My Second Digital Camera

I remember being able to hear my own heart beat.  THUMP THUMP!  My palms were sweaty.  It was hard to swallow.  I nervously paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  Our apartment was filled with roses, and candles and Stevie Wonder was playing in the background.  I needed a lifeline, so I phoned a friend.  Steve said something to the effect that he went through the very same thing as I was going through and not to worry because he was pretty sure the answer would be yes.  I was pretty sure the answer would be yes too, but that didn't make it any easier.  Finally, Enza came home, I got on my knee, cracked open the ring box and somehow managed to ask the question.  Turns out both Steve and I were right, she said yes.

We headed out and had an outstanding dinner.  We talked about our future together.  I started to think about how we're going to need to capture moments like this.  Starting with the sheer joy we were both experiencing knowing that we were going to be spending the rest of our lives together.  My mind began to race with other events that would need to be recorded like our apartment which was currently full of roses, the ring, our wedding, our honeymoon, our first house, our children...  What better to capture the memories with than a camera.  My first digital camera, my cell phone, wasn't going to cut it anymore.  We headed straight to Circuit City after dinner and made our first purchase as a newly engaged couple.  A digital camera!

 Sony Cybershot DSC-T33. 

5.1 Mega Pixels

Usually, I like to research  a purchase like this.  Not this time.  This was impulse buying at its finest.  Turns out it was a pretty decent camera and I was able to take pretty solid pictures with it and learn quite a bit.  Eventually, I did a little reading on composition and technique.  The more I read and looked at other people's photos I realized my camera was not allowing me to capture what I saw.  I would revieiw photos and they were OK, but something was missing. I always wanted to have the shallow depth of field that you see in professional photos and couldn't understand why I was unable to achieve it.  I spent pretty good money on this camera, why doesn't it do what I want it to do? 

The camera served us well right up through the list of events that raced through my mind during our engagement dinner.  I captured many memories with this camera.  Photos of our honeymoon in Hawaii, our cozy first house (a little too cozy now), our puppy and our first family photo in the delivery room after the birth of our son were all captured with this camera.
 

Kauai Sunset

Brutus

Darius

 Shortly after that I started to notice its limitations and one in particular that was extremely frustrating.  The dreaded shutter lag.  A newborn moves as quickly as they grow. With the shutter lag, the camera was always a second or so late.  I ended up with a lot side of his head pictures from him turning his head or a smear from trying to follow his movements.  I did get some good shots, but there were only so many blurry ear pics I could take.  I was convinced it was time for some new gear, now I just had to get my wife on board.

The Blur