I have a confession to make.

I couldn’t wait for the weekend…so…. I got home from work, changed, got back into the car and drove to Argos to get my brand new Nikon D90!

Obviously, I fell instantly in love with it. The size and weight is perfect and the 3″ LCD screen a big bonus. I couldn’t contain my excitement as I charged the battery for a couple of hours when I got back while I tried to have some dinner. Eventually, with a fully charged D90 and my manual, I began exploring my new best friend.

As I was taking some test shots in our slightly dark living room, I had no idea that the clear and extremely sharp snaps were on at an ISO of 2000! I have to admit that the out-of-the-box settings weren’t ideal for me. I had to change a lot of the exposure compensation and white balance etc to get the D90 to do what I wanted it to do. However, once I sorted that out, it was a dream to work with.

Anyway, back to the ISO issue (which is a big selling feature of this camera…)…it does what it says on the tin. With the same composure, I only started to notice the noise at ISO 3200. I can’t imagine how I had put up with unacceptable noisy pictures from my D40 on a mere ISO 1600.

On a personal level, the big bonus for me was being able to snap away and focus automatically on my favourite 50mm f1.8 lens. The beauty of the lens coupled with the ISO sensitivity of the D90 is a great combination for low light photography.

However, swapping from a 6MP SLR to a 12MP SLR and shooting in RAW, I suddenly realized how quickly my 4GB SD card got filled up!

Anyway, I’m sure there are a lot more features I’ve yet to discover on this briliant piece of kit. It sure has a lot more menu options I’ve never seen before on my D40. It’s gonna take me some time but oh…is it gonna be worth it…

Financially speaking, I’ve been rather fortunate this month. With the month coming to a close, I have succesfully saved £300 towards my D90!

However, I still needed another £120 from somewhere. Low and behold, I was surfing on Argos the other week and discovered that I could trade in my Nectar points for cash! Now, I’ve been collecting Nectar points for 5 years now. Never used any of it. Therefore, I had a substantial amount in my account. And eversince combining our Nectar accounts, J and I had a total of 25, 000 points.

With every 500 Nectar points you trade in, you get £2.50 in Argos vouchers. Now, if I actually sat down and thought about it, it sounds like a bloody crap deal! It took me way more than £2.50 to get those 500 points. If I didn’t want my camera so bad, I would have decided to just hold on to my points till a better deal comes along. But I…just…can’t..wait…any…longer!

However, it might be due to the constant moaning he’s been subjected to from me over the past few weeks as the challenge for saving for my D90 progressed OR he could just be a really really really sweet person but whatever it was, J has very kindly decided to donate his points to me so that I could get a whopping £125 off my camera!

With a retail price of £743.79, I will be getting my Nikon D90 this weekend for a bargain price of £618.79!

Sweeeeeet!

Compared to last month, this month has been rather easy on my wallet. I can’t begin to explain the withdrawal symptoms I’ve been experiencing not shopping for a whole month! Which probably explains my lack of fashion posts in recent days.

When I first started my challenge of saving up for my D90, a target date of the 29th of Sept seemed like a reasonable timeframe. However, over the past few weeks as I tried to raise the cash, I’ve been consumed with an overwhelming itch to get it NOW! Coupled with the fact that I really would like to use it for my photography class which is drawing to a close in a couple of weeks.

I dream about it, I’m constantly thinking about it, I’ve googled ‘eco-driving’ endlessly and adapted it in order to reduce my fuel bills; I scrutinize my finances everyday trying to figure out a way to get it right now.

For goodness sakes, I even gave up shopping for a whole month!

And…I think I’ve figured it out…

I have to say, I am getting a hang of this. I’m starting to feel a lot more relaxed with kids photography. Last week, I managed to get a couple of shots outdoors with young Jess. I was a lot more pleased with my shots this time round. I felt natural light was a lot of flattering and it took away the whole rigid formal atmosphere of the studio. I got her to play with the grass, jump up in the air, run around; things she would normally do anyway on a day out in the park.

You can view it in full-size here.

I’ve never realised how difficult it would be to keep track of my finances once the dreaded term ‘mortgage’ came into the equation. Long gone were the days when I paid a set amount every month regardless of rising fuel bills or council tax. I didn’t have a car and public transport worked fine for me. Everything was just so…simple.

Which was why I was really dissapointed when my good old trusted VW Polo broke down last month leading me to spend a substantial portion of my income fixing it.

I was really…really hoping to save at least half of my targeted £750…which obviously didn’t happen. I actually believed I could get the D90 before the 29th of Sept; maybe even in August. Wishful thinking I know now…

Oh well…

I guess I’m back down to my original plan of Sept 09.

However, despite everything, we sold our dishwasher (which came with the house) on eBay for £160. Which brings in a decent £80 for my half.

Savings for my D90 – The Challenge Update:

£250 £330 saved.

Unfortunately, we’re left with a sink with a big gaping hole beneath it. Now, if only we can figure out how to redirect the plumbing…

I’m sure in a household with two engineers, we can figure it out soon enough before the dishes keep piling up even higher…Right?!?

I’ve been trying to find a suitable camera bag for some time now. At the moment, I’ve been using either my ordinary black and yellow Nikon camera bag which came with the D40 or my Mischa Barton handbag.

Now as much as I love my handbag, it isn’t ideal. It doesn’t have any padding and it can just about handle my camera body with an attached 50mm prime lens. Carrying a flash or an additional lens is totally out of the question. I couldn’t possibly treat my D90 with such….disrespect!

Therefore, I’ve been searching for a suitable alternative…not a backpack or an ordinary camera bag…no no no…What I’m looking for is a little different – I’m looking for something with a dash of style yet still encomposes the essential padding and compartments I need. My search finally brought me to Jill-e.

With a wide range of styles and colours, Jill-e manages to satisfy the style conscious female photographer. Ranging from small and medium shoulder bags to large rolling bags, the bags’ padded interiors and adjustable velcro dividers are exactly what I’m looking for!!

The small leather ones can easily fit a camera body, 2 lenses and a flash (as well as your personal items). Perfect!

If only the price (£107 for a small leather bag) was as appealing as the bag itself. sigh…Guess that’s another thing I’ve got to save up for…

Anyway, based in the US, the bags are available worldwide, either through their website or through a network of photo retailers and distributors. You can get your very own Jill-e camera bag from Amazon.co.uk.

I was really looking forward to my class this week. We had a break for two whole weeks and I was itching to get into the studio and get some frames.

We had a lovely little girl called Holly this time and she was an absolute star! I was quite worried that she might get bored and lethargic posing for the 6 of us so I managed to be the 3rd people to get behind the lens and shoot away (which didn’t matter eventually because she posed for all 6 of us brilliantly).

It was definitely an experience working with a kid.

I had to constantly engage her in conversation yet concentrate on taking some decent shots. Therefore, there were a few shots of her in mid-sentence which weren’t exactly ideal. I couldn’t really tell her what to do so I had to move and work around her to get the right lighting and exposure. Not the best subject matter when you’re on manual focus. It was a challenge but definitely worth it.

I came out of the class feeling rather happy with my shots but wishing I had my D90 which definitely would have guaranteed a few more decent in-focus shots.

We’ll be on location next week and I’m hoping to bring J along which will be interesting. In the meantime, you can check out my gallery for the latest snaps.

Alliance and Leicester is offering a £100 cashback when you switch to their Premier current accounts.

The catch is: you must transfer your existing current account and it’s direct debits/standing orders to the new A&L account and pay in a minimum of £500 every month. Since I had a HSBC current account which I was thinking of getting rid of anyway, this sounded like a perfect opportunity for me to do so and gain £100 towards my D90.

It didn’t take as long as I thought; mainly due to their automated ’switching service’ which made it much easier to switch my direct debits. (Me being me…I’m still going to confirm with my existing bank to ensure that it has indeed been transferred over).

All in all, application took me a couple of hours and I’m £100 richer (see note below).

Saving for my D90 – The Challenge Update:

£150 £250 saved.

Note: It apparently takes 4 months for the £100 to show up in your account so for those who desperately need to have the cash in hand immediately, that’s not going to happen.

However, for ease of the budget calcualtions and not over-complicating things too much, I’m assuming that I will receive the £100 before the 29th of Sept. Therefore, have taken the £100 (which I’ve yet to receive) into consideration in my calculations. I’ve never banked with A&L before…so we shall see how it pans out…

Since the purchase of my D40, coupled with the more adventurous photography I’ve been doing in my classes and my photowalks, I’m beginning to feel the limitations of what my D40 has to offer me.

Don’t get me wrong…it’s a brilliant camera and one which I hope to keep for a long long time. My personal opinion? Give it a few years and it will be a classic and worth a lot more than what you can get it for now. It’s successor, the D40x (which is worth roughly £150 more) has already seen it’s production ceased while the originial D40 is still being manufactured.

The problem I have with it however, is that it only autofocuses with the latest AF-S lenses and some older AF-I lenses. If I were to use any traditional AF lenses, I would need to manually focus my shots (not ideal if I’ve got a kid that can’t sit still for more than 5 seconds). Therefore, by having a D40, I would need to invest a lot more on newer and latest lenses. However, if I were to get a better body; for example a D90, I would easily be able to autofocus on older lenses (which are just as good as the newer models and cheaper too).

There’s only one problem…the D90 costs £750.Don’t know about you…but 750 buckaroos is a hell lot of money for me.

I therefore have 2 options:

1) Max out my credit card and get it next week. (And be in debt with a hefty 15.9% interest rate).

2) Give myself a sensible period of time to raise some money and pay for it in cash. (While at the same time, doing my bit to boost the economy and not adding another £750 to our national debt)

After much deliberation, I have decided to go with Option 2.

My target date…29th Sept 2009 which also happens to be the day I turn 25. Which gives me exactly 4 months! I have £150 stashed away so I’m already 20% there! Easy peezy!

You can follow my progress via the image in the right sidebar.

I’ve always been intriqued with studio photography; the flash meters, the diffusers, the reflectors and of course… the brilliant photographer behind the lens. I had the wonderful opportunity of photographing Samantha Ramm last night and I have to say I was pretty dissapointed with myself.

I’m not quite sure what it was… what I was seeing through my lens was not coming out in my pictures! After a few frames, I was getting quite agitated. I knew it wasn’t Sam…she was brilliant! How can I not even take one decent frame of a beautiful 16-year-old actress?!?  It took a while to get my head around flashes, reflecting light back, aperture, depth of field, do I want a silver reflector or a white one, do I want a plain backdrop or something else…while at the same time keeping Sam comfortable and happy.

Eventually, out of the 50+ frames I took, I managed to get a few I was happy enough to upload into the gallery.

Everyone said I was too critical…too much of a perfectionist…Maybe they’re right…