When I was in high school, I used to work for the Camera and Electronics department of a store called BEST. (For more information on BEST, check out this wikipedia article.) Many of the folks that worked in the Camera and Electronics department were amateur photographers and it was while I worked there that I learned about photography from them. It was also while I worked there that I bought my first SLR camera, a Minolta X-700. I took thousands of photos with my X-700 and thoroughly enjoyed learning about photography with that camera. It went all over the U.S. with me and several of the photos in my gallery were taken with that camera (and scanned later of course!). About five years ago, the shutter mechanism in the X-700 finally died and I decided it was time to upgrade to an auto-focus SLR. I traded in the equipment I had and bought a Minolta Maxuum HTsi with a couple of nice lenses. I enjoyed that camera as well, but I quickly lost interest as digital cameras became affordable. I loved that fact that digital cameras were instant gratification — I didn’t have to wait to see how my pictures turned out. Unfortunately, digital SLR cameras, at that time, were still sky-high in prices, so I lived with a digital point and shoot. Two weeks ago I made the plunge and bought a Nikon D40x digital SLR. So far, I’m loving it!

I’ve already shot 300 photos with it and have started to figure out some of the nuances of the lens, the light meter, and the image sensor. I have much more to learn. To encourage me to keep snapping photos, I’ve decided to start a new feature here at the Minnesota Geek. I’m calling it Photo of the Week. This will be a photo that I’ve taken with my new Nikon in the last month. Let me know what you think of my photos. I’ll also be posting them in my gallery.

–Pete