I have owned my Canon 1100D for almost two years now. Finally going digital means that I take a lot more photographs (although I still have a tendency to miss "the moment" because I'm busy experiencing it), especially since doing a half-day workshop at a local photography company and understand a little better how to get the sort of results that I like. Until last summer I didn't really own anything but the camera itself. Then I dropped it. I am very grateful that the kit lens has a plastic bayonet, it wasn't all that cheap a repair but it was significantly cheaper than a replacement zoom lens.
Camera Toy #1 - 50mm lens
For the *mumble mumble* months it took me to organise that lens repair, I picked up a 50mm portrait lens. While that falls within the 18-55mm of my zoom lens, it was a focal length that had been suggested for a lens to use as a portrait lens and was fairly inexpensive. I had a lot of fun playing with this one. Took some good photographs. Having a fixed focal length makes you think about where you should be standing and makes for a faster shot, which is good when you take a lot of pictures of people dancing. Especially as they often do so in low light conditions.
Camera Toy #2 - Tripod
A tripod is just a handy thing really. Mine appeared at Christmas and is nifty. It means that you can use the timer and be in your photographs, but mostly it means that there's no camera shake from your hands or breathing or anything. Which means that it plays very nicely with toy #3:
Camera Toy #3 - Remote
This is the newest of my acquisitions and it does a whole heap of things that I will have to investigate - like taking shots at intervals for a defined period, or putting on a 99-hour timer. What I used it for last weekend when I took it out for a play was twofold - being in my pictures without the weird countdown thing and slow-shutter night shots. Once I'm a bit more comfortable with the remote I want to try for some star shots.
