Monthly Archives: March 2012

Not photographer but I may need a tripod

I wrote a post in February about my camera woes.  My Canon SX130is (point and shoot) suffered an injury and requires special care when in use, it is thank goodness, not completely broken. During the camera’s downtime, the backup camera a smaller less powerful was put in use for my daily photo-taking needs.  On a Saturday night whim I went into Target and rolled up on this:

for $89 bucks and the 15X zoom I figured, this was a no brainer.  My dad uses a Nikon DSLR, I liked it I figured I could get a baby one to meet my needs.  For the most part so far, it has. For the most part.
What I dig about it
The weight.  Some folk don’t like heavier point and shoots, I do.  The smaller camera’s like the A2200, though it takes some pretty smashing photos feels a little fragile in my hands.  The L105 is listed at 14.4 oz.
The Zoom
Is a 15X Wide Angle zoom.  Since I’m not a photographer I don’t know what all that means but I do know that I can be a bit further away from the object that I’m shooting and capture a nice image.
 
The Speed
Seems much faster especially when using flash.  The delay is not nearly as long as what I was accustomed to between shots.
It’s Simple
There’s really a ton of scene modes on the L105.  I’ve used them all with the exception of panorama.

What I didn’t care for

The Simplicity
For a person trying to learn photography and absolutely adamant about not purchasing a DSLR until she’s satisfied with her skills, the simplicity of the camera is a drawback.  The scene modes, though plentiful don’t allow you to change much.  I was pretty much accustomed to using AV and making adjustments.  On the L105 you can make a few adjustments in auto mode, but it requires several clicks through the menu to get what you want.
Image Stabilization or the lack thereof
I didn’t know that I had such a shaky hand until I went out to take pictures of the moon.  Image stabilization is not a full time option on the L105.  Only certain scene modes and Auto without full deployment of the lense have image stabilization.  I would think (can could be wrong for doing so), that full-time image stabilization should be standard on a point and shoot.
Macro
Is weird. There is an obvious macro button, but when used, the focus goes completely out of whack.  My shots in macro mode have been hit or miss.
Those three things aside, I’m fairly happy with this camera.  I do think because of Canon’s image stabilization I’ll likely switch back on the next purchase.  In the meantime I will continue learning/using the Nikon day to day and use the Canon, when I want to shoot the moon.
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Not a Mergers and Acquisitions expert, but this gives me the willies!

I don’t know anything about websites, making them, coding them, hosting them or any of that stuff.  I’m just a blogger who needs to blog more and wants to be able to post content easily.  A few years ago on Twitter I kept seeing posts from this “dead-simple” blogging platform called Posterous.  I checked it out and loved it.  You could post by email, from a phone app or by web. So if the brilliant blog post came you could publish mind while in some random place, you could do it right there from our phone without even loggin in.  I went all in on Posterous and in 2009 purchased a domain name let Posterous do the hosting. Now after 138 posts I learn that they were acquired by Twitter.  Am I supposed to be happy about that?

Well I can tell you that I’m not.  Again as a blogger and not a tech person, the thought of having to move all of that content to another service just puts me in full freak-out mode.  I’ve done it twice.  Remember a service called VOX? Not an Expert started out there about three years ago.  They shut down and I moved it all to Typepad which was a mistake.  The service was just weird and seemed a bit old and limited so I moved again to WordPress, hopefully for good.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in love with WordPress either, but it’s not because the service isn’t good, it’s pretty feature rich, so rich that I can’t figure it all out.  Yet WordPress in the blogging world seems to be the standard and I thought it would be a relatively safe place to land.  That Posterous blog may land here too because I just don’t trust this acquisition.

Back in the stone age (the 80’s) during my first round of higher learning, Mergers and Acquisitions and “corporate raiders” were all the rage. They’d come in, rip up your company and sell the parts, basically killing it.  Here in the 21st century it seems that things haven’t changed much.  Just in my limited knowledge of the web and web-based companies, it seems that that old corporate raider style is en vogue.  A tech/social/web company gets gobbled up by the big boys some of the talent is retained but the product or service dies or morphs into something unrecognizable.

I am afraid that my “dead simple” posting days to Posterous will soon be over once Twitter gets fully hands on. I’d like to know what you think about the Twitter acquisition of Posterous.  Do you think the product will be improved or enhanced or are we witnessing what the guys below are talking about. Let me know in the comments.

h/t +Keith Wilson for inspiring this semi-rant

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