Testing the new camera

I got the batteries charged on my new camera: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz18/
and tested it out today - very exciting! Here's what it does on normal mode:











here's what it does on the furthest zoom setting my old camera could do (without a tripod):











And here's what this one can do, no tripod, with only optical zoom (notice the fibers and cat hairs!):











Pretty cool, huh?

Here's my first unsuspecting wildlife shot - he never new I was there... (note he's behind the basket in the first pic above - I was still sitting in the same place to take the pic)











Then I can use the additional digital zoom features to go beyond the optical 18x zoom to a max over over 100x zoom - but I could only get to ~50x without serious blurring, so a tripod is needed here. Here's the wild cat at ~70x zoom with no tripod:











Meanwhile miss Audrey was wondering when we could go back outside and enjoy the porch again!











No wonder she likes it out there - I do too, with the new hammock and seating area, and the freshly planted plants:











And last but not least, the other wild animal of the house needed to feature in a photograph, too!