Our New Camera

Our new camera arrived on Friday. Andrew worked from home just so he wouldn't miss the package. I told him I'd be sure not to leave, but he was really excited about it so he worked from home anyway. It's the new Canon Rebel T1i, and it's amazing! We've been using the Rebel XTi (which we plan to sell now), and I really didn't think it could get much better than that, but Andrew wanted the new one, and it has video capability as well, so I was excited about it too. By the time UPS got here, and we fooled around a little bit with the camera, it was almost dark, but we wanted to take it outside and try it out. The ISO can go up to 3200, which means you can take pictures in almost no light (and without a flash) and they will still look pretty great (though for quality's sake, it's not ideal to have it nearly that high). The first picture above was taken when it was almost completely dark as well as the one just below of the pink flowers in the sidewalk.

I was so excited that the next morning I woke up at about 5 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I was thinking of Tea and Cookies' post about stalking wonder (a terrific post about noticing the small beauties in life around you). I had been meaning to go for an early morning walk with the camera ever since I read that post but just hadn't done it yet. So I jumped out of bed, put my jacket on over my PJs and headed out. The streetlights were still on, and the sun was coming up, and I just wandered around the block and took these pictures, all of which are just as they were (I still need to learn how to use photoshop). One day I hope I can say I "make" pictures (rather than "take") like I know other real photographers do, but I have a lot more to learn. Just ask Andrew--I'm constantly asking him what settings he thinks the camera should be on to achieve a certain goal. He's really much better at it than me. But here's a start.