It's my birthday and I'll buy if I want to

June 30 is the end of our fiscal year. Every year at this time we attempt to spend every last dollar of our remaining budget. Yep, it's like a birthday shopping spree or like Christmas in the summer. Woohoo! And unlike last year when the Major squandered the entire pot on her $2700 word processor, this year I was able to secure a few nice items.

And speaking of her Macbook, I have not seen it since I blogged about it last June. And get this, the Major only has dial-up at home!!! Don't get me started!

First and foremost, the Nikon D300s. This is a good consolation for my inability to get a D90 last year. I got this a couple months ago and have been loving it. Haven't done much with the video features yet, and haven't tried HDR photography yet, but knowing it'll be another five years before I get to upgrade again, I'll have plenty of time to learn.


With the new heftier camera, I needed a sturdier tripod. This I had the hardest time selecting. But after consulting with a few seasoned photographers, I selected the Manfrotto 7301YB with 3-way head. This guy is rock solid! Much better than that $35 Velbon I was using.
At my previous job, we had the greatest paper cutter ever. Since then, nothing I used even comes close to ease of use and accuracy. The one we currently use is small and lousy so I upgraded to the Rotatrim RCM24. This is hands down the best cutter you'll ever use. It comes in many sizes but I think the 24 inch is perfect for our needs.

I'm always in search of a better mouse. The other designers opted for the Apple Magic Mouse, but I selected the Logitech MX Mouse. I like lots of buttons that I can independently program for different applications to speed up my workflow. But the best thing about this mouse is the turbo scroll wheel! There is a button that releases the friction on the wheel, so instead of scrolling and scrolling with your finger, you can just whip the wheel once and it will continue to spin for up to 20 seconds! They call this "hyper-scrolling." This is great for those looooong web pages where you are reading hundreds of comments, or for those long Word docs with hundreds of pages. You can go from top to bottom in no time! Plus, the rechargeable battery system, the thumb button for Exposé, and the tiny USB receiver complete a feature set unmatched by any other mouse!
In our attempt to cut our budget, we killed all the contracts of our freelance photographers. All photography jobs will be done inhouse now. So that means I am now in charge of shooting our monthly portrait sessions of our employees of the month. Of course this task was given to me after buying the D300s. Had I known earlier, I would've fought to buy the D3. But I'm not complaining too much, I think it's a great opportunity to work on my photography skills. Better to screw up shooting strangers than on my own family/friends.

I purchased this Cowboy Studio 750w lighting kit along with a gray muslin backdrop. I opted for continuous lighting over strobe because I really don't know what I'm doing, and it seems the umbrellas let me adjust the lighting more easily. Hey, I'm still learning. And they get what they pay for.

We also got some larger memory cards, card readers, extra batteries, photo paper, etc. All in all, we spent close to $3000 – a pretty nice package of goodies to enjoy for a while. So a big thank you to all you tax payers for supplying me toys to enjoy on my birthday! I'm already making my list for next year!

Have a nice weekend!