I love my camera!

There are so many things we buy without a clue if we will actually like them. Stoves, for example. How on earth can you know if you will like a stove, when you've never had the opportunity to see how the burners adjust? You just can't tell until you *use* it for a while -- and, of course, you can't *use* it before you *buy* it.

Cameras are another example. I did go to a local store and hold cameras in my hands (a good thing, too -- another model I was considering was so big that I couldn't hold it securely and push the shutter button at the same time!). I did read reviews. But none of that predicts whether I will like the one I choose, over time.....

All the time, we must fork over hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for something, hoping that we shall like it, once we are able to try it out...............

So I'm sure that one reason I love my camera is that ... I love my camera. I am sure I love it more because of the unexpected pleasure of loving it.

My kid was on the swim team in high school. I wanted a camera that would take decent pictures of our high school's large pool area. So the 12x optical zoom and good lens on this camera were selling points. I read in a review that it was good at close up things, too. But it blows me away that it can take closeups of small objects like those marbles from a couple of days ago, and can also do this:



I took this pic from the bleachers, which are *not* kissed right up to the end of the 14-lane pool. This is the 12x optical plus the 3x digital zoom, and it's grainy, but don't you think it's amazing that the same lens that took those marble pics could also take this pic of something (my golfer DH estimates as) 40 yards away?


Here's a not-fully-zoomed pic, also taken from the bleachers. See how far away that wall is? And we can read those tiles................













Equally amazing to me is this:

This was taken from the middle of a dark auditorium, of a actor on stage. Without flash. As you can see from his blurry "hand", it only works if the subject of the picture is very still. But isn't this amazing?

This is my first digital camera; I don't know if "they can all do this." The technology is cool, and this expression of it -- exceedingly cool. I'm sure this camera would not work for everyone (it's not very good at stopping motion unless the light is very good indeed), but ... it works for me, and I love it.

(Don't you think Panasonic should be paying me? I wish!)