investment and while no doubt worth it, sadly all this photographic fun is too rich for me at the moment.  Nikon does have many other amazing cameras.   The Coolpix P600 looks like it would be more suitable and affordable for the likes of me, and hopefully I can get a chance to try it out one of these days. It has a lens already and has a suggested price of $450.

I am sure the many photogs out there will tell me what I was doing wrong and share their opinions of these cameras with me and I will continue my search for a good blogger camera.