logicalriot

I’ve decided it’s time to move away from the amateur world of point and shoot photography and take the leap into SLR. I’ll be very honest, I’m envious of a lot of bloggers out there who have amazing photo galleries with great collections to show off to their friends.  I not only want to learn out of jealousy but it’s a general interest and hobby I can see myself getting into. Long gone are the days were I was satisfied with an overexposed photo from my old Canon SD600 Powershot.

Cameras

My first big decision is going to be which camera I want to get. I’m currently deciding between the Nikon D60 and the Canon Rebel xsi. They both fall within my budget range for an entry level dslr. I don’t need anything super expensive right off the bat in order to take excellent photos. If I was trying to make money off my photos I’d probably consider going for a Canon EOS 40D. From what I understand the Canon and the Nikon are fairly close in quality. The 2 megapixel difference isn’t too significant at the entry level. The biggest selling point for me is the fact that the Xsi has a bigger lcd viewing screen than the D60. The autofocus and stabilization features are also better than the Nikon. This is important for a photography newbie such as myself. I guess I could just buy a tripod and then it’s a non issue. I’m not an expert on any of this so if anyone has any input, please make some suggestions on a good camera. My budget is currently in the 500 to 700 dollar range.

Web Galleries

I know everyone loves to use Flickr and I completely agree that it’s a great platform to share photos. Personally, I’d prefer to host all the photos on my own site since I have the bandwidth to spare. There are three galleries that I’m considering using. They are, Gallery, ZenPhoto, and Lifebox. I hear Gallery is a great piece of software with tons of options and configurations but I think I’m going to be using Lifebox. It’s new and has a great interface. It supports,

• Full resolution images
• One photo library: every image on my computer should be available on the internet
• Reads metadata from Lightroom, Picassa, iPhoto and other applications to allow for photo touch ups while maintaining synchronization between your desktop and photo gallery
• Ability to rename, reorganize, and modify without structural changes on the website.
• Image security: some pictures are meant for the public, some for family members, some for friends, and some for just me.
• No more accounts and logging in. The site should just know who you are.
• Completely database independent, using a db just for speed. Should something happen to the database, all data can be re-generated from reading exif tags and the existing file structure.
• Less than 100 milisecond execution times for every page
• 100% XHTML Valid
• Viewers should be able to suggest titles, tags, and descriptions for images. It’s too cumbersome for one person to organize a hundred thousand photos.

I took that last bit from the website, but you can see why I’m leaning towards it.

Purpose

The reason I’m going to take up photography is that I want to express myself more artistically, find a new constructive hobby, and also provide myself an abundance of stock photography for my own web design and development. Plus, let’s be honest, taking really good photos is pretty awesome. I guess I should sign up for a photography class. Anyone know of some good classes in the DC area? I’d love to hear from some other photographers.