Time for new kit but is it new camera or new lenses.

So ive had a few cameras and like I said I love my D3100 but as a photographer I think your always looking for ways to improve image quality and one of the most obvious is new kit, but whats the best way to go new camera or new lens ? Well id been looking at a d7000 as my next step up ive seen amazing shots from my flickr contacts taken with one and nearly went and got one, but I decided to go for new a lens as id done all I could with the D3100 with the kit lens yet something in me wanted to see what the camera could do with better quality glass.
 Now lenses are not cheap and I did a lot of research on what glass lens would be a good upgrade and that made me realise just how expensive they are. I shoot mostly landscape so I wanted to go for a wide angle lens the Nikon 17-35mm f2.8 or the 17-50mm f2.8 were perfect apart from the cost my budget just wouldn't cover it, so I looked at 3rd party lens and found Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 I checked review after review and all said it was top quality glass, good fast focus with brilliant image quality and less than half the price of the Nikons so I went and got one.

 

This is a shot of a stream running through Fardross forest park taken with my D3100 and the sigma 18-50mm f2.8

 

Im so glad I went with the lens instead of the new camera as the image quality is so much crisper and sharper and if anything its made me love the D3100 even more as it shows even with a basic camera if you get some good glass for the front you can get stunning shots that are brilliantly sharp and detailed.


 

Hi and welcome.

Welcome to the amateur photography blog, my name is Brent Kinley im a keen self taught amateur photographer addicted for a good year and a half now and the reason im starting this blog is because when I first started out I knew nothing and I mean nothing, id never used a dslr so knew nothing of aperture, iso, shutter speeds it was all alien to me and to start with it was trial and error or shooting in auto :( but through the internet via sights like flickr and youtube I found information and ideas and began to understand how  and what other photographers were doing to get the amazing shots I was seeing on flickr and on the web, it inspired me to try new things and when I did and uploaded them it was a nervous wait to see what people would think, yet it was those comments and bits of advice that drove me even more it fed my slowly building photography addiction and that leads to this blog, I feel that without other peoples kind help and advice I might have given up on photography and just thought I wasn't good enough and so through this blog aim to share my enthusiasm in what ive learnt and what I will learn by sharing my work and explaining what where and how, ill show things ive done wrong, new techniques in shooting and processing ive learnt, really anything that happens in my photography journey over the coming months and just hope I can help or inspire others that's know little yet have keen interest in photography to give it a go.

My beloved Nikon D3100

So like i said ive now got a D3100 its quite a basic entry level DSLR it doesnt come with all the bells and whistles of more expensive cameras, but what it can do is take a bloody good picture. Ive had it 6 months now and for most of that i only had 2 kit lenses which arnt known for being made of the highest quality glass, yet they severed me well and produced some very nice images.

This was taken with the nikon 18 - 55mm kit lens

This was taken with the nikon 55 - 200mm kit lens

As you can see from the two shots above for a basic camera with basic lenses it does a good job and i think it punches well above its weight which is why i love it so much, dont get me wrong more expensive semi pro and pro cameras will be better but they also require better glass and thats even more money. So if your only starting your photography journey i can highly recommend the D3100 its cheap and performs well with with the kit lenes so making a perfect first DSLR for starting out.

A quick look into how i started into photography and where im at now.

Like most people it started with a point and shoot then one with better zoom, but eventually i got a bridge camera Fugifilm hs10 30x zoom tilting screen it looked cool and i thought it was the bees knees.

This is one of the first shots i took that i really loved, it was the first time id really thought it out and got what i wanted, yet at this time i had no processing skills i didnt even have any processing software on my pc.

HDR was the thing that first got me processing shots, at the time i thought it was so cool this was one of my first shots to get comments and fav's on Flickr.

It was at this time i started uploading more on to Flickr and quickly i found out the camera wasnt up to the standard of most, i had a good eye for a shot yet the images lacked sharpness and detail and noise how i hated noise. So i started looking into DSLR's and quickly found out that the bigger sensors gave much better image quality and less noise.......... that was it i had to get a DSLR............

My first DSLR was an Olympus e450 again i thought it was the bees knees and for a while it was it made my image quality improve it was crisp and sharp and not as noisy. The first thing i did was start to learn apature and DoF and play around with shutter speeds.

This was the first long exposure shot that i really liked it started a small obsession with LE.

The Sheep house.

This shot was one of the first to really get a large amount of good feedback and is one of the few shots i have printed and on my wall at home, yet it shows signs of my lack of experience the house should be more the left and i still had little processing know how or id have gotten rid of the posts in the foreground.

The Olympus lasted a year until i felt the need to upgrade again, i was looking at Nikon as my next move yet i couldnt justify going too high up the range and opted for the Nikon D3100 id seen some brilliant shots taken with it on Flickr and all the reviews said it was the best entry level DSLR going. 

Thats where i am now with the D3100 and my future posts will be the work ive been producing with it and the different processing skills ive built up along the way.