My Camera Kit

One of my main passions is photography. I've been doing it a lot for a very long time - since I was a little kid, in fact. The only difference is that back then it was with a point-and-shoot film camera (the last one I remember was a Olympus Mju), with me not knowing much about stuff like compositions, et cetera.

Then before I left for the UK, I got my hands on a Sony DSC P2. Digital cameras were still relatively new back then; I paid RM1500 for it during a promotion. The flexibility - i.e. recomposition was easy, no need to process pictures if I don't want to, etc etc - I loved it.

But the pictures were grainy and full of noise and all that. It was no SLR, and at only 2 megapixels, I wasn't going to gain much. It was pretty iffy, especially when I saw shots from 4 and 5 megapixel cameras. I wasn't well acquainted with the concepts of aperture, shutter speed, etc at this point - I had simply heard of them but knew peanuts. It was still quite point and shoot.

Then I met a friend of mine, he had purchased an SLR camera and was taking pictures. He showed me experimental pictures he was taking, and recommended a book to me: Introduction to Photography, by John Hedgecoe. Or something similar to the title, I'm not sure at this moment.

Then came the time to upgrade to a new camera. At first I was looking at cheap compact digital cameras - I could not afford to spare much for one without making large budget cuts elsewhere. While at the camera shop, I saw that they were having a promotion for two budget digital SLRs - the Canon EOS 350D and Nikon d70. Both were going for a couple of hundred lower than the usual price. I hit a brainwave - my graduation was soon, and at that moment I could think of nothing else that I wanted. To cut the story short, I got the 350D - in silver.

Some of you wonder why silver, and I've been asked that before - black is too boring. Too many SLRs are in black; admittedly it looks more professional, but it felt boring nevertheless. For compacts its the opposite, too many are in silver. Besides, the 350D is only a budget dSLR, the professional ones are really the 5D, Mark-1, etc etc. And I chose Canon over Nikon because the d70 was still a bit more expensive after the discounts (the d70s had just come out and had no bloody discount), and some cajoling by Silencers helped me a little.

So anyway, this is my kit:


Picture taken courtesy of Vysia.

It consists of:
Canon 350D silver body
Canon 15-55mm USM kitted lens (not shown)
Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens (shown above)
Speedlite 430EX (I think I was one of the first in the world to get it, only one bloody shop in London seemed to carry it out of the 20 or so that I looked and some magazines were only mentioning about its availability after I bought it.). With the diffuser lowered down in this pic.
Velbon DX-888 tripod (not shown)
Hoya circular polarizers for both lenses (not shown)

and some random bits and pieces.

To view some of my portfolio, click here for it. The link is also accessible from my sidebar.