What a wonderful shot.. makes me want to go out and brave the wind and shoot a few of the old home town and river.
I have Optio30... just need to learn how to use it properly. It was a gift from my mother. My father was a camera buff, photojournalist.. I play at taking pixs. The camera was dad's he died before he could take the first picture with it.
If you look at my friends group... Willie is my brother. He can take good photos.. he inherited Dad's talent.
Wonderful picture, like looking out a window..
hugs

Thanks. As a matter of fact, I saw this out the window of my car as I was driving downtown and stopped to try and capture it. It didn't turn out quite as I'd hoped, but it demonstrated some of the improvements with the new camera's lens.

I later walked the river path to test the camera and get used to handling outside under more realistic situations. It was cold, partly cloudy and not optimum conditions, but had to try. Mostly it was brrrrrrr... cold and I wasn't really dressed for such an excursion since I'd rushed out of the house and gone to work for a couple of hours. Oh well... there will be other, better days (I hope).

The camera matters only in rendering what you see. Will it take better pictures? No, but it will allow the photos taken to more accurately represent what was seen.

That's a really great photo. I have a Canon Powershot A300, but I'm sure I'm not getting the best out of it. I need to get another memory card, the one provided only holds 16 shots, but its the life of the batteries that is driving me crazy. I have a small cheap recharging unit, but I can't rely on the batteries to last while I am out and about, I have to lug the spares as well...should I buy a more expensive recharging unit? It takes all the fun out of using the camera:(

Congratulations on your new camera. What a wonderful lady! ;)I've got about another 2 weeks before I can get the one I want! The photos are just great! You are so right about the camera rendering what the eye sees. My only fantasy wish would be to have a camera hooked to the eye that could download the many images it sees into a hard drive.

@Fran - Well... you can never really use the memory that comes with a digital camera. I call it, "test memory" or "emergency backup memory." You have to have more ... and it's cheap! For $20 you have a card able to store 150+ 3.2Mp-res photos.

As for batteries... you have a 2-AA-battery camera, right? You need to use NI-MH batteries with at least 2000mAh rating. Don't worry about quick-chargers (they're not really good for the battery anyway). You can pick up the charger and four AA batteries for about $16 at Wal-Hell. (Wish my store sold something like that, but we're all high-end la-de-da on the NI-MH batteries.) A pair of those batteries, properly charged and at room temp (cold is BAD!) should do about 150-200 photos. Get a big enough card and you can take picts without so much review and delete on camera... leaving you free to actually take pictures with the batteries.

@Karen - The new Canons and Kodaks and Nikons have built-in Wi-Fi!

Oh... and thanks!

Thanks so much for the info..I knew I hadn't got the Right Stuff.Obviously we don't have Wal-Hell here, so no bargains for me, but armed with this information I don't mind what I spend..thanks again

I have a powershot A75 3.2 mega pixels.It served me well for a long time.For Christmas I got a Kodak EasyShare C315 it's a 5 mega pixel.The Kodak is unreal for 100 bucks.My dream camera is a Canon Eos Rebel 10 mega pixel.They cost about 850-950 dollars.I will have it.