I bought a Canon 1200D DSLR sometime in 2015, and I must say it was intimidating. I was sick and tired of dealing with my film camera, and the bad film that someone had loaded into it. It contained some good memories of my mom who had passed away. It made me seriously think about buying a digital camera. Where in I would expericnce WYSIWYG. I was wondering whether to go for a point and shoot or the more expensive DSLR. So, I spent some time researching on the net. My nephew, who was into photography, advised me to go for Canon 1100D. The nice thing he said, was the zoom lens 55-250mm that came with it. He also told me that this hobby would cost me close to Rs 1 to 1.5 lakh rupees ($1200 - $2000) in expenditure. I was in two minds.
A point shoot would be way cheaper and get me the photos, but then.... the experience of taking pictures with lot of control actually made me go for a DSLR. I chose the Canon 1200D. Holding and operating the camera initially, with so many options was very initimidating. The pictures I took were uninspiring just like the next two pictures of the sky. So what was a viewer supposed to see in these two pics? This was primarily because I did not use any technique. These pics were shot on my kit lens and in my subsequent blogs I will show you how to to take some good pics from a kit lens. I also had another thought - why not buy another lens to make my pictures interesting. I used to see beautiful pictures of flowers shot on a macro lens. The Canon lens was quite expensive (about $1000) but had a good reputation.
I decided to rent a macro lens (Canon 100mm Macro) from toehold in Bangalore, India.
A macro lens, could be used on flowers, and I had some in my garden. After taking some ordinary photos, the below one was shot. The technique was to try and fill the frame with a single flower. Although, that did not happen the exposure came out very well. I did not chose early in the day or evening to take advantage of the soft light, but what came out was this picture below of a Philippine Voilet. First off it got some likes on the now closed website yourshot National Geographic. I then entered this pic at a photography competition in my office and it won me the Third prize.
I have not looked back since and have taken several award winning pictures. The above picture has won some awards too. I even purchased a Tokina 100mm Macro lens and tooksome more pictures. Point: A good lens can definitely help. Rent one and try it.
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