And it begins....

I have always been interested in photography, but until recently the only cameras that I had ever used on a regular basis were of the point-and-shoot variety. However, in lieu of a trip to Europe later this year, my wife and I purchased a Nikon D3100 DSLR camera, and I've been spending my free time in the afternoons learning how to use it.

Coming from point-and-shoot cameras to the DSLR is quite a change. Never before did I have to worry about ISO, and shutter speed, and aperture size, and flash delay, etc.... At first it was a little over whelming, but with the help of the internet and YouTube, I've managed to take some pretty nice shots for a beginner. Most of my shots thus far have been of my dogs since they're easy to shoot both indoors and out. The pic below was taken in auto mode with the 18-55 kit lens that came with the camera. I retouched it a little in Photoshop to enhance the colors some.

This picture was taken with the same settings, and it came out great! No retouches at all.

And here's one more. This one was taken in auto mode, but I was using manual focus so I could blur the foreground and focus a little deeper in the picture.

In the last few days since getting the camera, I've taken a ton of pictures and some of them look really nice. Last night my wife and I were outside enjoying the cooler weather we've been having lately, and I took some really cool looking pictures with a slower shutter speed and large aperture. I haven't had a chance to go through all of them yet, but I'll pick out the best ones and post them later this weekend. Since I'm in the process of learning the finer points of shooting in manual mode, I'll be sure to post the settings and lens that I use for all my pics in the future.