New Camera

I just had my 20th anniversary at work. I have been wanting a new point and shoot for hiking, and a Canon PowerShot was on the list of anniversary gifts, so I ordered it. It came yesterday. The good news:

• Digital point and shoots have come a LONG way in the last few years.
• Much faster response time than the last generation of point and shoots
• The zoom is amazing
• It weighs about 3 ounces

The bad news:

• It still isn't quite as fast as my real Canon
• I think it will require a tripod for really long shots (but in the camera's defense, I was really drunk when I was trying to read the user guide last night, so maybe I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do to make image stabilization work)

Overall though, I think it will be great for long hikes and anywhere that I don't want to lug the big lens. And I'm very happy with the close ups. Here is the first set of pictures I took around the house and at the stick marsh last night. 

Nummy was very interested in the camera until I gave him the box it came in. He really really likes the box.

Nummy on the porch.

Barty.

This is the very top of the tallest pine tree in my yard. I was leaning back on my car to take it, it would not have come out this sharp if I wasn't leaning against something.

Pita.

A cardinal at the stick marsh. I was pretty far away for this. It took me about 10 bad pictures to get the camera to focus.

Same as above, taken from pretty far away, and took me a long time to focus.

Turkey Vultures.

Anhinga. This was taken from really really far away at the highest zoom. It was pretty windy out there, and between the wind and being at the highest zoom, I took about 20 out of focus pictures.

More turkey vultures.

A dead caterpillar. I need to figure out how to focus up close.

You can take pictures with a fish-eye effect. This was not a good use of it.

This was a more appropriate use of the fish-eye effect.

This was one of the better shots of a great  egret.

These were some turns hanging out on the road out.

I took the tern pictures from my car at a fairly high zoom. Surprisingly little shake considering that my car was still running.

I took this picture for Heather, it made me laugh that they looked like they were singing.

I like that you can see his tongue in this one. 

Overall, I think I'm gonna like the new camera, and will like it even more once I RTFM.