New camera

I've always fancied a, well, fancy camera but know better than to buy one. I know that it's the idea of having a cool camera that appeals to me; the implication that I would take stylish, artistic pictures and be a creative, admired photographer. In reality of course, I have no knowledge of photography at all and little time at the moment to really learn about it. I wouldn't want to be carrying around a big camera all the time, nor an expensive one that I'd be afraid to leave lying around near the boys. But still, the idea of taking better pictures does appeal...

Enter Vicky, of Hyotenka fame, and her recently acquired 'serious compact' camera. She mentioned it on her blog, and then I had the chance to see it in action in Kyoto. Best of all, I didn't have to bother researching all the different cameras available, because her husband had already done all the work for me :-)

So a couple of weeks ago I went and bought one, a Canon Powershot G15. It's slightly bulkier than a standard compact camera, but not enough to be problematic. The price was also in the compact camera range. It has a lot of settings (and one day I will learn about them all, I promise), but so far I've only used it on auto. The biggest selling points for me were the high quality macro function, and the clarity of photos taken in low light, without a flash.

As always, I resized these photos to speed up page loading, but now I'm regretting it. The originals are much sharper. Anyway, I'm pleased with them...

K in artificial light, with no flash. Hurray!

Playing with the 'black and white plus one colour' setting :-)

Err.... a frog. Testing out macro and zoom.

Hydrangeas, the other staple of rainy season photography.