Camera Incura Adora

I have an incurable crush on -- my new camera! I got a Sony Cybershot DSC-H9. I'm having lots of fun playing with it and learning all of its tricks. I wanted to be really familiar with it before I go to Ecuador in March. I'll be going for 2 weeks to see my Mom; my sister-in-law Colleen and my nephews Ian and Julian will also be there visiting. I can't wait!

Meanwhile, I've been testing it out on Bijou, JoJo, and the birds in the backyard. Here's a straightforward one of Bijou, and a nice close-up of some bun-tocks:



















The camera has a very nice movie function. My old camera would only do 30 seconds a pop, so if the action didn't happen in 30 seconds, I didn't get it. Now I can let "tape" roll until I get what I want! I've been wanting to capture a nice bun-flop, and the other night I got two that I would rate about a 5 on a 10 point Olympic scale. Not JoJo's best work, but still cute. The second one has an appropriate voice over from the PBS show I was watching, Pioneers of Television: Late Night.


Today was the first really beautiful Spring-ish day, and all three of us girls enjoyed hanging out in the back yard while I waited for photo ops. JoJo does a great job with the screen pet-door, and then after much grass munching she did a very small binky and a sprint.


I was able to use my absolutely amazing new 15x macro on my camera to capture a really nice close-up of one of "my" Anna's hummingbirds. I love this photo! My new camera has a repeater setting, where you can hold down the button and take a rapid succession of photos. I tried that with the hummer and got about 30 so-so pictures, but this one on the right was taken as a regular one-off shot. I wonder if the repeater shakes the camera a little, or if I just got really lucky with the clarity on this one.

I also took a brief video of the hummer. The videos lose clarity getting them on the web. They're really amazing my own computer!


We occasionally have a hawk visit us in the back yard. We keep an eye out for hawks, since they may find JoJo to be a tasty tidbit. This one looked a little small, and we think he may be a sharp-shinned hawk. I got a photo of his back, and then some video of him just looking around. Today I saw a mob of crows chasing him out of the neighborhood.