New camera

Last month I got a new digital camera, a Canon PowerShot A620. As much as I love gadgets, I don’t end up rushing out to buy them. I’d had my old digital camera, a Canon PowerShot A20, since late 2001, and as my interest in photography has increased (partly due to Flickr), I’ve appreciated the camera’s simplicity and enjoyed trying make the most with the limited features. Since then, as you can imagine, technology has made leaps and bounds, and mainly I wanted a faster, higher resolution camera; I decided to stay within the product line, and so my new camera is the great-great-[etc.]-grandson of my previous one. (See the family resemblance.) I paid the same for both cameras (in 2001 vs. 2006 dollars), which shows you how the relative price has come down.

Frankly, given current technology, I would’ve been impressed with any new camera, compared to my old one. I still have to get the hang of all the bells and whistles, but a couple of things I like right off the bat are the tilt-and-swivel LCD screen (great for short people like me taking over-the-crowd shots, and for self-portraits which you know I love) and the finer control over some settings. Recently I was taking macro photos of little items on our dining table like coins and stamps, and they turned out pretty well. These pennies (cropped from a larger photo) look as big as dinner plates!

I have this Monday off from work, so I may play tourist and take the camera for a bit of a photowalk in D.C. By the way, we’re coming up on cherry blossom season here; festival events begin Mar. 25 (the parade and street festival are on Apr. 8), and the peak bloom range for the Tidal Basin trees is forecasted for Mar. 27 to Apr. 1.