Friday, April 18, 2008

Rediscovering Old Skills

My first job out of college was as the Sports Editor at the Niles Daily Star in Niles, Michigan.

That really meant I was a one-man sports department for a small daily local newspaper.

It was a great opportunity to get experience in many different areas, including writing, editing, layout, design and photography.

I had never done any real photography before taking that job and I was fortunate to have a great photographer working at the Daily Star when I got there. Elizabeth Conley taught me everything I know about professional photography and I fell in love with it. I mostly shot local sports events as well as some Notre Dame football and basketball games.

The first professional camera I used was a Nikon N90 - yep, a film camera. It wasn't until at least 2001 that the Daily Star invested in a couple Nikon D100s and leaped into the digital photography era.

Since leaving the Star in 2004 I haven't had the opportunity to do much photography, except on a few occasions here at NMC. Janelle Prenkert has been kind enough to lend me her camera so I could shoot different events.

Well, I recently proposed to some leaders here that we should invest in a good digital camera so we can do a better job of capturing the people and events at NMC. They agreed and have given me the green light to purchase a camera for church use.

The Canon Digital Rebel XT shown here is the one I'm leaning toward, but not for sure yet. Whatever camera I get, I am so excited to rediscover photography with it. There's a lot of opportunities to shoot events, gatherings and people here at NMC and I hope I can make the church's investment worth it!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd second that camera, although you might want to spend the extra $100 and get the XTi. I'm looking to upgrade my 300D to the 400D -- bigger screen, more mps, less likely to need to upgrade again for quite some time. I love my Canon. This will make my 3rd Rebel ... my first was a film camera and I still have that as I love to shoot b&w with film. I'm working to get our church to buy a camera for children's ministry and I'd love for them to get an XT. Unlikely, as the church has two OK-quality digis already (although certainly not SLR).

Anonymous said...

I felt the first one at 5:38 a.m. (and blamed my dog who was laying on the floor beside my bed), and a second tremor around 11 a.m. while sitting at my desk at work (Fort Wayne)! Crazy! I'm 36 and it was my first earthquake experience!

Dan said...

I know it's got a lot of training wheels for a DSLR, but I have enjoyed my D40.