My Alpha journey continues...finale...for now.

What began as a mere hobby to kill off some time, I am seeing myself invested substantial amount of money for upgrading purposes. Not that I regret about it, just that I can't believe what poison I had consumed in obtaining good gears. I had few interesting hobbies before entering the digital photography. I had my share of remote control cars, PS3 and PSP which I sold off everything because it didn't give me the excitement and satisfaction that I needed.


Going down from Bukit Mas, Sabah after the rain stopped.

I started off photography with the Yashica FX3 Super slr. It looked cool and gave the impression that you're more than just a photographer with a automatic film camera. I was amazed with digital photography when a friend introduced me to a Casio digicam somewhere in 2000. In today's standard, it was lousy with pixelated display and meagre functions, but it opened my eye to a new format. The ability to delete unwanted shots was great. No more worries about wasting films.





Then, I stopped photography because it was expensive. The films and the processing cost was out of my budget as a student. Four years later, at the school where I'm working now, sometimes I was given the task to take photos of events using the school's Sony digicam. There I learned the art of panning, burst shots, rear flash, iso's etc. I enjoyed photography again. It took me few years more then I bought my first PnS, the Canon Ixus 860IS in 2007. A good camera, but still I wasn't impressed. It was sold to a nice gentleman needing a camera for his underwater photos.



The real poison came when a friend shot some photos of me in action on his bike with his Nikon D60. I saw the photos and noticed the differences between digital and optical zoom. And the bokeh...yummy. I was literary "popped out" from the photos. That's where I decided to grab a dslr fast. With a small budget, I was left with Nikon D40/D60, Canon 1000D or the Sony A200. I read all the reviews that I can find about each cameras, the pros and cons. Best bet, value for money would be the A200. Twin kit lense that cost me in the range of RM2k. Sweet. Still, I wasn't sure if I was making the right decision until I encounted Sony's own Alpha community, Alphanatics. I read and saw what the A200 can do, and I immediately made my choice.





I actually borrowed mum's money to get my A200(which, I paid off already lah...:D) last November. I had great moments with it, producing some good photos and capturing all the nice moments that I encountered. It had it limitations though, but I think that makes me a better photographer. The last three weeks had been a 'lens-hunting' job. From the kit lens 18-70 and the 75-300 that came with the camera, I bought five lenses, three new and two used ones and another flash. Why? Personally I'm not sure. I don't earn much from this. To date, only RM200 from Pancras's wedding. And I don't use much of my lens especially the Sony SAL 16-105mm. It does give me great joy to own those lenses, and to expand the camera's and my own capabilities. The new addition, Tamron SP90mm Macro 1:1 lens was a joy to use. I see things that I would never see with a naked eye.


The A200 body with Tamron SP90mm f2.8 attached, Sony 16-105mm f3.5-5.6, Minolta 50mm f1.7, Tokina 28-70mm f2.8, Tamron 70-200mm f2.8, Sony 18-70mm f3.5-5.6(still no buyer so I'm gonna keep it), Sony HVL F42 and F58 flashes.

So what's next? A new body? A Sony G or Carl Zeiss lenses? Only time will tell. Not all can get the excitement, joy and pride when taking a good or unique photos. As for my D60 friend, he already upgraded to D90, a new Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lens and a SB900. Those are way more expensive than my Tammy and Cobra. Till then, I just have to raise up my poison shield and shoot more. Cheers!