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I make it no secret that I have always dreamt of owning a DSLR one day. The thought of taking photos with a DSLR somehow looks and feels more … “professional”. However, the outcome of the photos are no guarantee.

About a week ago, I received (or rather “inherited”) a new toy — the Nikon F-401x. It looks quite “OK”, right? It’s big, heavy and black. There are buttons all over the place, most of which I don’t know the function (YET).

If you take a closer look at the photo below, you can see that there are dusts in the lens. I wonder if that will affect the quality of the photo taken. Should I send it to the shop for some servicing? I wonder how much it will cost.

A top view shot of the camera.

This is the back view of the camera. One word — UGLY! It’s not ugly because it’s ugly but rather…where is the LCD screen? Oh yeah, if you haven’t already know, this Nikon F-401x is a SLR, not a DSLR. Hence, there is no LCD, it runs on 4 AA batteries and photos are “saved” on camera films instead of memory sticks.

I’m really enthusiastic to experiment with this new toy but there is one thing holding me back. That is the cost to experiment with it. A 24 roll film costs me RM11.50 while developing them will cost me another RM14.50. That means every photo I take will cost me slightly more than RM1!

I’ll be attending my cousin’s wedding next month. Therefore, I need to play around with the Nikon F-401x to see how the photos develop. I’ll be bringing my Panasonic DMC-FZ3 along as a backup.

If I manage to hide the “back” of the camera from public eyes, people might think I’m using a DLSR. Heck, some might even be jealous of me! Hahahahaha.

A while back, I posted 2 pictures of my first attempt on macro shot photos. Looking back at the photos, somehow they look dull and slightly blurred. I have seen photos taken by some others that looked almost “alive”. I know that practice makes perfect. Also, I do not want to be like the idiom, “bad workman blames his tools”. However, I am sure that the camera used must have some impact on the quality of the photos as well.

Check out these great photos of a “sky goddess” taken by ShaolinTiger. They looked so real and alive that I wished she was in front of me as if she was in front of me. The amount of details and the richness of the colors are just magnificent. If those photos were taken with my camera by me, they may look like a portrait colored with crayons.

I also found some photos taken by kahwoon — colourful food. The mango and tomato looks ready to be eaten. I especially admire his courage to whip out his camera in a supermarket or grocery store to take those photos. At least I think that is where he took those photos. Where else can he find so many fruits and vegetables?

There are so many function to control in the camera such as shutter speed, aperture, focal length, exposure and ISO. I normally set all possible settings to automatic in my camera. That is because I don’t even know what some of the functions do. I admit that I am just plain lazy to go figure out and experiment. Anyone out there willing to give me a crash course?

The photos below show one of the reason why I chose the Panasonic DMC-FZ3 over the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX7.

1X optical zoom (no zoom)

3X optical zoom

12X optical zoom

Gone are the days of binoculars