Given that photography is a little bit of an obsession for me, it is not surprising that my camera is like my left hand (yes, it’s a south paw too), always with me, always expected to support my habit. Except lately it hasn’t been.  It’s starting to let me down, not perform as I expect, and this is really starting to irk me.

I am not talking about the normal, feature-, lens-envy-, or speed-based issues, all of which I have. I chose this camera knowing what it could and could not do, and I live with that until I buy my next one.  The problems I am having fall in the my camera is letting me down column, and this is a problem.  It started with little things, like not wanting to focus on objects where there was low contrast and not having the focus lock engage when it should.  Lately I have noticed that the preview refuses to come on when I press the button, that the failure to focus  has become more frequent in all lighting and contrast situations, and that sometimes the shutter out and out refuses to engage.  Today I noticed that the shutter button is sticking all the time, making focus lock stay engaged.  Normally I have time to pop it back up, but when chasing the lils it’s not always possible.  Either I move or they move and the picture is gone or out of focus before I can correct.

The camera has over 30,000 pictures taken on it, but it is only three years old!  So the pro/con lists for several new DSLRs have now been started.  The wish list that I have for lenses and gear is big and expensive.  I am all good with that, Willy is not as good with it, so I am hoping for some price drops as the newest models are released, or I am gonna have some negotiating to do.  My camera is going to regret refusing to allow focus for this cuteness at the park today:

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One of my favourite things in the world to do is take pictures, it’s in my blood.  There have always been cameras in my life. My grandfather is a collector, with upwards of twenty cameras. He still takes pictures almost every day, even though he is in his late nineties. He bought me my first camera, a little film point and shoot. It was a Canon, and took fabulous pictures.

When I was in my teens each member of my family had their own SLRs, split between fully manual Pentax and mostly-manual Minolta bodies. We all spent a small fortune on processing, but thankfully I worked in a camera store so there was a small discount. The prints weren’t free, but there were lots of them. I was still shooting my old X-370 a few years ago, but have gradually gone to a d-SLR, my Sony A-100.

In a roundabout way Sony bought Minolta a few years ago, so this keeps my true to my roots. Shooting in digital all the time made allowed me to step it up and take many more pictures and get more creative with the shots that I took, but it also made me a lazy photographer. I started relying on all these cool modes that the camera had, and sadly started relying on the “auto” modes for most shots.

This Spring I stepped up my picture taking, thanks in part to the Kids in the Capital ABC challenge and later my 365 project.  While both of these projects have challenged me and forced me to look differently at how I compose and take pictures, they left me wanting to work on my technical skills too.  So a good friend and I have enrolled in a class at a local photography school.  After two weeks of classes I am having so much fun!  I’d forgotten how much fun it is to play with my camera! Some of my recent manual shots:

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