I traded up today. No, no, not Layton - he's not going anywhere; I traded up camera bodies. Yes, I only just got my D3000 for Christmas (and it was my first digital SLR and I will always hold it in the same esteem as my first film SLR, which was a Pentax Spotmatic) and it's a great camera, certainly good enough for what I've been doing, but I had the opportunity to move into an incredible camera and I took it. I'm still a bit in awe of it. The wait time for the battery to charge was absolute torture, and it was dark by the time I got a chance to shoot with it, but, as I said, the Nikon D300S is an incredible camera. This picture didn't turn out half bad, especially considering I used the built-in flash and it's kind of dark in here. I know digital will never compare to film in quality, but really, who needs film when you have digital like this?

I remember my first digital camera. Well, it wasn't really "mine" so much as it was "the family's". I was probably 17 or 18 and living at home with my parents and they bought some generically-named little 0.3 Megapixel "camera". It took the worst pictures I've ever seen. My eyes showed up blue in pictures taken by that camera. My eyes are hazel/green. The camera did not operate at all if it was not plugged into a USB port. But it was good in theory - digital photography was genius, in my opinion. I was amazed that no one had thought of it earlier.

Throughout the years, I had several terrible digital cameras, most of which can now be found in my camera collection alongside my Baby Brownie and Fed 5 and Lomo SuperSampler. The second digital camera I ever had was a Sony number that I won in a draw at work. It was total garbage. It worked for a week or so and then died, and I had no way to remediate the issue so I ended up throwing it away. After that I had a Panasonic which came from god-knows-where that actually lasted me a couple years before the lens became stuck open (a week before my trip to Cancun, of course) and I ended up spending my Airmiles on a little blue Pentax point-and-shoot that came too late to save my vacation, but which I still actually love. It takes pretty good pictures. After that, a friend recommended I buy a Canon, so I went out and got a Canon powershot or something, which was, again, total garbage. I ended up sticking with the Pentax for quite a while.

I still used a film SLR up until a few years ago. My Spotmatic was stolen, but I had a Nikon N2020 as well, and eventually even replaced the Spotmatic. But, it was hard to know the freedom of digital and still use film. Film requires either a lot of planning or a lot of money, and I obviously didn't have the money. I couldn't justify buying a dSLR (I wanted a Nikon D90). I suffered.

Layton bought me the D3000 for Christmas. I had no idea, and I cried when I opened it. I took it everywhere with me. I took pictures of everything. I decided to follow my longtime dream and go professional with that camera. That camera made my dreams come true. That camera gave me the means to pursue career happiness. I owe huge life changes to it. I owe quitting my longtime job to that camera.

So how can I give it up so easily? Well, if you met my D300S, you'd understand!