One thing I've learned since getting a proper camera was that if photography was easy, everyone would do it. Sure, the latest iPhone or Galaxy can take some incredible pictures with little effort. Doesn't matter if it's in the evening or middle of the day, a phone camera will snap a photo and automatically adjust its parameters to fit the conditions. I guess that's the point of a point-and-shoot camera.
When we decided to buy a more advanced camera, one thing we did not anticipate was the learning curve between an old Olympus camera and a Pentax K70. We purchased three additional lenses to the one that the K70 was kitted with. These lenses include a 50mm portrait lens, a wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens with macro function.
Since then it's been a roller coaster of highs and lows as we mess around with the settings and see how the shot turned out. Being stuck to a phone camera for a long time, it takes a bit of a learning curve to learn the more advanced gear. Now, we actually need to learn how to focus, though the K70 has a decent auto-focus feature, it will not always focus on what you want to capture so sometimes manual focus is the only option. With that comes the necessity to learn what the best ISO and exposure settings are for a particular shot, and that's only exacerbated by outdoors photography, in which the light situation always changes.
“There’s something very rewarding about taking that “perfect shot” when you have to work harder for it.”
Now that it's been about a week of ups and downs, I can already see myself going from not having much passion about photography to wanting to do this for a living. Once I took that first perfect photo that I've been dreaming about all my life, I was hooked. There's something very rewarding about taking that "perfect shot" when you have to work harder for it. As I mentioned earlier, it's kind of easy to take a decent shot with a phone camera these days. It's actually quite surprising how good a photo you can take with those gadgets that have invaded our pockets since before Nokia brick phone was a thing. No matter how good the photo is, there's no replacement for aperature. There's greater control when you have optical zoom and you have control over where you want the lens to focus.
If someone were to ask me, I'd say buying an entry-level professional camera was one of the best decisions I've made since I said "I do." I have my wife to thank for it. She's the one with the photography prowess, I'm just getting my feet wet and so far, it has been a blast.