Target Acquired!

Well, I've only gone and done it! 

I have deliberated, cogitated and digested so much information over the last week, that I should have a permanent headache. That isn't the case and the sad truth is I am beyond excited.

After blasting questions all over Facebook & twitter, spent my evenings reading tonnes of information on the web and bored the hell out of my photo-crazy friends; the final decision on what camera I will buy has been made.

A few minutes ago I pressed the "buy now" button on one of these babies:  

It is the Sony SLT-A65 which will hopefully be winging its way through the post to me over the course of the next few days. 

For more information check out the linked page on Sony's offical website.

Weapon of choice

In my last post I talked about my approach to this hobby and shared the list created from the advice given by my pals on Facebook. Today I am going to focus on step 1, "buy a camera".

Four days have passed since that conversation and I can honestly say that this has been confusing as hell. It doesn't seem to matter how many reviews or guides I read, it all seems to come down to one thing. This one is rubbish, get a more expensive one; then once you have it, take off the lens, throw that away and buy several new ones. Oh, and they are also rubbish, unless you get the bloody expensive ones.

This led me to my first real decision. I need to draw a line in the sand and steadfastly refuse to spend more than the amount I have promised myself. I have decided that my absolute limit for the price of a new camera is 600 quid. I am after all a complete beginner and suspect that anything better than that would be somewhat wasted on me, for now at least.

First Steps

My first thought, after concluding that photography might be a good idea, was to enrol in some courses or go to evening classes. After all, one of the driving factors here is to meet people and to ‘do’ this hobby as a social exercise, as much as it aims to take a pic that doesn't stink (catchphrase anyone?). I had a look round and quickly discovered the price of courses is pretty steep. This one @ LSP  costs 300 pounds for 4 lessons.

Setting my sights

Welcome to my little web journal. If you have stumbled across this accidentally, then I apologise sincerely.  This is not something that I have really intended for the consumption of others, but rather an exercise for myself and a diary of my experiences with a camera.

My friends and family all agree I need a hobby, something that isn’t related to games and PlayStation, or directly to social media.  Of course, I can’t resist the temptation to involve social media in some respect, so I thought it would be interesting to keep a journal of my journey into the realms of “how not to shoot a sticker”