The boy's new toy

As some of you know, photography has been a hobby of mine for a while - 30 years or so, I think. The passion comes and goes, and with the advent of an affordable digital SLR, the passion has come back a bit.

I've been selling my old stuff on Ebola, and have saved enough money to take the leap into the digital thing and get a new mattress - but who cares about that?.

On Tuesday, I took delivery of a new Nikon D40 and 18-55 zoom lens. Technically, it's probably a bit less than what I would ideally desire, but financially it was perfect.

I've been slowly going through the manual, trying to find what all the buttons and switches do. Sadly, the weather around here has turned crappy, so I haven't had the opportunity to run around outside with it. I wasn't anxious to take a brand new camera out in the snow.

Then, I remembered an article I read a while ago that encouraged photographers to look around their back yard and their neighborhoods, because sometimes the most interesting images manifest themselves there. I'm coachable, and after the slow, snowy drive home, I pulled out the camera, set up the tripod and slid open the big patio door. It took a couple of minutes to get used to the idea that there isn't an aperture ring, and I had to figure out how to use the "manual" setting, because auto is for sissies!

When I get familiar enough with the camera and the weather makes it more comfortable to get out and experiment, I plan to start blogging my photos on another site. You'll be the first to know.

Here it is, officially the 13th image on the card, but the first one I liked enough to yank out and post. It helps when a little traffic rolls by and there's enough snow stuck to the trees to make things interesting.

For the photo geeks, the lens was set at 45mm, exposed for 6 seconds at f5.3, ISO 400, JPEG fine.

Click on the image and it will enlarge.