SurfiOnline

Last January I mentioned that I was feeling the limitations with my old Sony “point and shoot” digital camera. A whole year went by with me thinking of buying a Digital SLR camera (Originally the Canon EOS 350D) but never getting around to do it.

New years day I completed my order for a brand new Canon EOS 400D DSLR camera (kit with 18-55mm lens) as well as a Canon EF 90-300mm USM lens, 2gb compact flash card, tripod, extra batteries and a DigiMate II-plus image tank (for which I ended up buying a 80gb hard drive for).

The Canon EOS 400D camera and 90-300mm USM lens
After the payment went through and everything it was shipped to Australia (from Hong Kong) and was stuck in customs awaiting clearance (I needed to pay the 10% GST on it - $174.00, before it was released). Customs were going to take a week or so to clear it which didn’t work for me as I’m leaving for my holiday on the 26th. I went to a Customs Broker who, the same day, cleared the item (albiet, I had to pay them $125 to do the clearance for me as well as the initial GST and a Customs service fee). I picked the camera + goodies up today from the Australia Post Internation Gateway Facility.

This camera is awesome.

Though I have a fair amount of knowledge about focal lengths, aperature sizes, f-stops, exposure and all of those other terms associated with an SLR camera, I still have a lot to learn on how to get the best possible use out of the camera. A good learning experience will hopefully be whilst I am away - hopefully I’ll get some great action, landscape and portrait shots.

Anybody have any good tips? I’ve read a few books, visited a few sites (the URLs of which I’ve completely lost) but I’m after any tips others may have (Michele, I’m looking at you too).

And now I’ll leave you with a few new photos on my flickr account from the camera. Hopefully I’ll make better use of my flickr account now too.

Tia, quite possibly the most awesome puppy in the world.

But also quite possibly the hardest to take a decent photo of.

Testing out the zoom on the 90-300mm lens.

… and for something completely random..