TO-DAY'S BLOG IS ABOUT CAMERAS

To-day's blog is about cameras, but first I'd like to comment on yesterday's blog. After tuning into all the financial doom & gloom on CNN yesterday morning I checked out our financial investments on the computer & of course we had taken a big hit overnight. I should have walked away from the computer right there & gone out & did some gardening or something but instead I heated up the keys & vented some anger & frustration. Debated later in the day whether I should go back & delete that blog but decided to let it ride. Life isn't always a bowl of cherries. Sometimes in my blog I express happy feelings, sometimes sad, sometimes I see the positive side & sometimes it just turns out to be one of those days that you can't win for losing. Yesterday was a flash of anger & frustration first thing in the morning. Guess that is what makes me a human being. Happy to say the day quickly improved & it was on to bigger & better things. We'll be just fine & are proceeding full steam ahead with our "heading west" plans. And, my apologies to Florida. Your a good State:) Thanks to Don, Pat, & Tom for your encouraging words yesterday. Ok, moving on...............................

Over these past few years I have taken many photos of our travels here & there, plus pictures from around our house & our area. Because of those photos I have received some favorable comments, not only on the blog but on other forums I belong to. People have asked how I do some of those nice photos & my answer to that is always the same. I am not a professional photographer & my photos are not on that higher quality level. I think of myself as simply an advanced amateur who is fortunate enough to have some reasonably good camera gear. I use a very simple photo program on the computer as well. The photo program is a free download & anyone can use it to make their pictures better.

First, the camera gear. I have 2 Nikon DSLR's & a smaller point & shoot Canon camera. My Nikon D40 carries a Nikkor 55-200mm f4-5.6 telephoto zoom lens & my Nikon D50 carries a Nikkor 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 wide angle zoom lens. I am hoping to add one more lens to complete my set up which will be a Nikkor 70-300mm f4-5.6 telephoto zoom. Not the most expensive or highest quality camera models or lenses in the Nikon lineup, but they work fine for me. My smaller carry along camera is a Canon A720iS which also is a great little camera & right up there with it's 2 bigger Nikon step-brothers. Before the Canon I had a Fuji E535 which also was a super great camera but it was stolen by some lowlife in Stratford.

The photo program I use on the computer is Google's Picasa. It's a free download & is very easy to use. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be using it. You can sharpen your photos, add contrast, lighten them, straighten your horizons, crop the image, eliminate red eye, enhance the colors, add a soft focus look, switch color to black & white or sepia, invert colors, plus a bunch of other little photo tips & tricks. You can download Picasa 3 here...http://picasa.google.com/
Picasa also has a sister program called Picasa Web Albums which also is a free download. Once you have your photos organized, edited, captioned, & fixed up the way you want them it is only a few more clicks to upload them into the Picasa Web Album program. Once there, they are safe in case your hard drive ever crashes someday.

A few photo tips......
-if it's a cloudy day, minimize the sky or eliminate it totally & look for shots on the ground
-if it's a pretty sky with big fluffy clouds, include more sky in your pics
-avoid putting your subject in the center of the picture
-try to include something in the foreground
-best moods & colors are in the morning around sunrise & shortly thereafter
-cropping is one of the best tools in your photoshop
-don't worry about all those dials on your camera, just set it to automatic & away you go.
-watch out for harsh shadows on bright sunny days
-try not to put horizon lines exactly in the middle of the photo & if you have a tilted horizon you can easily fix that in your Picasa photo program by clicking on the, "straighten" button.

For those of us coming out of the old 35mm film age with all it's inherent problems, the digital age has made a good photographer out of everybody, so grab your camera & get out there.................OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

To-day's photos were taken with Kelly's Canon Powershot A430..... another nice little camera:)