New Camera

Phew, real life can sure take it out of a person, no? I thought time went by quickly even when I wasn’t up to much, but it’s a whole new level of warp when I’ve actually got things to do. To help document it all (in theory), I’ve got a new camera. It takes pictures like so:

No, not to replace my Nikon SLR — not even close. It’s a little Olympus (FE-230) point-and-shoot, exactly as big as my cell phone, but with more megapixels than the D70. How do they fit them all in? It’s been so long since I’ve used a point-and-shoot that I find it exceedingly frustrating. I mean, it’s my belief that you can coax out a good photo from any camera, but there are definitely levels of difficulty. Being able to tell the D70 exactly what you want goes a long way to making photography easy; the Olympus seems to have a mind of its own, and there’s no telling it what you want it to do. Now I know what it’s like to live with myself! Har.
I’ve accepted the fact that I have to let the cameras do what they’re best at. I got this point-and-shoot in order to have a portable camera that I can carry with me at all times. And I think it’ll do just fine with that sort of thing — outdoor shots, etc, etc. The D70 is best at home, where I expect a bit more, and where lugging around an SLR doesn’t pose a problem.
But for the moment, I’m most excited about the Olympus’ super-macro setting:

It’ll focus up to about an inch and a half in front of its nose, and provided all the other stars align (since you can’t set its shutter speed or aperture or manually focus), it takes a nice picture. Of fuzzy cat paws and slices of tomato. (I’ll have to get back to you with the variety of tomato I’ve got in my garden. It’s an heirloom, and it’s amazing. Almost no seeds — just perfect tomato flesh through and through.)