Marshmallow Scars

Cleveland – 10 December 2005
Canon S2 IS

As you may have seen by my last couple posts, I got a new camera last week – a Canon A710 with Image Stabilization. I love my S2 IS with a mad passion, most especially because of the 12x optical zoom, but that lovely zoom means that it’s a rather hefty camera that takes up a lot of space. I wanted a smaller camera that would fit easily into a pocket or purse, so I can always have a camera with me. I researched and read and visited message boards and digital camera review sites (and the amazon.com reviews) for a few different models over the last 3 or 4 months. What tipped me over to buying it was that a friend of mine took some amazing pictures with the model at a U2 concert down in Australia. No matter what all the reviews say, I need to actually know someone who used the camera and see proof of the results before I buy it. I’ve been pretty happy with the camera.

It’s taking me a little while to get used to it because while it’s got the same basic controls and functions as my S2, it is set up a little differently. As I’ve said before, I’m really a novice at this photography thing, so all of the terminology isn’t quick in my brain. So, the fact that they have the same controls with different names on them kinda throws me a bit.

The one thing I specifically do not like about the camera is that when you change from one function to another with the wheel at the top (from Manual to Auto or any of the settings in between), the flash automatically comes back on, no matter how many times you have disabled it. As of yet I have not found a way to set the default on the camera to having the flash disabled. That would be nice, but I don’t think it’s possible. Which sucks because if you forget to disable it when you switch over, your flash fires, and you’re blocked from taking another picture from 5-10 seconds while the camera “recovers”.

Oh yeah, the battery/memory card door is hard to close sometimes. You just have to pay attention to what you’re doing when you fiddle with it, but it’s a little frustrating.

I’m going to Hawaii next week (!!!), and I’m excited about all the pictures I’ll be taking. I’ve been trying to practice a lot with the new camera so I’m familiar with it by the time my trip comes around. I am of course also taking the S2, but the A710 is going to be GREAT because I can have it with me at all times and not have this huge gigantic “I’m a tourist; MUG ME!” camera hanging around my neck. I’m also attending the U2 concert at Aloha Stadium while I’m in Hawaii, and it is going to be so much nicer to have the little camera. (It’s easier to jump up and down and go crazy with a tiny camera in your pocket rather than a very large [heavy] one hanging around your neck that you have to hold onto so it doesn’t thump you in the chest when you’re being an enthusiastic audience member.)

I’m going to have to take a lot of trips to the library when I get back so I can upload the pictures. The new camera is 7MP, so each image is about 1MB larger than with the S2. Holy crow, that’s gonna fill up my hard drives really fast.

Canon A710IS

, originally uploaded by blek.

Another older one that I never posted to the blog. I took this on July 17 of this year. We had a spectacular lightning storm. I was out at the end of our driveway trying to capture some photos and got this one when a car sped by.

This is from a couple weeks back when I took that half day vacation. These are some leaves stuck to a rock by the water rushing past in a stream.

insufferable little jesus, originally uploaded by blek.

I have put all the old photos from my previous photoblog up at my flickr account. I also have older photos there that were never on the photoblog, such as this one from when I saw U2 in Las Vegas last November. Click on over and have a look!

"awfuls", originally uploaded by blek.

My nieces love to eat breakfast at my mom’s, the way she serves waffles being the chief reason why. She prefers to use redi-whip, but cool whip will do in a pinch (as it had to the morning I took this picture), then she covers the waffle in frozen blueberries. If strawberries are in season, those are also added.

The name of the photo comes from what my nieces used to call waffles when they were each very little.