A New Toy

I've wanted a new "travel" camera for awhile now. My big gear (a Canon EOS Rebel T3i, with several lens and a tripod) is too heavy to haul around when I'm visiting my grand-kids or whatever. I have a small pocket camera but it's kind of slow and a bit antiquated.  It needed to be replaced.

So, I went on-line and reviewed all sorts of possible replacements. Each had its pros and cons. The nicest ones, unfortunately, were much too expensive. In the end, I went to Henry's Camera to look at some of the possible choices.  There's nothing like taking a camera in your hand to see if you like it. Thanks to a knowledgeable clerk at the store, she asked me what features I wanted in the new camera and showed me some alternatives in my price range.

I ended up melting my plastic to buy a Nikon Coolpix P510 that had just arrived at the store. It's bigger than a pocket camera but much smaller than my T3i. Most important to me, it felt good in my hand.

I had to wait awhile to test it out.  Seems it takes 4 hours to charge the battery and I had bought a spare battery that needed to be charged as well. About 8 hours later, I tested it, using Mollie as my model.

The flash made her eyes look green (they're actually brown). I could have fixed this in my processing software but I liked the green eyes. I think she must be an Irish cockapoo.

Later, I took the mutts to Beaudry Provincial Park for a walk. It was a real challenge loading the two excited dogs into my Escape but I managed. It was a bit like herding cats.

At Beaudry, out in the grassy field, I took some more shots, including this one of Holly, waiting in the wind for me to catch up to her. Fortunately, the wind blew the hair out of her eyes.

I even took a video while I was there. It's of the dogs, who had gotten ahead of me on the trail (not hard to do!). I called them back and taped them running towards me. I tried posting that video here but it wouldn't work, maybe because it was too large or it was in the wrong format. But, take my word for it, the camera does a great job with videos.

Happiness is ...