For a few hours this morning, the clouds broke up, and I had a chance to give this new camera a first try-out.
It is a Canon SX20is, and so far, I'm liking it a lot.
That is, after I figured out how to focus the view-finder.
I was quite disappointed when that much desired feature (a view finder!) was not working out for me, but then...well, duh!....I figured it out. Turn the little nob, stupid!! So here are my first offerings. The birds were singing, and I got this shot of a sparrow in the sassafras tree. This one is not cropped, only resized . Most of today's pictures were taken at 3564x2448.
And the cropped detail portion.
I'm happy with the way it handles detail in bright whites and sunshine, and the colors are very true. All these pictures were taken on the auto setting, and are not edited/enhanced in any way, other than resizing or cropping. I'm sure there can be improvement in all areas, as I play with the manual settings. Focus could be a little crisper, I think. But all in all, I kept saying WOW, as I got the first look of these first shots.
I feel like I want to lighten these two of the ladybug a little, but I didn't mess with them, except to crop them. It was cloudy at this moment, so diffused lighting. I thought the leaf-edge detail was good. I did not use the Macro setting for any of these, just zoomed in a bit.
Yes, I am very happy with the camera! I think it is going to turn out to be a good choice. Feels like a real camera, and I won't feel too foolish, when I go to Barbara's workshop next weekend. LOL
I went for a short drive to take a few landscapes. Made one stop. It was sunny, but with some high, thin clouds, so the sky was not very blue. This first one is not cropped, but resized. The next is a cropped detail from that picture. The third one was taken at full 20x zoom. Not cropped. All taken at 4000x3000. The bottom two were "auto-adjusted" in the computer, for a bit more contrast. 
The first blooms have begun to appear on the tree peonies, and buds on the others. The blue squills are in 'full tilt' and even the weeds are brightening the the 'would-be' garden patch. I don't have a correct name for these 'wild asters'.
All the photos on these blogs, up to this time, have been taken with my little 'pocket camera', a Canon Power Shot SD630. I have ordered a new one, and 'can't wait' to try it, and learn to use it. As a birthday splurge, I'm treating myself to a Canon SX20is. So check back, here, to see how it goes. My wonderful daughters have arranged a fantastic birthday gift for me: a one-day photo field day/seminar taught by none other than Barbara Livingston, foremost equine photographer and author of five fabulous books of her photos. Wow, what a opportunity to learn. Of course, that prospect was the clincher, to go ahead and get this new camera now. It's been on my wish list for a long time. YAY!
