I purchased my first DSLR at the very end of December in 2012. It is a Nikon D40x. I used that thing until I wore the shutter out in August of 2018. I spent an obscene amount of money getting it repaired rather than just replacing the camera.
Ironically, in October of 2018 I got my hands on a Nikon D3100. My roommate from years prior had one and I thought that I liked it when we were in Texas in 2012.
You know what I did with that camera? Not a whole lot. I whip it out and use it occasionally for some darn thing or other, most recently the eclipse in 2024. I like the pictures that it takes, but for some reason, that particular camera never resonated with me.
In May of 2021 I purchased a Nikon D3500. I like that camera, and used it pretty exclusively (for my digital stuff) for a couple of years. I never fully put the D40x aside. It still saw the occasional bit of use, but for a while it was relegated to backup (above the D3100, I might add) use.
After doing some serious soul searching and trying to decide if it was worth keeping all of my camera stuff or offloading it, I decided to do something. That something was to go use every camera that I own. That was an expensive endeavor, since the majority of them are 35mm and film isn’t exactly cheap anymore, but I did it. I also developed almost all of the rolls myself at home, which was fun.
In doing that, however, I realized that for me, the fun is being able to get a good photo with whatever is at hand, and I think that I kind of lost that for a while when I was using the D3500 with it’s fancy lenses and settings and blah blah blah.
There is also the random side effect of accidentally acquiring at least 4 more functional Nikon 35mm cameras, but that’s a story for another day.
Needless to say, the D40x seems to be back to being my go-to camera, which is fun and challenging, since I don’t tend to use automatic lenses with it. I went to the Robert’s Camera store annual garage sale last weekend, and snagged a Vivitar 400mm lens for $5, which I’ve been having some fun with as well. Maybe I’ll put a couple of photos with that lens up here soon.
