Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Smile for the Birdie

[digital camera]

Next to the impossible-to-find Wii (and don't say eBay or Craig's List), I am going to say the top electronic item on my Christmas List would be a new digital camera.

My trusty Fujifilm FinePix (A210!) has been in the water-bottle slot on the outside of my backpack for going on more than a couple of years at this point, and even though I take the same route to work every day (hello CalTrain!), there is almost aways something or someone to take a picture of. And when I get home, well, don't even ask about the photographic opportunities what with the four cats we share a home with....

The important thing to remember: for most of us photography is a hobby and is supposed to be fun. When it's digital you can experiment to your heart's content (no film costs), both in-camera as well as at home with Photoshop (or the editor of your choice). So get yourself a camera, keep it on hand and be ready to shoot when you see something happen. The most expensive camera is of no use when it is sitting in a drawer because you are too afraid or too scared to use it. If you need do, do what I did: start small and inexpensive, get the feel for what you can do and shoot, shoot, shoot. If I had been worried about my camera I would not have taken it on a walk along the beach at Asilomar and I would not have been able to get this picture of the local wildlife.

So until I get that Nikon D40x for that trip to Italy that we have been planning for going on 2 years now, I'll keep my A210 for my commute. But maybe if Santa is listening, I'll get a nice 9 megapixel Fujifilm A900 and keep that close at hand for when inspiration strikes.

This has been a sponsored post.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

High megapixel count is not necessarily what you want however. I specifically looked for a good Nikon lens, other features like image stabilization, large viewscreen, portability, standard tripod mount, etc, rather than blow out the mp. Knowing that my old Nikon Coolpix 995 at only 3.34 mp gave me beautiful 11x14 enlargements, I'd rather save the drive space storing all the silly & fun photos I'll save but never print out so large, and know that my best ones at 6mp are still plenty to print out at any size I might ever need.

- Britta

10:26 AM  
Blogger -idogcow said...

A good lens means more than megapixels, I agree. We got the Sony W55 for it's low-light ability and Zeiss lens plus the fact that is about the size of a deck of playing cards means we will carry it more places than a big SLR.

In a perfect world the Sony would take AA batteries (easier to replace in a pinch) but so far the batteries in the Sony have been quite robust.

The optical viewfinder in the W55 is a nice option, esp. in bright light or places where you don't want to advertise you have a camera powered up - I am worried that at some point camera makers will drop this feature.

3:20 PM  

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