New Gear

Since I've been blogging, I have been connected to a whole community of people who I've never met, but am intrigued by their stories. Some people blog about the birth of their new baby, their favorite hobby or the trivial things that happen in their life from day-to-day, week-to-week or maybe even once or twice a month. Occassionally, I'll run across a blog filled with beautiful, crisp pictures that have been by the blogger themselves. I would say to myself, "Wow! I wonder what type of camera they have and how can I get my hands on one.

I was really disappointed in the pictures that we took at the baby shower, especially since the camera that we purchased a few years ago was starting to die. Since Madison was going to be around, that made it even more important to be able to capture as many "quality" moments as possible. So we shopped around and found a pretty descent "point & shoot" digital camera with the hopes of one day owning one of the fancy Digital SLR cameras in the future once we were ready.

So in August we purchased a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ4 digital camera. What am upgrade? I love the crispness of the photos and it's still light enough to carry in a purse, diaper bag or messengers bag (a.k.a. Man Purse), but not in your pocket.

Then about a month ago, we decided that it was finally time to move up to one of the entry level DSLR cameras. We decided to get the Nikon D60.

There is an unending amount of information to learn about such a complicated camera. There's tons of bells and whistle and settings that beg you to adjust them. Hopefully you can tell the difference between some of the older photos that we took and some of the new ones. All of the Ackwareeum photos, as Madison spells it, were done with the Nikon. Anything prior to that was done with the Panasonic or the defective camera. One of the first things I learned is that if you don't know much about photography, a $2,000 camera could be a total waste of money, because you can get the same quality of photo's from a $100 3 megapixel camera. One of the big upsides to an SLR camera is you can adjust the shutter speed to ensure that you won't miss a shot. This is a huge advantage when taking picutes of babies and children who tend to always move or change expression at the wrong time. You'll see what I mean below. By the way, I paid nowhere close to that for my camera.

So here's a photographic demonstration of the difference between all of the camera's using some of the best and not so great shots from each camera.

Canon Powershot A300 (Dead)

Okay shot but needs doctoring

Added a Gaussian Blur in Photoshop to make skin appear more supple. I like that word, "supple". Don't you agree? Descent, but too much flash, yet it's still a pretty sharp picture.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ4

This is what I'm talking about as far as shutter speed is concerned. This is not the face that our daughter had when her mom anticipated when she shot the picture. It just so happens that this misfortune turned out to be one our most favorite and laughable photos of Madison. Too funny. Another mishap from almost any point and shoot digital camera. Motion can ruin your pictures as well, unless of course, that's what your aiming for. Motion can be a good thing sometimes. (You can actually adjust the shutter speed in the Lumix. But then you have to be skilled enough to adjust other settings to make up for the possible lack of light that enters the camera due to the faster shutter speed to avoid the photo from being underexposed) But then again, they Lumix can take beautiful shots as shown below. Aren't the color so vivid.
Nikon D60

Here's a picture of Tess and Madison. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten the same shot with the previous two camera's. If I had the camera setup better, I couldn't have gotten it to "pop" more. (I like taking pictures in the restroom because the lighting is just right without having to use the flash)

Here, I'm still out of focus because I haven't figured out how to take a picture of myself yet. I also took this photo also in the restroom, but settings are much better, althought it's still a little darker than I'd like.
I like the fact that I can set the aperture on the Nikon which allows me to dictate how much of the background is out of focus. Some of the more expensive lenses allow you to have more control over the aperture. Or then again, you can just photoshop it just as I have to get the background a little more out of focus so you can concentrate more on that sweet little angelic face.