What improved my digital photography results the most?  I purchased a digital SLR camera.

When expecting our first child, we received a Canon Powershot S50 point and shoot camera as a gift.  A digital camera is a great present for parents-to-be!  As first baby’s grandparents and godparents can attest, we took hundreds of pictures after the baby was born and loved the quality of the images and the camera itself.  But once the baby started wiggling and crawling, we realized there was a slight delay between pressing the shutter button to take a picture and the actual capture of the shot.  As I’m sure you know, even one second’s delay can be too long to capture a smile on a wiggly toddler.

Digital SLR Cameras

I went to a camera store that I trusted and asked for the digital camera that would eliminate this shutter delay the best.  The salesman told me that any SLR would take pictures more quickly than my point and shoot, and ultimately recommended that I purchase the Olympus EVolt 500.

We have been happy with this camera ever since.  Photos are recorded almost instantly, the reproductions are accurate and there is a wide range of settings for photographing in various conditions (action, close-up, sunset, etc.)  Of course, this is probably pretty standard behavior across digital SLRs – I don’t claim to have an eye good enough to judge quality between similar models of cameras (yet).

The camera was easy to learn as well.  I did lots of experimenting at first and stuck with the Auto mode for important pictures.  Honestly, I still use the Auto mode with great results for most pictures but I am slowly branching out into assigning settings manually from time to time.

Camera Accessories

In addition to the camera, we purchased an external flash, an extra battery and two 1 gigabit memory cards.  The extra battery and memory card have saved me so many times!  The battery charge lasts for hours, and I’ve never been without a spare battery or room on my memory cards, even on vacation.

Did I really need to purchase the extra flash?  Hmmm.  The jury is still out on that one – it’s not as foolproof to use as the camera.  I’m practicing with it and my pictures are coming out much better than they used to.

The last thing I bought with this camera was a UV filter that screws onto the end of my lens.  While I don’t think it improves (or harms) the quality of my pictures, it does protect my lens.  I have to admit that my kids are not the only ones to have dropped my camera – I’ve done it too and the lens has no scratches on it.  If only my sunglasses were in such good shape!  A $20 lens protector is much more palatable than replacing the entire lens.

The Best News

The best part of this story?  This has been my only major expense on photography to date.  I bought it 2 or 3 years ago and haven’t spent much on photography since then, except for purchasing Phostoshop Elements for photo processing.

I have all the equipment I need to take great pictures of my kids.