Okay…I don’t often post anything on this blog in which the main purpose of the post is to brag about something (unless it has to do with my two adorable little ones), because frankly, I think bragging is annoying, unnecessary, and I just don’t like doing it. It’s just not me. However, every once in a while, I invest in a new piece of equipment that just down right deserves every ounce of bragging it can get. So this post is about me bragging that I just recently purchased the Nikon D3s, how wonderful it handles in low lighting (or almost no lighting), and how much I am in LOVE with that camera. First let me start off by saying that I have ALWAYS been a Nikon shooter since I first picked up a camera roughly 16 years ago. My first camera was a Nikkormat. My dad circled it for me in The News-Times “For Sale” advertisement section of the newspaper. It’s owner was an elderly lady, who’s husband was the family photographer and since had past. She was just down the street from my house, so I drove over with my $450 cash in hand and purchased the body, along with three lenses (a 28mm 2.8, a 60mm macro 2.8, and 135mm 2.8 to be exact) and the flash to go with it. ALL manual of course. This camera was older than I was don’t forget being built in the late 60’s. That camera literally was in my hands not 5 hours before I smudged the inside frosted mirror with my greasy finger. Duh!!! Like, who knew you weren’t supposed to touch that with a greasy finger?! So for a year I had to listen to anyone who looked into my viewfinder that I had something in there that had to be cleaned. Uggggh. The constant reminder of my own stupidity! Lovely. Well deserved I suppose. After one year, I retired that camera and made the upgrade to a Nikon F camera, mainly because a few weeks before my third semester of photography courses began, I dropped my baby onto the pavement of my driveway. It would have cost me more to fix it then I figured it was worth (dumb). So I traded it into get the Nikon F, which much to my surprise was a wise investment!!! It was introduced in ‘59 and was one of the first SLR cameras designed by Nikon geared towards professionals, used widely by photographer’s covering the Vietnam War! Stylish and luxurious all in one! I was the new cool kid on the block in Photography II at my college. On the up and up real fast!!!! I am being serious actually when I say that. It was a GREAT camera and I even started my career as a news photojournalist at The News-Times using that camera and created some really great spreads for stories with that camera and three lenses. But it came time to move on up again, and purchase something with…(drum roll please…) Autofocus. At this time was when I really began to see the importance of investing in excellent equipment, especially some really great glass. After complaining about a lens costing me nearly a grand of my hard earned cash when I purchased the F100 and a few lenses, my Dad whipped me into shape real fast by saying “if this is something that will be your livelihood, you will need to be investing in the right equipment.” This was coming from my Dad, the same man who threw a fit on a family vacation because noone but him wanted to eat at the $1 burger joint. (I wanted a salad and I decided to start a diet on the first day of vacation but that’s neither here nor there). I always think about that when I purchase something. My dad was a frugal man, and rightfully needed to be, being a self-employed father of four. Honestly, you can’t expect to spend half the price on something and get the same results as you would have if you purchased the Big Mama Luke (as I like to call it).
Time to switch to digital now. In 2004 (I shot my first weddings in film and sometimes miss it to this day!!!) I made the switch over to digital. In doing so I decided since all my lenses purchased not t0o long ago were compatible with the digital SLR’s I figured it would be silly to not stick with Nikon. So I bought the Nikon D100 and then before even shooting a wedding with that camera, realized it wasn’t a good investment and was EXTREMELY limiting for me being a professional. I was VERY new to the digital world and honestly, hated the fact that I was making the change to digital at all. I knew very little about what features I needed. JPG vs RAW???? Huh????? Other than making a great file and needing to know the basics of how to take great digital images, I wasn’t interested in the techy-gizmo geeky stuff that I would hear tossed around in conversations. When those conversations started up was usually when I left the room. That stuff never interested me much at all. I much rather thumb through Time Magazine and feel the images that helped tell the stories. I was a die-hard film fan and was a victim of long hours spent in the darkroom. The only dark room I could spend hours on end in and not come out completely depressed.
After learning I made a poor $1000 investment in the D100, and that it wouldn’t handle a wedding the way I needed it to, I ran out and bought the D2x ringing in at about $4995. Why not just say $5400? Really. With batteries costing about a $100 a piece, it was more like a $5400 investment, (and then some because I sprang for the 5 year extended warranty…just in case). I shot the hell out of that camera and it shows. (it’s for sale by the way for a very cheap price with the same 4 batteries I originally purchased with it… $350…215,000 and some odd actuations). This was my workhorse for five whole seasons of shooting weddings. The D100 is in pristine condition because of the dependability of the D2x. I LOVED that camera and it treated me beyond good and is still a strong camera to this day. However, with the release of the D3 I knew I needed to start planning for the upgrade soon. Notice how I highlighted…PLANNING. I can’t stress enough, to any newbies out there, how important it is to plan for your investments. Write them in your goals list. Your business plan should also include a plan of attack for purchasing new gear, as well as the fact that writing it all down on paper helps you to weed out the needs vs. the wants. The wants fizzle in time and the needs still stand strong. I am positive you will find that to be true. I am much like my dad in the sense that I am self-employed, but also I am a single parent of two beautiful but expensive children. They needs things like food, a place to live, toys, clothes, medicine, activities, etc. Not all my money I make can be re-invested back into my business, so I have to be very careful with my purchases. Making a goals list that includes the gear purchases I need to make is one way I weed out the wants. I make much wiser investments this way. Investments that are sure to only benefit my business growth. Although it seemed everywhere I went people were shooting with the D3, I honestly knew that my plan of attack just wasn’t able to include the D3 in the list of necessary purchases, ringing in at $5100. Being newly single, having two children to parent on my own, and having other business purchases to make at that time, which were more important and beneficial to me, I knew the D700 was the smarter choice for me to invest in for the time being, although I knew I would consider this camera to be a transitional piece for me. It had the same ISO capabilities as the D3 and the same full frame sensor and those two things were what was most important to me. So why spend double the price on something when I had other areas to spend on in my business and personal life. I was gaining the same image results really. And besides, it’s the artist behind the camera, not the camera itself that makes great pictures. Right?!
So…this brings me to my most recent purchase…The BEAUTIFUL D3s. And yes, it is beautiful and deserves to be called beautiful. For this camera, I am SO happy I held off on the D3 and saved up for the D3s. Notice how I highlighted saved up. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I came home from networking events, hearing other’s talk about this camera and how it is already in their hands, and hated my photography life. Seriously. HATED my photography life. Because here I am, a woman who has other responsibilities in my life. I have children. I have car payments, I had personal debt from many things like equipment purchases, a house that I gutted and redid before I got divorced, and my son’s private school education tuition to pay for,etc. etc. However, I made the wise decision at the end of last year, after going through my business and personal expenses to give to my accountant, that I would make some very wise changes in my patterns of spending for both personal and business. “How many times did I eat out last month???? OMG!!!!!!” Sound familiar? Maybe not, but to me it was a real eye-opener. I needed to make financial adjustments in my life that were good for me and forget about what other people were buying and talking about. Who cares about Joe-Shmoe and how he purchased his gear. I needed to do this my way and my way was by going all cash for EVERYTHING . I wrote down what my income was, what was going out every month and what my major bills were that had to be taken care of BEFORE I purchased the D3s. I wrote down what I had in my bag. I made note of what I wasn’t shooting with anymore in my bag, and sold it. 16mm Fisheye??? Last time I used that was way back when…so BUH-BYE!!! I think sometimes you buy stuff because you think you need it and then as your career and talent develops, you realize what tools you gravitate towards. 16mm wasn’t it for me. It’s just not a lens that I needed and liked shooting with when I switched to the full frame sensor camera.
So, I worked like a dog, and EVERYTHING I earned paid something off. I purchased a new (used) car so I didn’t get slapped with the depreciation factor of driving off the lot and poof, it’s now worth $4,000 less. I paid off 2 of my 3 credit cards and closed them. Then I paid off, entirely, my last and final credit card, which I will keep for business purchases. I am not a HUGE fan of debit cards. I don’t like the power they posses over me in malls, so I cut mine up and I use…get this…CHECKS. If I don’t have cash on me and a store doesn’t accept checks, I don’t buy it. I wait. By doing this I find out how bad I REALLY wanted whatever it was. Sometimes I go back and sometimes I forget about what it even was I was going to buy. In a nutshell, I told myself that I wasn’t buying this camera unless I changed. Changed my bank account to a certain number (to a positive number ;o) and started a second savings for business stuff like album purchases, quarterly taxes, etc. I paid off my final credit card COMPLETELY. I am at a whopping ZERO balance on my credit card and it feels wonderful. I made sure everything was a wise choice for me, my business, and my kids. I didn’t sell some gear for my business that I thought I would because I didn’t want to be too fast with selling and not have lens backups at weddings. I take that VERY seriously, so I withdrew from some offers on my gear.
So FINALLY, months later, the day has come for me to purchase this new D3s. I purchased it on a Sunday for $5600 and it was paid off this past Monday. I value it even more for this very reason. I am in love with this camera and it’s capabilities, but also because I earned every dollar spent on it, before I even purchased it. It ’s a great feeling! Now, please don’t fret. I am NOT going to start carrying this to all the PUG and CLASS meetings I go to and any other networking event I attend, flashing it around in people’s faces looking all cheesy and braggy ( I know ‘braggy ‘ isn’t a word mom…so please don’t call me from work telling me that word should be changed…this is how I talk at home, so this is how I am writing). I will cherish every shutter click I make in the time I have to spend with this camera. I value it dearly….now, let’s move onto what it can do…
It is not as heavy as I remember my D2x to be, but maybe that is in my head. It’s ISO sensitivity is just phenomenal. I do like the dual card slot feature, which I thought before I could take or leave, but I now realize, I will take it!
I love the quiet feature for shooting inside the church. Sometimes shutter’s can be so loud in certain churches and I will do anything not to stand out like a sore thumb during the ceremony. However, all the little fun features that are great on this camera, aren’t what sold me. I bought the D3s, like many other wedding photographer’s, for one main reason, which is it’s low light capability and ISO sensitivity. Below is a shot from a wedding I helped my friend Tania Sones shoot at The Hartford Society Room on Saturday. As many of you know, the upstairs is usually where they hold the cocktail hour, and it’s dark. The lighting there provides a nice cozy feel, warm and golden, but still very dark, with dark ceilings, and below on the dance floor you have not much to bounce off of, so off camera lighting is a definite must have (in my book). So I shot this with the settings listed below using no flash, with very little LR adjustments, and a minor levels adjustment and sharpening in Photoshop CS4.
Camera: d3s on Manual mode
Lens: Nikon 70-200 VR 2.8 @ 180mm
1/80th sec @ f 2.8
ISO: 8,000
Happy Monday!
MEG
