My very first camera was a Sony DSC-N2. It was a very nice camera, with tons of settings and a neat little touch screen! After a while, for some reason my flash decided to quit on me. It would flash every now and then, but the pictures would come out white or black...so it still didn't "work"! :) I took lots of pictures of my family indoors so no-flash wasn't good. Sometime around November 2008 a friend of ours let me borrow his Nikon D40 camera. That was so exciting! I was snapping pictures everywhere, thoroughly enjoying the professionalism of a DSLR! :-D (To see some of my first pictures, go here) Since I was used to a hand-held camera, switching lenses and everything was some work but I didn't mind! I had to give the camera back sometime before Christmas and I very soon lost my interest in taking pictures after going back to my Sony camera. Daddy saw it and started planning on getting me something better.
In January/February of 2009 another friend of ours' asked me to take pictures at her wedding. It was 2 months after my 13th birthday and, after much prayer and emailing, I decided to take pictures at her wedding. In order to do that, I knew I would need a better camera, but I certainly did not have the money. Little did I know that Daddy had been secretly researching (some nights he was up past midnight!) everything about the camera.
I would talk to my sisters and, Hannah my eldest sister, who would just sweetly smile at me. (Little did I know that she knew what Daddy was doing too! :)
So, a few days before Valentine's Day a huge box arrived. I thought it was for Mama, as Daddy loves to surprise her, but I was wrong. Before we left for church, a night or two after the box arrived, Daddy suggested that we open the box. Hannah made her way over to me and offered to take pictures (something she never does), and I gave her a puzzled look as she pushed me out of the way and towards the boxes. I should've suspected something when everyone didn't start scrambling to open them, but I still didn't get suspicious. Daddy pulled me onto his knee and told me to start opening the box. I did and once all 4 flaps were open I saw the word "NIKON" and I think my mouth fell open! I still had thought the boxes were for Mama and they were not!!! They were for me! Shocked, I took everything out and told Daddy thank you so much. Everyone else was standing around smiling as Hannah took pictures. (The pictures didn't turn out well because of the no-flash problem...) Sadly we had to leave so we could go eat and make it to church on time, so I had to pull myself away. When we returned home that night I snapped pictures until way beyond my bedtime (we charged the battery during church) and have continued enjoying my camera every time I take it out of the bag to play with! :)
Here's the list of everything:
- Nikon D90 Camera
- 18-70mm AF-S Nikkor lens
- 50mm AF-Nikkor lens (aperture 1.8!)
- 55-200mm AF-S Nikkor, VR* lens
- SB-600 Speedlight
- 6 memory cards (for the wedding ;)
- 3 batteries (for the wedding, too!)
- LowePro SlingShot AW backpack
- Nikura High-Speed Card Reader
- LowePro Memory Card Case
- 60mm AF-S Micro NIKKOR 1:2.8 G ED lens
*stands for vibration reduction
