At the beginning of the summer, I started working with a couple of St. Olaf professors on their research project. They hired me to work on the project website and to do some photography for them. Because of this, I was lent one of the school’s Nikon D70’s. This is a huge improvement over my personal camera (a Canon PowerShot S50) and so I’ve been using it all summer for personal photography. It’s been absolutely amazing because this camera, along with the macro lens that I was also lent, allows me to do the close-up kind of photography I really love. (So far, I’ve only got around to adding the May photos to the website, but I promise more will be put up soon.)

Anyway, in an hour and a half I have to take the camera up to campus to return to the professors. Losing this camera is going to be awful — I got out my S50 earlier, and it feels like a toy. The functionality, which I used to be totally satisfied with, now feels so limited after using a DSLR for the last few months. All I know is that sometime in the near future I will need to buy a DSLR of my own, with a macro lens, so that I can continue to take pictures that I am really, truly proud of. However, being a poor college student, I have no idea when I’m going to be able to do that.

Donations to the Noel Peterson Digital Single-Lens Reflex Camera Fund are welcome.