Canon EOS 450D

I know I always have the habit of learning new stuffs, spend a lot of money on them, and then lose interest in them very quickly. A typical jack of all trades, master of none. However, I'm very serious about photography. I'm as serious about it as how I'm serious about backpacking. Both of these are lifelong passions that I did not have much opportunity to pursue--until now.

After much discussion with Jack, I have set my eyes on the new Canon EOS 450D DSLR.

$1,500 with kit lens (although Jack has got some lobangs for me), 12.2 megapix, image stabiliser, 18-55mm zoom lens, can shoot in both raw and jpg formats, has a self-cleansing system, 3.0" LCD monitor, continuous shooting at 3.5fps, auto lighting optimiser, max shutter speed of up to 1/4000 per second, and last but not least, LIVE VIEWING, which is really new for DSLRs, although I probably wouldn't use it much. It's only an entry level consumer DSLR, but ya can already do wonders with it. =)

Jack said that he would lend me his photography books and he also gave me some websites and forum links which I can learn from. He also got some lobangs for me. haha... I was telling him that I would slog for the whole of may/june holidays for this camera and I would not have any regrets. Have to get this real soon, and learn it in time for my Dec Vietnam backpacking trip. Have postponed it to December instead of June hols as Jack said that Vietnam in Dec is the best. Super cold. Heh. And I totally trust Jack, cuz first of all, he's my churchmate. And 2nd, he's a very experienced backpacker, and a very experienced photographer. 2 of my greatest passions in life. I honestly think that he is like a professional although he says he isn't "there" yet. He shared some of his secret "copyrighted" collections with me and I thought they were amazing. They are the reason for my sudden inspiration. =)

It's not exactly a cheap hobby, as I'd probably get some specialised lens in future, but I think it's totally worth it. I wanna be able to capture the full beauty of this world that God has created for us... the landscapes, the people... These are 2 major areas in photography I've been wanting to focus on. Plus, I've been serving in MTM (multimedia ministry) in church. Would be great if I can use my own original photos instead of other people's. =)

Updated my "help-the-poor-gerlynn-fund" list. I'm getting poorer each day... T_T