We had a lazy start to the morning, one advantage of the kids being raised and on their own. My husband and I opened our gifts here. I received some books, some music and a beautiful pair of earrings.
We also got ourselves a new digital camera, a Sony CyberShot 8.1 mega pixels, but it is going back. The photos are very grainy except at the lowest setting. My old Minolata 3 mega pixels takes much better photos even though it is heavy and big. If anyone has a small digital that takes great pics, I’d love to hear recommendations. I don’t know that I need one with 8.1 mega pixels – might be overkill.
Late afternoon we went to my in-laws for a lovely dinner and a slow unwrapping of gifts. More books and jewelry and straight from my wish list, a Brother label maker that works on it’s own and plugs into your computer. No more writing labels that I can’t read because my handwriting is getting so bad.
Home again we watched a few episodes of Whose Line is it? and now I am ready to crash.
It was a lovely day from start to finish.
Tomorrow it’s time to write again.
I hope all of you had a day that was filled with love and laughter.
Camera
Hi Susan
Today is tomorrow and you’re going to write again!!!…but here’s my take on the camera thing…I keep a camera with me allllll the time, but don’t know much about them except to take pictures…so when I dropped mine overboard while kayaking, I went to my son and asked him for advice. He suggested a Sony-even gave me a model. I got it home, shot all over the place and went on to develop/ Lousy, bad color, so I took it back for a more expensivee Sony and while I was fooling around with camera #2, remembered that the little photo printer needed ink! Fixed that but was getting nasty photos anyway and had the second camera in the car to return after work when somehow a light struck!!! All of a sudden-yes, “all of a sudden” my mind was working around how to manage the settings and now I love it. So after that long story that needs word cutting, I meant to say,give it a few days befored you return it.
Good luck with it.
Mona
Re: Camera
Thanks, Mona. I don’t think that will work on this Sony though I’d love to know what model you have that you love. I don’t want to mess with settings every time I go to shoot. I want one that works nicely with auto-stuff. But I spent the time on Christmas going through the settings and I shot pictures at each of the settings with the new camera and then with the old. The Sony let me down every time. Horrible grainy, noisy pics. (and I am SUCH a Sony girl.)
I had the old camera and I took all the same shots with the old one as I did with the new and the difference was amazing. I think, after more reading, that the Sony is supposed to be awesome outside but 90% of my pictures are interior ones.
Argh. š
Re: Camera
Susan,
My Sony is the nice litte “expensive” DSC T-100!
I never would have paid so much, but like you, I was frustrated. I don’t think that this is the easiest camera to figure out, with the home and the menus, but I’m mostly on auto anyway and I “have” to have a camera on me all the time! My kids have other models of sony and love them too…no grainy or noisy shots. I think I would take it back and try again. It can be so frustrating.
Good luck
Mona
Re: Camera
Thanks. It IS frustrating but I took a pic with the camera after my husband made some setting changes – just a quick one of a pile of glass serving bowls. It was the sort of thing that is often hard to shoot because of the glass and the reflection and it took a perfect shot. So I guess we’ll keep it, he’ll use it mostly and I’ll play with it. But I’m going to keep looking for something else too.
I have a canon, and I buy canons for work. I love them. They take gorgeous photos.
That’s good to hear. Do they take nice pics indoors? (see my reply about)
Any models you’d recommend?
I use Snapfish. It’s very easy to use, and you can share pictures with others, keep their pictures in your own account, and order prints of any of them fairly inexpensively.
My little Canon PowerShot A610 takes great pictures indoors and outside. It can do a lot of things that I haven’t tried, like take movies and other stuff, but I like it. And it’s very easy to use.
Thanks. I’m adding it to the list to check out.
Canon PowerShot SD750. LOVE it. A thousand times better than my old Olympus…
Happy holiday!
Another vote for the Canon Powershot. I’m liking the sound of this.
Hope your holiday was grand!
Before I got my beautiful and admittedly dreamy Canon Rebel xti, I had a Sony Cybershot 5 megapixel, and I thought it did a VERY good job, not grainy at all. I would see if you could take it back and get an identical one — maybe there is something wrong with the one you have? Seems to me like 3 more megapixels than the one I had ought to only make it even more kick-assier.
Love that – kick-assier. That’s what I would think. I confess, it does a better job at 100 ISO than anything else. What I’m afraid of is that I still won’t remember how to make it do anything else. But I’m giving it some more time…it is so often an operator error with me. š
I think I’m with you on taking the Sony back. I got a Sony Cybershot in 2002 and liked it very much. It was maybe 3 Megapixels. But last year, it seemed to have gotten awful–I suspect it had been dropped several times–and when my baby was born this year I insisted to my husband that we get a newer camera. I knew how to use the Sony and liked the memory sticks and the Zeiss lens, so we got another, newer Sony CyberShot in March. Almost immediately I was having similar issues with it–very blurry, not sharp or clear. And terrible in indoor lighting, especially flourescent lighting like my kids’ school. I don’t think it’s just me because I swear my old Instamatic and Disc cameras were usually more reliable! But this one was so small, I was carrying it in my purse at all times, and I decided maybe I’d jarred it too much. I actually convinced my husband to buy yet ANOTHER, even newer Sony CyberShot just this month, when we saw it on a Christmas sale, only 9 months after we got the last one! And you know what? It stinks! I get occasional great pictures, but I’d say it’s maybe 1 out of 6. It is so s-l-o-w (worthless when I’m trying to take pics of a rapidly moving baby) as well as not being sharp. Many of the pics are grainy. I think it’s trying to do too much for me and make too many decisions, and I am still using the old cameras instead sometimes. Maybe I just need to understand better how to use it, but when I can get better pics with any disposable camera I can buy at the drugstore for $10, that’s a problem! I am wondering what is better, though. I’ve been leery of Canons ever since I had a bad one in the early 90s, although I did have a nice Canon before that. And at any rate, I can’t possibly buy another camera anytime soon! I’ve been using this one way too much to take it back now.
Oh that is horrible not to have a great camera when you have a baby you want pics of. (Of course we didn’t have digital cameras when my kids were little. Heck, we barely had computers. LOL)
I’m with you here “I think it’s trying to do too much for me and make too many decisions”
I don’t like a camera doing too much of thinking for me. What a pain all this is.
Re: cameras
That’s good to hear too. I’ll check them out. I think I’d really like one without all the bells and whistles for quick pics. If I see a bird in the yard I want to go snap it and not mess with any settings mostly because I can never remember what to set them too.