When I first started my 365 “Photo a Day” journey at the start of 2012, I was using a “point and click” camera.  At that time, I knew I had much to learn about lighting, composition, and editing.  There was no need to spend much on a camera, because I had plenty of growing room with the camera I owned.  After all, you can take amazing photos with a basic camera and terrible photos with an expensive camera.

While I still have much to learn, I felt ready to take the next step after three years of photo blogging.  After consulting with a talented photo friend, I’ve upgraded to a Canon Rebel SL1.  It’s hardly the fanciest or most expensive camera out there, but it’s my first camera with changeable lenses, and I’m so excited to keep building my skills from here.

I’m still getting to know my new camera.  I know I still rely too heavily on automatic and pre-programmed settings rather than manual.  Even so, I’m thrilled about all that I will learn and how far I’ll develop my skills with my new Canon.

This is what shooting a blue jay on full zoom through the window looked like with my old camera.

And this is what shooting a blue jay, even farther away, looks like with my new camera (still shooting through a window).

It seems cleaner and crisper with the new camera, even if I shot it “lazily” using auto mode.

What do you think?