Let’s be real, life is expensive, and I’m a person with many hobbies. I love a good activity, and activities sometimes need gear. I can’t keep spending money on film… well, not as much as I used to. To be honest, the cost had started to drain the spark of spontaneous shooting out of me. It’s been a struggle to talk myself into always carrying a film camera with me, but I found something that brought the urge to document back to life.

A 20 odd year old DSLR. A Nikon D50, to be precise. Steven bought it for £50 as a surprise birthday present for me, and I absolutely love it.

There’s something about the photos… they’re clearly not shot on 35mm, but you can see that they’re not the same perfection as modern digital cameras. The focusing is softer, the colours aren’t as dramatic, and it’s exactly what I needed.

The camera is so old that it won’t function with anything bigger than a 2GB SD card, but it’s more than enough for the grainy little digital photos it takes. It’s so cheap to buy, that I’m quite happy to have it round my back when I’m out on my bike, stopping now and then to shoot something off the side of the track.

I’ve become trigger happy, and I love it.

I’m still using my film cameras, but more reservedly, and it’s nice to have something that fills the gap and keeps my brain looking for frames in the meantime.