LOVING my new camera!!

I took a hike yesterday evening to test my camera outside... really the hike was because I told Audrey we were going to the beach and she got SUPER excited, then I looked at the weather report and found it was raining at the beach and decided not to go - and I had to do something! So I took my new camera and a very happy dog up the hill behind my house. I've posted pics from here before - back when I first moved to Oregon. Being outside really shows the power of my new camera - I am VERY satisfied with my selection...

None of these pictures were taken with a tripod. Modern image stabilization is amazing! My old camera had 10x optical zoom but could only go to 5 without a tripod or things were blurry. This one has 18x and does great at full resolution with very crisp photos, then if you reduce the resolution and use the digital zoom is goes to about 115x zoom - and I was able to go nearly to full zoom without a tripod just using the back of a bench to keep my arms steady...

First test that impressed me - taken from my porch, can you see the clump of leaves in the first pic? They're about 2/3's of the way up the tree near the right edge of the 1st photo:











If you think that's good, keep looking... Can you spot the water tower? How about now with the optical zoom?? Then look at the extra detail you get with the digital zoom?





















Can you spot the bird?? How about now? Let me give more help - enhanced zoom :)




























How about the branch? Can you spot it? Here's the progression again!






















I wasn't the only one having fun on the hike - here's my cutie girl:















And here are some of my favorite pics: