When I was 15, I "inherited" my dad's camera, an old Canon AE-1 Program. At the time, I was still shooting 110 and was terrified of a camera that involved pieces and used film that actually came out of the canister. The camera and accessories remained safely tucked away until my Junior year of college. While I had long since switched to 35mm, I was still using an extraordinarily cheap point and shoot. That fall, I was getting deeper into my journalism major and gearing up for a spring break trip to Russia. I needed a real camera. Five years, a couple of classes, plenty of trial and error, and countless rolls later, I'm starting to actually consider myself a photographer.

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I've moved up in the world--I bought a digital SLR. Let's see what we're made of...