One thing I can tell you is that I never thought I'd be so interested in photography. I didn't know way back then that of all the hobbies I've tried - stamp and/or sticker collecting, model making, buffet eating, etc. - photography would be the most enjoyable and fulfilling. I didn't have the passion for this hobby until recently. It used to be that I like having pictures taken, then it evolved into enjoying taking other people's pictures, and consequently just random stuff around that people tend not to notice (which paved the way to my increasing interest in closeup, macro and still life).
I procured my first camera when I was 16, in 1999. I won the camera in the National Space Science Quiz competition held at the National Planetarium, Kuala Lumpur. It was an APS film camera, the Minolta Vectis GX-2.
It was touted to be splashproof and durable, and I used it several times for my family excursions to the beach. The APS film format was supposedly next-gen towards the end of the nineties, but by early 2000s the format slowly dies out; phased out by the emerging market of digital photography.
The first camera that I bought by myself using my own money was a Sony Cybershot DSC-P71. It was large, heavy, noisy, and consumes battery power like a thirsty camel. I bought it sometime summer 2003, a few months after I got to the States for college.
For a 3.2 megapixel camera with limited features, it served me well for all my 4.5 years in the United States. Most of the pictures I took while I was in Michigan came from this trusty old camera. In fact, I used to be the pseudo-official photographer for the Muslim Students Association in the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and all of the photos were from this camera. You can see the photos I took by going to this site:
http://www.muslims.studentorgs.umich.edu/
Go to About MSA > Gallery and it will take you to a Picasa web album site. The lower 50% of all the albums on the site (basically oldest photos on the site) were taken by me, between 2005 - 2006, using the clunky old P71.
Some of the pics I took back then. Photo credits: ihsankhairir
Alas, the old camera served me for a full five years before it died its slow death, finally one day refusing to turn on even after I served it with a set of fully charged double-As. The day it died, I felt a small pang of sadness, for I have had and made tons of memories with this camera, and the fact that I may never use it again for taking photos brought an end to a very meaningful and fulfilling run.
The death of the Sony DSC-P71 came shortly after I procured from a friend the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX12.
I took quite a number of pictures using this very compact and easy to use camera. I used it especially to explore my growing interest in closeup and macrophotography (of bugs, especially), as evidenced by the photos below.
photo credits: ihsankhairir
The Lumix was stolen at a McDonald's restaurant in Shah Alam, which to me was a devastating blow. During its short service it had helped me explore and produce some of my favorite closeups of bugs and insects, of which are all amateur-ish but passable in my book. Losing the camera meant I was without my shooting gear for a few months, until I procured my latest camera.
The Nikon D60. My first and only DSLR. I bought it a few days before leaving for a family vacation to Sabah in December 2008. For those who have been around my site, you have seen most of the photos I took using this camera, so there's no need to provide sample photos here. You know where to look. Most of the latest photos, in fact, most of my posts here feature at least one photo taken using this camera.
I guess that's a brief history of my involvement in photography as a hobby. It's a short insight into all the cameras I used to own and use and maybe a little bit of what I used to shoot back in the days before the D60.
For all my posts concerning photography, you can go
here or click the label 'photography' found in the sidebar.
Before I go, I'd like to invite you, especially the photography hobbyists / amateurs / professionals, to give us an insight into your history of photography. I'm sure it would be enjoyable to share and learn each other's passions and inspirations as well as journey in preserving memories onto film / digital images.
"I heart photography!"
without using the flash. I used manual control so that I can practice changing settings on the fly. Most of these were shot at ISO 200, aperture f/1.8 and shutter speed 1/80 seconds.
at all I had to slow down the shutter speed so that I would get enough exposure for the photo. This would make it almost impossible to freeze energetic moments on stage, and most of them turned out blurry and uninteresting. Using the flash bleaches out all the colorful lighting on stage, plus the direct flash also takes away the rimlight and the lighting effects on the subject. I think for events like this in the future, with preparation, I'd probably do a 
with colored gels to freeze and capture the energetic moments of the live stage performance.
