Just before Christmas, I took advantage of a special sale at Target and finally got me a good dSLR. I had been wanting one for awhile, but hadn’t made it a priority. This special sale allowed me to get a Nikon D3100 with 18-55mm VR AF-S and 55-200mm VR AF-S lenses in a bundle for less than the regular retail price of the D3100 alone. The D3100 isn’t the latest and greatest, but it is a high-end dSLR with a decent sensor and access to some of the best lenses on the market.

I got my first SLR camera for Christmas in 1985. It was a Sears branded Pentax, the “KS-1”. It used standard Pentax ‘Bayonet’ style lenses and was a really good entry level camera. It didn’t support autofocus but it did have an auto-exposure mode that made the camera really good choice for a budding photographer. Needless to say after that I spent most of my allowance on either Film or Developing. Sadly, the film was always cheaper than developing. Somewhere, there is a cache of some thirty or forty rolls of undeveloped film, and its probably so old its not worth processing.

I’ve been really happy with the Nikon. Its reminded me of how much I learned about photography with that old Pentax. Framing a shot has usually come easy for me, but getting the focus right has been a real pain with the digital cameras I’ve used in recent years. Granted the Kodak KP850 had a manual focus mode, but it was not easy or fast.

Perhaps it was destiny, that sale at Target. I got the camera in Norman, Oklahoma. The day before freezing rain iced in most of the city. While the roads were clear, the trees, signs, buildings, just about everything exposed was covered in ice. A photographer’s paradise!