I’ve had a lot of fun with point and shoot cameras over the years.  We’ve had two - both Canons and have just had great luck with them - they’ve been both durable and reliable.  I’ve gotten what I consider some beautiful photos with them. I’ve actually won a few ribbons at the local county fair in the photography category and there is a special sweetness about doing that with a camera the size of a deck of cards.

For this trip however I knew I would be very disappointed if we didn’t have a nicer camera with a real lens - capable both of better closeups and catching scenery and wildlife further away.  I went on the watch for a digital SLR (DSLR) and was happy when a good friend was selling off his Nikon D40 to upgrade. 

I’ll confess—I didn’t do any research.  I didn’t look around.  I knew enough about the Nikon line to know that the D40 had a great reputation in the market as a nice entry-level DSLR that could also be upgraded with different lenses, and was capable of taking some amazing photos in the right hands.  When the eBay auction for this camera ended unsuccessfully and Adam offer the camera (along with 2 lenses) to me at what I thought sounded like a reasonable price I jumped at the chance. 

It arrived last week - and I’ve had the chance to spend one good sunny afternoon with it outdoors.  You can view those photos on Flickr.  I’ve a lot to learn when it comes to taking advantage of the added flexibility of a DSLR - but I’m also happy to get photos like this with the camera pretty much set on automatic:

I haven’t had such a nice picture of those baby-blues since we got rid of our APS SLR camera. 

I hope to find a local photography class this summer - I want to get intimately familiar with this camera by the time we leave as I don’t want to waste what I expect to be some great photo opportunities.