I forgot the year, it might be 1980 or like that when I was a school boy, I shoot my first photo using Zarka, a Russian camera. It was one of my relatives' camera. I took the camera without his permission. I had shot ten/fifteen snaps by it, just randomly rotating different rings fitted on the nose of it. After developing the roll, there were some lost frames found and at the same time there were some good photos found, those were not taken by the camera owner. So, I got caught. By seeing the good photos I got inspired to shoot more.
Later, in the 80th, my elder brother bought a Yashika Electro 35 camera and gave it to me. I got inspired once again and started to explore the camera. By overhearing seniors’ discussion I got the idea of focus at the very beginning. That was a range finder (I learned later) camera, so focusing wasn’t any problem. I learned aperture settings while one friend of my elder brother telling it to him. I just learnt ‘this’ ring need to move based on lights say, 5.6 will be for flash. There were some icons on the aperture ring, those helped me a lot. There was another (mode) ring with three options, bulb, flash and auto. I found the ‘bulb’ is a useless feature using which I lost many snaps. I knew other two options, one is to use flash and another is not to use flash. (Ha ha ha) So that was an aperture priority camera (I learned it later too).
I shot many rolls using that camera. Day by day my photos got better and were appreciated by viewers. That shutter priority mode helped me a lot from background and my loss was 0%. Always I took 40 snaps using a 36 exposures film.
I had started with Fuji 100 ASA color films. I developed all photos at Fuji color labs. One day my brother sent me to collect some photos from another color lab and that was Agfa. I went there and found they don’t have 100 ASA film they started from 200. I noticed first time, that the ASA is something. I asked the salesman about it and he gave me a brief on it. Then I started playing with ASA. By the way; as we were (me and my brother) regular customer of them, they gave us three photography booklet as gift. I read them and that was my first reading on photography. I enjoyed that a lot and no doubt, quality of my photos was raised. Later I had collected and read some other books too.
I found that camera has no control on shutter speed. It is automatic. It sets the shutter speed automatically based on selected aperture and ASA. I was disappointed and started using bulb mode by some physical supports, we don’t have any tripod. I got some very good results.
I learnt about SLR, TLR, Range-finder, P&S, Compact, wide, telephoto, prime, zoom, multiplier from different books. I started borrowing SLR cameras from my friends and relatives. I thought, now the shutter speed is in my hand. I tried to set it but quality of photos went down. I found that aperture priority camera was good for me.
I saw marvelous photos of my friends taken by SLR with full manual settings. Then I decided to buy one SLR camera. I started on call photography. I took many programs like wedding, cultural programs etc. photos. I started table-top and indoor compositions. When I was confident enough about it I lost my camera. I lost my hobby.
Buying a camera was costly for me (still it is). I didn't think to buy a camera. My elder brother and his wife gave me a digital compact camera and I am just shooting my family photos.
My wife knows the story. I told her many times. At last Christmas, she gave me some money as gift to buy a camera. That was a great day for me.
I analyzed the market, my budget, my pattern of photography, camera features. I found the Nikon D90 DSLR is best for me. Later I planned for long time within same budget and bought a Nikon D5000 body, two non-DX, VR lenses covering 18mm to 300mm, a flashgun and a tripod. Hope to buy some other accessories and later, may be after five years a full-frame DSLR.
I started photography once again. My photography renewed. This time, I am very much happy because I don’t need to buy films and time to develop them. I can shoot as much I like to shoot. There are many new things in digital photography. I am learning those and hope to be a good photographer soon.
