Mourning the Loss ...

Mourning the loss ....



of what?



My youth?


My health?


My time on vacation with my husband?


My having more photos than I know what to do with?


My ... family?



Well, if you guessed any of these, you would be right, but not completely right.

Today, as we rounded a bend and saw what had become a fairly rare, but predictable sight: a bunch of cars and a bunch more people standing out of their cars all with cameras pointed at the exact same spot.

It does not take a genius, even the first time you encounter such a well mannered mob, to know that there was something they were taking a photo of! So as we rounded the bend and saw the group and no where to park, Gary said he would drop me off in the middle of the road, find a turn around spot and come back. I was hurrying and hadn't made sure that I was 'put together' right, grabbed my big camera, with my little camera in my pants pocket and dashed out the door ...

... to hear a sad, sad sounding 'THUNK'. I looked down, saw my little camera was not quite in my pocket as I had thought it was and had jumped to freedom. And if he was going for suicide, he botched the job something good! Still works, but every now and again it looses it's focus and jumps to a 'panicky page with the information of doom' on it (but, I mean, WHO DOESN'T? Every now and then?), I now have a little 3-step routine to actually get it to start moving when I want to zoom in or zoom out, but the kicker - the one that will make me pull the plug on my best-buddy-that-is-not-all-that-injured is that some pieces of crap were dislodged and seem to be congregating in the lower left hand corner of my lens. Looks GREAT in all my photos.

With the cleaning of a camera (this is inside the lens and not something I can get at - it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer) being expensive and the price of the camera being relatively cheap, it makes more sense to go with a new one since this one is now, apparently lazy and depressed along with learning the giant-smudge-on-every-photo trick.

I took the time to Google "Canon Powershot" and see what is out there now - assuming that my camera would have by now been usurped by the latest and greatest. Then things started going downhill ... fast. I went to the Canon site and they did, indeed, have a new Powershot with a larger number than mine - mine being an SX210 and it being an SX230 - thus I am assuming newer. But mine had 14.1 megapixels and this one has 11.something. Dudes! YOU NEVER GO DOWN ON THE SIZE OF MEMORY WHEN MAKING A LATEST-AND-GREATEST-...ANYTHING!

Was not impressed. AND I did not see my camera, thus assuming that they no longer make it. This set me all a flutter and with chills running up and down my spine, I quickly got on to Amazon and searched for it. This model comes in 3 colors. Black, Purple (like the color of a car that is flashy) and ...


wait for it ...



wait for it ....



GOLD!


Yes, you can bling up your camera - maybe I could even bedazzle it!

So - black it is and it is $130.00 more. Which made me THINK ABOUT owning a shiny GOLD camera, a very low spot in the day, indeed. I mean, WHO would take a person seriously as a photographer out there doing their business with a GOLD camera? We then realized that everything we were looking at was refurbished. Nah! If I wanted refurbished, I would refurbish my little buddy ... it feels as if I am loosing a family member. I told Gary that the new one would only feel like a step child.

When we looked again, at new, the price difference wasn't that pronounced, so with a sigh of relief, I ordered it in black and it will be here on Friday.

Why? You ask?

Why go for the same exact camera? If it was my DSLR, I would argue that I know where every button and dial are and can operate it in the dark and didn't want a new ginormous learning curve. But since this is a point-and-shoot which they 'dumb down' enormously to having, at most, four or five buttons or dials - with the rest still there, just as a menu option that you will NEVER learn, thus never use the more complicated and powerful features of a point-and-shoot. Hmmmm - I have gone off course somehow ...


Oh, yeah - the WHY!

Especially since I was so ANGRY with it when I got it since they TOOK AWAY MY SUNSET option and added stupid stuff like 'Fisheye' and 'Miniature' - idiots ... But! It kept a function that I have learned to LOVE since I now, I don't always have it set on Sunset. It is now (most) always set on 'Foliage' which you are supposed to use around ... well ... foliage! It is supposed to bring out the greens and make them more vivid, but I have noticed that it brings out the blues also.

For example:


Here is a shot of a deer in a lovely meadow of flowers as shot - NO TOUCH UPS AT ALL with my Canon DSLR giant, very, very expensive camera:

And here is the shot of the same deer and same meadow (yes, yes, I do actually take photos of the same spot with two different cameras since they turn out so different). Again NO TOUCH UPS - JUST STRAIGHT OUT OF THE CAMERA:

Now, THAT, is why I don't go out and shop for another camera. I LIKE this! I LOVE this! I is such a nice feature that Canon got 'right'. So, someday, I will probably drop my new one and have to go find another and might jump ship - but for now, I just can't wean myself off the Canon Powershot's!


And just because I looked down while walking into a grocery store today and fell in LOVE with these little guys and their shadows ... I am sharing it tonight also:

Well, off to the airport WAAAAAY early tomorrow morning.

Us: In Idaho - near Yellowstone, which is in Wyoming ... the top of Wyoming.

Our Airline Tickets: Leaving out of Salt Lake City, Utah - below (OK, and to the side) of Wyoming - therefore we need to drive Wyoming from top to bottom, but we just so happen to be doing it in Idaho and Utah.


Some day, when I want to live again ... I will get my photos put together and post some gigantic posts. Or just dribble it out a day at a time - EITHER WAY the 'when I want to live again' is the important part of that sentence.


Night all ...