A New Camera

E and I got my wife a new digital SLR for Christmas. Canon was running a pretty good rebate on a good (or at least good enough) model, so I placed an order the week before Mother's Day. My film SLR is also a Canon Rebel, so the lenses I already had for that camera work on the new digital, so it was a good deal.

K was excited. She's been wanting one of these for a while, and I can't deny that I didn't want one as well. I've never been happy with the quality of the photos that any point and shoot took since getting used to SLRs back in college. I mean, being able to manually focus when the autofocus won't do what I want it to, being able to focus on an object that is almost touching the lens, and actually being able to do something with depth of field is awesome.

I'll still end up using the point and shoot digital more. K gets dibs on this camera and an SLR is just too big to stick in my backpack on a regular basis when I go on hiking trips. Here are a few photos I took just playing around with the camera:

I went outside during the one nice day this week to try out the camera with something more interesting than pictures of the kid. I found this tiny bee/fly perching on a newly unfurled leaf on one of my tomato plants. This proves the new camera kicks ass. I couldn't get that resolution or that close before.

I noticed that the petals on one of our hydrangeas were just starting to open and turn blue. It made for kind of a cool picture.

This frog was on our storm door last night, but by the time I got the camera and went back outside for the photo, he'd gone into hiding. I justified my dragging out of the camera by taking some photos of cobwebs, spiders, and feathers. Just as I was walking back into the house, I caught a glimpse of a speck of green on the edge of the cabinet on our porch. He did a pretty good job of posing for me and I got several good shots of him. This one is the best and shows off the depth of field. His face is crystal clear and his feet, less than an inch from his face, are out of focus.

And a gratuitous shot of the kid. I'm starting to doubt he's even mine.