New Camera

Well, here is one of the first pictures from my new camera. These are the leaves from a Sassafras Tree beginning to show their fall colors. The leaves around here are probably 2/3 of their way to full color.

My old camera was a Canon, about 6 years old, and it took some great pictures. But there were a couple of problems. First, it was only 2 megapixels, which means (as I understand it) that if I decided to blow any pictures up to 8 by 10 or bigger that the pixels might start to show. I have been looking for some great landscape pictures from this part of the country, particularly the Smokys, to mat, frame, and hang in our house. I have determined that I might be able to take some of them myself, but with just a 2.0 pixel camera I couldn't blow them up very large. Second, the optical telephoto on my old camera was only 3X. That made it hard to get close pictures of animals. My new Canon S3 IS with 6 megapixels, 12X telephoto and image stabilization will solve those problems. Plus, my old camera didn't have a Macro setting. When I tried to take a picture of a pea sized Black Widow Spider all I got was a black dot. The new camera can get as close as the lens touching the object.

This picture of some yellow wild flowers is an example of getting close. If you click on the photo to see a full size view, you can see the drops of water on the petals. In fact, I just discovered that if you click, wait for the picture to enlarge, and then click again, you get an even bigger, closer picture. Try it.

My neighbors are once again questioning my sanity when they see me kneeling in their yards to take a picture of a blade of grass. I thought that explaining the new camera and the up close Macro function might keep them from calling the guys in the white coats again.