not the cheapest hobby
Cameras are always mindblowing - no matter how old or how expensive they are. It is fascinating to capture a theme or a situation in your life and bring it on paper or nowadays digitally on your smartphone.
Starting in my youth with those little little analog cameras for just a few bugs (during school time you do not have that much money) i began taking photos of everything that looked interesting. OK it was different because each single shot cost a lot of money to develop in a shop..
A lot of different systems were collected and had a lot of fun with them. In highschool we built a DIY-style camera with "Balsa-wood" and a round peace of lens something. We realized everything was flipped over - and - we put in the back of the camera a little peace of magic paper. Opened the cap on the front for just a few moments, closed the lens cap again and ran to a dark room to put this magic paper in different acid fluids and washing it with water afterwards. Then - after very long minutes a picture of the scene we were pointing appeared on this magic paper! fasciniating ;-)
During my first visit to USA i already had an analog Nikon Camera with those 35mm film rolls with ISO 100 or if i had a bit more money the ISO 200 version :) So we ran to all those sightseeing objects and i pushed and pushed this little button - at the end i had roundabout 25 rolls of film! each containing roundabout 36 exposures.. ending up in a large amount of pictures (roundabout 900) i searched the local stores for the cheapest development way of my treasures.. ended up in a store, standing there for hours, putting each film into one paper bag, filling out my address and which photos i want to have developed, gloss or not, and so on... the sales people looked very critical the whole time until one of them came to me and asked what the hell i am doing.
So she quickly helped me packing those little tubes into the paper bags... that was really a unique experience ;-)
Then a Casio Exilim crossed my life - again just before a holiday :) that was my first experience with a digital camera with wysiwyg-mode (what you see is what you get^^) - a little display in the back and a memory card! So i shot and shot all day and kept those files. Carrying them home was much easier this time.. :)
Years later, just before the next visit to USA we could afford a Canon 550D with a Kit lens 18-55 and the 55-250 IS in a bundle. that was horrible expensive for us but we decided to bring some memories home.
Buying a new camera at the last day before making holidays is - challenging :) I was new to DSLRs and most of the time i used the Auto modes - some of you may know that this is sometimes good and sometimes not..
In the following years i bought each peace of equipment i found and practised as much as i found time and motivation. Ending up in a lot of Internet Videos from Adorama TV and Digitalrev and so on - soaking all kinds of infos.
One day i started my flickr page because a good friend in our company also started there and shared my pics. i realised - i am only one of millions of colleagues - and i am not very good at what i am doing.
So the motivation went up and down and up and down.. but i still keep pushing the trigger! :D
In the last months i started Astro photography and i am still fascinated by the beauty of the sky that most of the people do not realize. that is what makes it interesting - you see the night sky "o there are stars tonight" start a little smile and go into your warm house. Since i started, i tried to use every sky-clear evening and stay in my garden with the camera and the astromounting. i see Orion and Cassiopeya and flame nebula and Andromeda galaxy, ... virtually of course, because i know where they are hidden in the deep sky. It is so amazing and i am flashed each night i can spend in my garden, sitting there in the cold winter nights freezing to death :) But with my clothing and little warming pads i will survive those hard winter nights.
It is a hobby that you can practise on very few nights - everything has to be "ok" - no clouds, no wind, no moon - and no lights from somewhere in the neighbourhoods or from the streetlights.. than you realize that you are missing some peace of equip - frustrating.. When it got colder and colder in autumn nights, the lens began to freeze or build dew - and the nightsky was also gone - so i needed a lens heater.
Very very good help came from my beloved facebook group "Astrofotografie für Anfänger" https://www.facebook.com/groups/astrofotografie.anfaenger/ - i got many many tips and some equipment from there (my telescope from William Optics for example). There are very very talented people motivated to help newcomers with ANY upcoming question. I also shared some of my pics there and even got some likes - yay - that also motivates a bit more. And i learn a lot from them - realizing again that i still have a lot to learn! :D
Although i already spent a lot of money on this hobby - i still have rookie equipment and want to buy more and more and more.. :) But at the moment practising is very important, i want to get the best of this equipment - and by the way i do not have any more money left for better one :) I guess you cannot earn money with this hobby (maybe a calendar or so - but i do not have good pictures so far), so it stays a hobby - expensive or not - it makes fun and keeps me going my way!