So This Mummy Bought a Canon EOS 600D

Beginner has a go at shooting a tree on manual settings! Not bad, huh?

We went and bought a Canon EOS 600D – I will show it to you later but if you want to have a looksee of what the camera looks like then go here. I’m not loaded with cash, I work as an admin/PA and in this country Scientists get paid shit. (No we’re not living like in Honey I Blew Up the Kid). Instead, we used vouchers we received for Christmas! We got a very good discount thanks to JB Hi-Fi and their supa dupa sales after Christmas on Canon EOS 600D.

I’ve included here today some of my first shots with the camera on manual settings. I have not edited any of them other than the watermark.

There were two reasons for buying this:

(1) I had always wanted a camera with which I can learn to take proper and good quality photos on manual settings. This started when I was eight years old and my uncle the genius photographer took a photo of me and placed into an internationally-sold photobook about my birth country. I thought I looked stunning at eight, in my Holy Communion dress which looked like a wedding gown!

And I from looking through the book I realised that my uncle had talent that I then wished I would have when I grew up.  When I developed the love for television and filmmaking, I promised myself I will some day learn to handle both a video and an SLR camera manually and become as talented. Maybe not a professional like him but good.

(2) I want to document my son’s life through photobooks. If you’re a parent you’ll understand when I tell you that I want my child to have something he can look through when he’s older and definitely when I’m gone. He’ll have stories to tell his own children, and hopefully we can pass on the books through the generations. I want to start a tradition and sort of heirloom. I’ve done three books so far from his birth to 2011, and I’m about to start one for 2012. But the photos were taken with a Kodak EazyShare camera. It did a good job but not what I want. Not at the quality I need, at least. Now with this new tool, the Canon 600D, I will be taking much better photos, plus better videos.

So, off to the library we went and got some books so I could start reading not  too much about the techniques, yet, but about the reasons for choosing the techniques. I believe that I have a good enough eye for framing and composing, but I need to understand the why behind the other stuff. Once I’ve done that, I’ll work on the how-to.

Some people I’ve spoken to about my new Canon 600D gave me the But why bother, we just stick it on Auto or the other settings. I get that they think I’m mad for wanting to spend the time doing things for myself, haha, but it’s what I do. One friend didn’t even know his DSLR could be manually focused! I was like WTF? Are you serious? You’ve had this camera how long?

Ah well… now I have my baby, so I’m going to have so much fun posting my photos for the world to see. However, this is not a photo blog, so don’t fear… I won’t plaster my blog with endless albums that could scare you away! Oh and definitely no family photos. This blog is about me, me, me and my thoughts.

Other than family photos, I will be taking photos of Western Australia and anything I lay my eyes on that I can be creative with. Perhaps I’ll make a photobook of my random shots… ah yeah!

Do you have a DSLR? What are you into taking photos of?