Now, as is par for the course, I'm never really ready for anything. You can add using my new camera to that list. It was gifted to me on a Wednesday. We celebrated our Christmas on that Thursday. We left for Florida on that Friday, as soon as I got out of work. As such, it was really late when we reached the hotel. By the time we unpacked, I was even more tired. I figured I would shower and then read the instruction manual. Yeah...that didn't happen. The parents had the lights out when I got out of the shower, so I just went to sleep.*
The next morning, I set about figuring out my camera in the few minutes I had before we went to the park.
I took the obligatory self-shot, but you
get the picture of my cool shoes.
You're welcome.
Carrying around a relatively large camera was new to me. It's doesn't have one of those really cool, long lenses, but it's quite a bit bigger than my previous digital camera. It came with a nice neck strap that took me almost ten minutes to figure out.**
Once we got going, I got used to carrying the camera that way. Yeah, I could have put it in the camera case my parents got me, but we were doing the whole "no bag" thing to skip the security lines. The hardest part of getting used to it was not moving too fast. It was prone to thumping into my boobs.
I took a few pictures at the resort since
we had breakfast in the Pepper Market.
I think he's angry. Maybe the cart doesn't go fast enough.
Apparently, my camera can see the true weird in people.
In an attempt to cram in as much hands on learning as possible, I played with my camera on the bus. It has a bunch of different settings tailored to when you may be using your camera, as well as to what type of subject you're using. I probably would have done better if I had read the booklet. Instead, there is a lot of my just trying different settings, trying to find one where the pictures look decent.
The interior of the Mexico pavilion. I went through quite a
few settings before I found this one.
At the same time, I often forgot to put the camera back on the generic setting when moving back outdoors. If set it to something special, I often forgot to un-set it. Additionally, my father must move really, really fast. I have a ton of blurry pictures of him.
The colors show up nicely.
The majority of the bad pictures are due to my own inexperience. I'm not a photographer. I just like having fun with my camera. As such, there are also a lot of pictures taken at weird angles. I'm sparing you those ones.
I also have some shots where he's moving around
that actually turned out okay.
My camera is almost identical to the one she is holding.
The Osborne Family Lights
I have quite a few pictures of the lights that turned out okay. I also have some blurry, streaky looking ones. They're neat in their own way, but they are not good. I had a lot of time to practice taking pictures like these, as we lost my mother for a while.
The camera doesn't appear to overwhelm the batteries. My parents got me a set of rechargeable batteries for my camera, as my mother's will eat regular cameras and spit out the carcasses. She actually has two sets of rechargeables that she swaps between. My one set had no problem lasting through the day. I charged them at night, as well, but I don't think I really needed to.
I didn't know pirates played chess.
The camera is really nice, and I can't wait to use it more. I enjoyed trying to take decent pictures and puzzling out which settings to use. I need to read my manual, but after that, I'm hoping it will be gravy. The camera is a bit larger than I'm used to, but it didn't bother my neck to carry it around all day. The strap is actually pretty sturdy, and since I attached the lens cap to the strap, I haven't managed to lose it yet.
This is where I started using the burst shot.
It takes continuous shots. I'm not
happy with the graininess.
This was also taken using the burst shot.***
Perhaps the hardest part of getting to know my camera was installing its programming onto my computer. It took forever. I haven't had much experience yet with the software, but I hope to one day master it.
Thus far, I am happy with my Nikon Coolpix L310 camera. It's treated me well. Now, I just need to learn how to properly use it.
*Can I say again how much I loathe that Disney resorts don't have Cartoon Network? I seriously hate that.
**Don't judge me. I was really nervous about entrusting my new toy to a silly strap.
***It might be called the continuous shot. I'm not sure, and I'm too lazy to check. There is a pet one too, since pets don't sit still for me. Stupid cat.
No comments:
Post a Comment