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I’ve just not been as dutiful with my blogging in the last few months, I’ve been getting to involved in the world that is Flickr.

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A fantastic long exposure photograph of a United Parcel Service (UPS) Boeing 767-34AF/ER taking off.

How cool is that!

Been trying out my new Canon A610 Powershot over the weekend. I feel I’m starting to get to grips with all the shutter and aperture settings. Here’s my first attempt at a decent macro shot.

You can also see the larger version over at Flickr.

I’m sure Mark will some interesting points to make

My new camera turned up yesterday while I was at work, it was a long day waiting to get away to have a play with my new toy!

I’m really pleased with the purchase and glad that I didn’t go for the Sony DSC-T5 that I was originally opting for. The Powershot is some much cooler and has lots of manual features to get to grips with. I’ve been scouring the web looking for beginners guides to photography. I need to try and get my head around exposures, shutter speeds, and all that stuff, I never knew it was so complicated. I tried a few pages over at wikipedia and my head nearly exploded!

The only disappointment on Canon’s part is that they only supply a basic manual with the camera which tells you about absolutely nothing and constantly refers to the ‘Advanced Guide’ which you only get as a pdf. So i’ve had to print this myself. The stupid thing is they supplied the basic manual 5 times in different languages! With all that paper they could have printed the advanced guide for me !

Had some useful tips from Owen and Steven, I went back to look for more cameras.

Taking on board Owen’s comment about Sony memory sticks being proprietary I went and had a look at other models such as Fuji (thanks Steven) and Canon within my price bracket of 140 to 170ish, that utilise SD cards for storage.

I came across an excellent review site called cameras.co.uk. The reviews are very in-depth and even quite exhaustive.

After a bit of reading I finally came across the Canon Powershot A610, it has an excellent review, better even than the Sony DSC-T5 I was originally opting for. For the future I had been planning to try and move more towards an SLR type camera that would be suitable for learning more advanced photographic techniques. Althought the A610 isn’t an SLR it has some more advanced features than a standard compact digital, so it’s a step in the right direction. I liked the fact that it scored well on macro features, I’d like try taking some nature/wildlife/insect photos, ones i’ve seen on Flickr and the like look pretty cool, Mark did a cool macro pic of some biros a while back.

Here’s a quick pic of the camera, for those interested.

It’s been ordered from PixMania, so it should be here in 2-3 days.

My old trusted Sony DSC-P51 seems to have given up on me. Over the last few weeks it’s just been acting darn funny. First I lost about 20-30 images off the memory card (how it wiped them I don’t know), and then on a quite regular basis it decides to go back to factory settings and asks for the time to be set, etc. I keep it well charged all the time but I’ve no idea what is up.

We’re off to Disney World next month and I really don’t want to be losing pictures of that trip as it’ll be highly likely that it’ll be some years before we possibly get a chance to go again.

So off on the hunt for a new camera. I’m not after anything special, just a basic compact camera that takes pics of about 2megapixels (more isn’t really neccasary as I can get 6×7 inch prints at that res). I’m currently looking at the Sony DSC-T5.

I can pick one up for between 145 and 155 quid, which is about all i’m willing to spend. It would have been nice if I could have found another Sony camera that would use the Sony Memory Sticks I already have but unfortunately they all now use the newer Memory Stick Pro or Memory Stick Pro DUO standard. (Why does the media always have to change !)

Anyone have any other suggestions for about that price bracket?