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Mostly Everything

How expensive is your hobby?

I swear, being a geek has its downsides. You tend to spend a lot for your hobbies. I recently caught the photography bug after buying the 350D I’ve been wanting since December.

hondo portrait.JPG

After being able to save for it, I went ahead and bought several accessories such as a Velbon tripod, a Sumdex camera bag, and a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. The last item is a portrait lens known as the “nifty fifty” which allows you to take really great portraits at an affordable price as seen in this really cute portrait of my doggie.

Canon-EF-50mm-f1-8-II.jpg

I’ve totalled my expenses for this new cash black hole hobby and the opportunity costs were basically a trip to Australia or a couple of trips to Singapore, Hong Kong, or Malaysia. Gawd. What next? I’ve to stop myself.

The only way I can justify spending more on photography is if I turn it into a profession, thus making the hobby pay for itself. I’ve done this for my iBook, which has been paid off many months ago by writing.

I used to have bug collecting as a hobby. Argh. Talk about spending. What about you? How expensive or cheap are your hobbies?

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Mostly Everything

Intramuros shot

Explored Intramuros last night with a friend. It was my first time to actually fool around with a DSLR so I went crazy with the settings. I’m learning, slowly!

intramuros 2.jpg

I’ve found Darren’s Digital Photography School to be very useful for beginner and pro photographers who use dSLRs and point and shoot cameras.

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Mostly Everything

The Canon EOS 350D that blogging bought

Several months ago I never thought it would be possible to turn blogging into something lucrative. Well, July 2006 has been very generous to me and so I went to Canon Philippines to buy my first dSLR, the Canon 350D with kit lens.

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The money I spent on this body + kit lens (Canon gave me a few freebies like a 256MB CF card and mini tripod) was all earned from blogging with b5media and KMM.

Is a professional camera the most expensive thing blogging can buy? Answer is NO:

The house that blogging bought
The car that blogging bought
The camera, gaming console and monitor that blogging bought

Abe has also bought a Canon 350D, from, well, from his photo gallery! Talk about reinvesting the money you earn!

You can check my photo gallery at http://gallery.abuggedlife.com

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Mostly Everything

A Bugged Life Gallery

I’m migrating most of my online photo albums to a new iPAP Photo Gallery which can be found at this address:

http://gallery.abuggedlife.com

gallerycaps.jpg

Many thanks to Abe who helped me install this and to Markku for writing the plugin.

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Mostly Everything

Bubbles Paraiso

bubbles and jayvee.jpg

Today we shot the cover for the next ish of Mobile Philippines. On the cover is Bubbles Paraiso.

What makes this particular shoot a little special for me is that Bubbles used to be my student when I taught NSTP for one semester back in UA&P.

Here’s a little teacher-student moment behind the scenes.

The finished product can be viewed over here. MPH, now known as Mobile Philippines is part of the Top 10 Technology Magazines in the Philippines according to a recent Synovate Survey.