It is a sunny October Bank Holiday Monday in Dublin and, after spending my morning in trying to figure out some coding for my college assignment, I decided to venture out of my cave with my recently acquired DSLR. However, before showing the proud first moments my camera and I spent together in trying to figure out each other, I would like to spare a few words about the ordeal I went through, which almost made me gave up photography before even starting. (Yeah, I’m being a total drama queen…)

I have been thinking for a while to get a proper camera, but I didn’t have a clue where to start, so when I was on holiday in September, I decided to spend some time in reading, researching and comparing; learning about shutter count, focal length and aperture, I eventually settled to buy a second-hand Nikon D200. It’s not a very recent model, but it’s a semi-professional – or prosumer to use a vey fancy marketing word- , and it seemed to fit my needs better than the other Nikon model, more recent but entry level instead, I was considering. In addition, I found one on Ebay with a very low shutter count, i.e. the number of pictures taken aka the times the shutter has been activate, which I learned is limited (I say limited in a kind of “I will never be taking all these pictures in my whole life”) in DSLR. So, I bought it, and ordered a Nikon AF-S 18-55mm kit lenses from another seller, which is deemed by the Internet the best and most affordable lens for beginners. So, happy with my purchases, I set to wait as patiently as I could, already looking on how to spend even more money on a new hobby.

My lens arrived fairly quickly, but my camera got lost around Ireland for about a month, in which I was told it was on its way back to Germany, then that it was still in Ireland so on its way to me, so I kept checking frenzily for the tracking to update, and it appeared to be in Limerick to its way back to Germany for real this time.

Plot twist: it showed up at my door the day after. (Kudos to An Post for tracking the package down and send it to the correct address).

So, with the camera in my hands, I didn’t have a clue how to use it. The ordeal wasn’t completelyover as I forgot to get the right memory card, CompactFlash memory, but that was easily sorted and this morning I was ready to try to snap some shots. I’m quite happy with the results, I walked around Rathmines, which is gorgeous when it’s sunny, and tried out different focal lengths on the zoom lens and subjects, mostly trees and houses. I wanted to take pictures of the Halloween decorations, but I didn’t want to be the creeper lurking around other people’s yards…

I present you with some selected shots of my first day with my grown-up camera, hope you’ll enjoy lovely Dublin on a sunny day!