New toy

If you've read my blog for a while, you've seen photos taken with my digital SLR (or DSLR), a Nikon D100. A little birdy tells me I may be getting a brand-new state of the art Nikon DLSR for Chanukah, but that's not what this post is about.

In addition to the DSLR, we have a digital point-and-shoot camera. It's a number of years old and belonged to my Mom. It was an excellent, cutting edge camera when she got it. We've used it many times, but it seemed to me that the time had come to get something new.

The real motivator was seeing the wonderful results a certain Knotty Boy got from his camera. So I asked him what kind he had, and that started me on my way. I researched the newer versions of his camera, as well as some other choices, including Nikon's offerings.

After I'd finished my research, and also handled some of the cameras at B&H Photo, I settled on a Canon (like Knotty's!). I got this...



It's a Canon PowerShot SD550, part of their "Digital ELPH" line, and is small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. Also, it's 7 megapixel. But megapixels alone aren't the main thing. I looked at a bunch of detailed reviews today (yes, I did all of my research and shopping in one day) and liked what I saw, including sharpness, color rendition and various features. Plus, it can shoot videos, but I have no idea how to get them online, unlike another blogger I mentioned earlier.

I stopped to buy the camera on my way to a meeting at our corporate offices. After our meeting was over, it was all I could do to keep from ripping the box apart to get at my new toy.

I loaded in the battery (fortunately, it had some charge on it right out of the box), the small flash card that came with it (although I bought a big one, too) and started playing.

One nice (and necessary, for the purpose of this camera) thing about the camera is that its shots don't need much, or any, retouching. The shots below might do well to have some minor tweaking in Photoshop, but they came out pretty good without even bothering.

This is a shot of our conference room...



After the meeting, I walked back to Penn Station. A sight on the way...



Oh, by the way, these weren't shot on the camera's highest resolution setting, but they still seem to have very nice detail. Set on this regular quality setting, I can get over a thousand shots on the large (1GB) card I bought. On highest resolution, it only (only? I remember when 36-shot rolls of film were big) holds 322 shots.

Continuing with our tour, here's a wider shot. On the right, you can see the side of the Post Office. Yes, for any out-of-towners not familiar with the structure, that building on the right is the main post office for Manhattan...



The front of the post office building apparently is getting some work done...



I'm wondering if this is part of the big Penn Station project. Part of the post office will be used as part of the new Penn Station (which is now across the street). This work may be part of that project.

So I hopped on a train to head home. It was literally "standing room only" when I got there...



After what felt like a particularly long trip, I arrived at my station...



After I was done with my commute, I played with the camera a bit more. Did I mention that one of its built-in features is a macro setting? To try it out, I pushed back the cuff of my shirt and took this picture of my watch...


Evidence that I got to leave early today

Some other shots...


Dodger & Bernice before getting out of the pen


Bernice in her cone (so she won't chew a boo-boo on her paw)


Mandy

Marc tried it out, too. Among his shots were these...


My favorite shot (Dodger doesn't care much for having his picture taken)


Another shot of Bernice in her cone

I hope you liked some of those photos. I think this little camera's going to be a lot of fun.