How can it be both, you ask...? Well, I'll tell you. :-)
First, the "yay". Dinner last night went very well. Denise and I did all our own cooking (such as it was), turned off the lights, set several candles on the table, and put Steve Roach's Quiet Music on the stereo. We didn't fry the tater tots -- thank you for your suggestions and comments, Matt! -- opting instead to try baking them in my toaster oven, which worked out quite well. Accompanying the tater tots were turkey burgers, young peas, and a dessert of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen and eggnog with nutmeg. All in all, it was a wonderful evening, marred only by someone outside relentlessly pounding on a neighbor's door (at midnight...? WTF?)
So what's the "argh"? Denise and I tried taking some photos last night with our digital cameras, and I realize that, if I want to start getting more serious about photography (which I'd like to), it's going to be time to buy a better camera soon. Currently, I'm using a Canon Digital Elph PowerShot S110, which is more than adequate for everything I've been doing so far, but for more serious photography, it's not enough.
Naturally, I've been doing web searches, but the field of digital photography is exploding so much that it's hard for me to find the information I need... if anyone can recommend some good links, I'd appreciate it. Or even if you just have some "sage advice". Here are the features I would be looking for in my next camera:
1) Good in low-light conditions (say, portraits by candlelight).
2) Macro mode for closeups.
3) High enough resolution to produce photo-quality 8x10 prints.
4) At least 4x optical zoom -- the more, the better. Digital zoom not relevant; I don't take digital zoom into account because, IMO, it's a joke.
5) Powerful and versatile flash. The S110's flash is not effective at more than about ten or twelve feet; I'd like at least double that. I'd also like some control over the flash so I can do things like "fill flash", for when lighting is adequate but you want to overcome those little shadowed areas you sometimes have.
6) Not as important, but if the camera includes movie mode, I want MPEG format, not AVI, which sucks. (I'm also willing to look at cameras that don't take movies.)
7) Ability to use manual or automatic controls.
That's about all I can think of offhand... meanwhile, I'm going to get back to the newspapers.
Posted by Zathras at December 14, 2003 04:00 PMI have a Nikon Coolpix 2500. I am not into photography enough to recommend anything, but I did go on the recommendations of http://www.cnet.com/. Just click on cameras to look at their reviews.
If you look in the directories Local pix and Moms garden, there are some pictures I took with the Nikon:
http://home.hvc.rr.com/mattsstuff/
Posted by: Matt at December 14, 2003 06:49 PM