New Toy!

We had been shopping around for a new digital camera since the one we had was flaky. Popup flash didn't always pop up. Camera froze up a few times, fortunately recovered by "rebooting" it. Possible Smartmedia card failure?

Well, about 3 weeks ago, the camera died for good. There was no reviving it at all. The thing will NOT turn on. The lens is still protruding and we can't get it back in.

So we did a little research on some websites: http://www.dpreview.com and http://www.imaging-resource.com/ , and http://www.dcresource.com being the main three. There is another one, but the URL escapes me at the moment. Go to http://www.pbase.com/ for a good place to look at pictures other people have taken with specific cameras.

We were leaning towards one of the small Canon Digital Elph series (SD450, SD500, SD550), and the Fuji FinePix F10, and later the F30. We needed a camera ASAP, so that nixed the F30 which comes out in a couple of months.

Would like a digital SLR type, to try to learn photography. Thought about the Nikon D70S & Canon Digital Rebel XT. But I don't think I'll have the time or energy for this right now.

We loved how small and sexy(!) the Canon SD450 camera was (plus it didn't hurt that we've played around with our inlaws' SD400). But we ultimately chose the Fuji F10 because we got the impression that it offered better image quality. We got the camera yesterday and we're still getting acquainted with it. It seems to take pretty good pictures without using the flash most of the time. I love the "natural light" mode. And the Macro mode seems better than our previous camera (Fuji FinePix F601 Zoom). We even took a picture in a pitch dark room and it came out bright as day! Cool! The camera starts up very fast! And it has a nice large 2.5" LCD.

Both these pictures were taken in Macro mode. The top one shows some veggies my MIL cooked. DH took the other picture by randomly choosing some mundane objects to see if he could make them look good. We can clearly read the the small text on the globe in the full size version of that picture!

There's a lot of photography info on Philip Greenspun's site. I find it inspirational to look at his photos. He has a section for learning photography.

Some other photography sites I like include FujiMugs and the DP Review Fujifilm Talk Forum.

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