Camera old vs. new

So a few weeks ago we went and took some pictures of our family with our camera, plus a borrowed camera from my dad. Neither camera was really that fancy, and I wanted to see if we really did need a more advanced camera to do what I was wanting to do. We were able to get some pictures that were likable, but I did find I had some frustrations. We took these pictures in a park in a canyon near our house. The pictures have some really nice scenery which I really like, but for the most part the problems I had were:

• It took way too long for the picture to take, and as a result we ended up missing the cute moment way too many times.
• The resolution was so small that when we did catch a cute moment usually the child was too far away for me to crop it down to how I wanted it, and have it still be good quality.

My favorites from this shoot are:

Cinderella
A-1

B-1
Guy
A-1


B-1

C-1
D-1Sleeping Beauty
OK so this one was actually taken in our back yard. She was too tired when we were up the canyon, and we didn't really get any good shots of her.
A-1
My husband
A-1
My family
A-1


And some group shots
A-1

B-1



C-1
D-1


E-1

So we invested in a Nikon D3000. I love it. It has one mode where I can just hold down the shutter release and it takes continuous pictures. A great way to capture the moment with my kids who don't hold still. It also has a much higher resolution, so it solves that problem too. It also has a lot of other things, many of which I'm sure I have yet to discover.

We took more pictures on Halloween. This time we didn't have the time advantage to go somewhere so the pictures were just taken in our house and back yard. However the results much more to my liking.
My favorites from this shoot:

Cinderella

A-2

B-2

C-2

D-2
E-2
Guy
A-2
B-2
C-2
Sleeping Beauty
A-2
B-2
C-2
D-2

Family
A-2
B-2

A few group
A-2
B-2

Let me know which ones were your favorites.

Camera suggestions anyone?

This is a post mostly for any of you who know more about digital cameras than me, because I know that at least some of my readers do.

Every time I take my children somewhere to get their picture taken, I seem to come home dissatisfied. True I have never used a private photographer, and maybe I would be happier with their results. But I often feel like, if I had a a nicer camera than I do, a few props, maybe a back ground or two, and a little bit of know how, I could get pictures just as good as the ones I am paying a lot of money for.

Now true I know nothing about photography, so I am willing to admit, my pictures might be worthless too. Anyway, I am contemplating the idea of getting a better camera, and I want some advice from someone who knows about cameras.

My current camera is an Olympus Camedia with D-535 zoom, and 3.2 megapixel. I would like to get a camera that has a better digital zoom, higher resolution, and one that doesn't take forever for the picture to take after you push the button. I don't want to go so fancy as to have lenses that I need to change, or have a flash I have to attach. Built in flash is fine. But I want something that would take nice enough pictures that I could print off an 8 x10, that would be high enough quality to hang on my wall, and not have it be grainy, or blurry.

So if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Thanks.

The day the camera died....

So this morning I was sitting down to write my weekly e-mail that I send out to family. I picked up the camera, and pushed the "on" button to see if I had any pictures on it that needed to be loaded to the computer. The camera turned on, but the screen stayed black, and no lights came on. It was like it was off, except the lens was out and open. I tried to push different buttons, but got no response. I then tried turning it off. Still no response. My mind started going through the worst case scenario. The camera is dead, we won't be able to get out any pictures to anyone, we'll have to spend lots of money to get it fixed or buy a new one, what ever will we do?

So I went and woke up my husband. "The camera is broke!" I said. He groggily rubbed his eyes and said, "well it lasted 3 years." I was already in panic mode, "doesn't he care that the camera is busted. What are we going to do?" My mind was already going into "fix it" mode. I know that is generally the guy's response, but hey he wasn't responding, at least to my liking.

He took the batteries out, and I saw some lights blink. There was a response, something must still work. He tried the buttons again, nothing. I suggested putting in some different batteries, and see if it will work. So we hunted and finally found some, and guess what, it worked. Yeah!!!

Now my pessimistic attitude says, "it's already fritzed out, it will die before we know it and we will be with out a camera." But then the optimistic side kicks in and says, "hey at least it is working now, and might work for a long time."

Anyway, I noticed there were no pictures on the camera, and so I set it aside, and turned to the computer. I opened our Picasa, to see what pictures I had from earlier in the week. And can you believe it, all that Picasa was reading, was broken images. "NO!" my head screamed, "now all of our pictures on the computer are goners too!" We had backed up a few months ago, but nothing since.

I pointed it out to my husband, who coolly responded, that it just looked like Picasa was re-indexing my pictures. "Of course it is re indexing my pictures, it can't find any of them." my mind said.

It is at this point that I should have realized, that I wasn't thinking rationally anymore. My husband is a computer programmer, so he understands more than I do about how computer programs work. I don't usually question what he says about computers. But if I'm not thinking rationally, like I would notice that, hello.

So I opened my folders looking to see if it was Picasa, or if the pictures were really gone. They were all where they were supposed to be. I asked my husband if I should uninstall and reinstall Picasa. He told me just to close it and restart it. So I closed Picasa, and reopened it, and what do you know, it worked. All of our stuff showed up right where it was supposed to be. Silly me :)