I started my photographic ventures on my dad’s Nikon. It had optional automatic speed adjustment, but manual aperture (aperture priority, that is). It was my early exposure to his camera that began my aperture centered approach to photography.
My first camera of my very own I bought my senior year of university, 1998. I was preparing for a trip to London for New Year’s, and instead of leaping into the digitized future with everybody else (well, that is not totally true…pretty basic digital SLRs were loads of money), I took another step toward manual with my Vivitar V4000, which has done nothing but serve me well for many years, and even up to the present as a cheapo backup camera when I shooting something important.
However, in December 2003, after weeping the loss of four years of ruined photographs, I knew I had to make the digital plunge. If an all manual digital camera existed, I would probably have bought it, but at the time I bought my camera, to my knowledge, they did not. I needed a camera among cameras, not some little pocket wonder. It came to me on my birthday, my own, my Nikon D100. And it is with me to this day.
