It’s Playtime

Didn’t I tell you that my 13th month pay (bonuslah tu) is out already? I’m so in the mood for shopping. I guess the shopping devil still haunting me despite of my lengthy blog entry about this new year’s resolution of being in more control over my financial. I guess I should make exception this time. In the past, my bonus money went away just like that. This year, I better tied it on something that I can see, feel and use.

So the stop of today is Canon Concept Store, Mid Valley Megamall. Oh well. I hope you can guess by now what I’m trying to get today.

I hope you guessed it right ladies and gentlemen. This is the day that I just got myself a brand new Canon EOS 40D DSLR camera. I’m getting the EF-S 18-55 IS Kit. I was planning on getting just the body, and shop around for a more decent lens, but the knowledge of EOS product lines of the staff that handles me is so frustrating. I was thinking of consulting him on which lens to get. My first few questions like, does the kit comes with USM lens, is it IS lens, is this the only kit that you have, do you have other kit that comes with lens with longer focal length, just stunned the person. Oh yeah. I really do my homework for the past week before I decided to get this.

I guess panic with all those techy questions that I bombarded, the person just suddenly say “this camera comes with free 2GB lens”. I was like having a mental block for several seconds. 2GB lens? Oh. I guess what the person mean is 2GB memory card.

I actually did went to other camera shop in Mid Valley, and other offering the camera at lower price. But lower price must have the catch right. It turned out that it’s just for the camera and the kit lens. I went back to that Canon Concept Store and ask what free items that I will get. I even tell that the other camera shop just opposite this shop offered me lowered price. Bingo. After checking with his supervisor, the price is lower by RM299 from the original price that he quoted me.

Anyway, below are other free stuffs that I get – camera bag, tripod, 2GB CF card, screen protector (not shown). As the blower (to blow away dust), I insisted the person to give it for free, but the person just say he can’t since he lowered the price earlier already. I said, OKlah. Sell to me cheaper lar. Not quite sure where I got my bargaining skills today. The person agreed to knock down RM20 from the price of the blower.

As always, for every new thing that I buy, the most exiting thing is to do the unboxing. Oh my. How excited I am. Below is the content of the Canon EOS 40D EF-S 18-55 IS Kit.

• Camera: EOS 40D
• Lens: EF-S15-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
• Power source: Battery Pack BP-511A
• Charger: Battery Charger CB-5L
• Power cord
• Interface Cable IFC-200U
• Video Cable VC-100
• Strap: EW-100DGR
• 2 CD-ROMs: EOS DIGITAL Solution Disk & Software Instruction Manual
• Pocket Guide
• EOS 40D Instruction Manual
• Camera Warranty Card (not shown above)
• Lens Warranty Card (not shown above)

This is how my new camera looks like after I attached the lens to the body.

I actually was overwhelmed with the list of lenses and accessories that are available for EOS camera. Will be slowly adding more accessories to my camera as time goes, and as when I can afford it.

Down deep inside, I do have a subtle passion for photography. And it’s just time for me to get just a bit more serious about it. And photography is just totally a whole new world for me to discover as hobby.

Started with keeping aquarium fish, when I start jumping into that field, I came across terms like cycling, nitrogen cycle, nitrite, nitrate, PH level, water hardness, acclimate etc.

Then, keeping cats as pet has the world of its’ own too. Litter tray, clumping litter, feral kitten, neutering, deworming, vaccination, toilet train are a few things that I newly caught when I started this hobby.

And now, it’s photography time. Been reading about USM IS lenses, speedlite, UV filter, shutter speed, ISO speed, aperture – there are so much exciting new things await me.

I started to experience and started to like the power of DSLR camera right from my first use, even I just simply point and shoot the photo without tampering with the setting at all yet.

Producing clear image in the low light condition, without the need of use of flash, and almost noise free and blur free image at high ISO speed – thanks to the IS lens and Digic III image processor. AC Mizal?? More about this in separate blog entry 😉

The beauty of depth of field. Even though is not set to extreme on this photo shoot, but this is something that is quite hard to achieve from my previous point and shoot camera.

New to DSLR world like me? I found this Enjoy! Digital SLR camera guide is very informative.

p/s: Not trying to be obvious, the topic of this blog is It’s Playtime, one of the tagline for Canon Digital EOS.