From an SLR to nothing

As mentioned, after buying a camera, I never wanted to "waste" my time and hence just went out and started clicking without even reading the camera manual. And as the number of blurred shots increased, slowly I also started to worry more now as each blurred shot was costing me money on top of the big amount which I had already put in. But I pulled along in the same way, still not going to the basics.
And GOD knows for good or bad, it happened - My SLR was stolen! It was a shock of a lifetime and it took some time to recover from the state and slowly I got adjusted to the reality. And that was the time when I realized my original state. This realization that I am a zero in photography though I had an SLR with me pushed me to start everything from the beginning. And with a vast reource like web at hand, there was no shortage of materials. The difficulty was to find the right resources. And browsing through many forums and websites, I slowly learned some of the basics in photography like light, exposure and composition. And slowly I felt that the right time has come to make the next important decision - To buy the camera....

My entry into photography

Befor touching upon other things, let me tell you my (short!) story in photography. I got caught in this exciting (but expensive!) hobby during my bird watching sessions. I used to admire those friends who were lugging around big tele lenses during the outings, while I will be going around with a bulky old binocular. Then with all my courage (to part with a big sum), I decided that I will jump into the photography bandwagon directly with an SLR (Mistake #1 ?). And I had CANON EOS300 with a basic double lens kit soon, and a big drop in my bank balance. With the initial enthusiasm, I started going around with the gear. Unfortunately, I started without any basics, and never had the courage to venture beyond the Auto mode most of the time. Another mistake I did was to try manual focussing most of the time instead of trusting the Auto focussing capabilities of my camera.

End result: Blurred pcitures most of the time, and very few which could even count as good snapshots!

This start, partly, is an inspiration to this blog which I hope can help atleast a few who are about to start this hobby, but has not checked the background realities.

Will continue this story in the next post...