Cameras

I am not a photographer. At all. I love to look at great photography and I get really excited when I accidentally take a great picture of one of the kids, but I don't have the patience or creativity for "real" photography. I have a good camera, but not the best. (Until yesterday, that is.) It's a middle of the road digital camera and has been working perfectly for me for the past two years. Until about 3 months ago. For some reason, the pictures have been blurry. I've troubleshooted and talked to live techs online. No one seems to be able to explain this, telling me only that it costs $50 just to look at the camera and upwards of $150 (probably) to fix it once they find out what is wrong. We only paid $250 for the camera in the first place, so it didn't make sense to spend another $200 to fix it. For the last couple of months, we've been talking about getting a new camera, but Aaron wanted to wait until we could get a really good one, so I've been doing research on digital cameras and digital SLR cameras so I'd be ready when bonus time came around.

Then, yesterday, I went to my neighbors to snap a few shots of her family in front of the tree. Christmas card time, you know. We got a few great shots but, as is usual lately, for no explainable reason, a bunch of them were blurry. It is so frustrating. When you are working with kids, every shot needs to be great because it might be the one shot where everyone is smiling AND looking at the camera. I'm not selling or professionally displaying any pictures, but I do put them in scrapbooks and if the first shot of Rhett eating peas is blurry, how do we ever recover from that?

So, last night when I got home from my friends' house, I was editing the pictures online. And I was frustrated. Aaron said "We're definitely getting you a new camera right after the first of the year." I started looking again at reviews and the best camera for your money and all of that. I really didn't want to buy a new camera. Really. I just wanted my camera to work right.

But then he said, in that tone I love-the same tone in which he said "The washer and dryer you want are on sale and we're getting them today"-he said, "You know what? Let's just go get it now. We're going to want good Christmas pictures and that sucks when you take pictures and then find out later they didn't turn out. " WOO HOO! You don't have to ask me twice. I love the words "Let's just go get it." The next words he said are very rare, but even more special. "And let's get a good one. Don't just try to get the one we can afford. Don't even worry about the cost, I know it will be expensive." I couldn't get my shoes on fast enough. I was afraid he would change his mind.

He didn't change his mind. And about 2 hours later, I walked out of Circuit City (thanks to No Interest Financing) with the best digital camera they have. (It didn't take me long to switch from "I don't want to buy a new camera" to "Let's get the best they have!") It's sort of an in betweener for someone who wants super great pictures, but doesn't want to get an SLR and have to do everything manually. I can do everything manually if I want to with this camera (Canon PowerShot G9), but the automatic functions are awesome, so I don't have to. I can add lenses and an external flash (I plan to order the flash soon) but I don't have to. It's amazingly great. There are so many things that I haven't learned about it, I plan to read all day today. I love it. And the pictures. Again, I'm not a pro, but I just love these. Completely unedited, raw pictures here. I'm amazed at the difference between these and the last shots I took of Rhett. You be the judge. (And if you say the old pictures are better, I will run to my room and cry my little eyes out because I LLLOOOOOVVVEEEE my new camera!)

This is from the old camera. It needs lots of editing in my opinion. The above pictures could go straight to print, in my opinion. I edited one just for fun, though. Mainly, I just cropped and auto adjusted it...what do you think?