Gratitude Monday: new and old

I’m working on a personal project for the next few months. Part of it involves taking better photos than I’ve been doing. I mean—my mobile is fine for those what-did-I-just-see shots, but I want to do better.

So I asked my friends who are professionals to spec me out a camera and lens that will give me the tools and power to achieve that. Not only did they do that—Nikon D780 with a 24-120mm lens (although, in the end, I opted for a 28-300mm lens because of the better (for me) f-stop range)—but TM called round to Ace Camera in Ashburn to reserve them and then spent an hour with me last Thursday, picking up the body and lens and adding on filter, twin memory cards, extra battery; the whole megillah.

Then he assembled everything for me and patiently walked me through the major food groups of its operation. Listen, folks: this camera’s bells have whistles and its whistles have bells; this is going to be a long learning curve. Also, it weighs 3.675 lbs (1.67 kg), so I need to work on my upper body strength.

Since then, I have progressed from being able to turn it on and turn it off to actually going around yesterday afternoon to take a few shots. I have it in your basic point-and-shoot mode, but I’m quiet pleased with the results.

That’s my gratitude for today, the new toy, the new goals, the old friends. Nothing better than that, IMO.