Dee vs. Photography // VOID-STAR.NET

Gee damn postage from the US seems to get faster every time I buy something.

A few weeks ago I got this urge to go out and buy a compact-but-quality digital camera I could throw into my bag and pull out to take snaps when, like, the aliens invade. Or whatever. I’ve never really had a camera before (my phone is the closest I’ve got), so this was a new and exciting foray into consumer tech for me. It was also a difficult one; I know nothing about cameras and to someone who knows nothing about cameras, pretty much everything in the low-end consumer market is the same.

In the end — after much speculation — I ordered a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS from B&H. It arrived the other day, and since then I’ve had way too much fun whipping it out and snapping pictures. Unfortunately, it only came with a 32 meg SD card, which is like 10 shots (what is this, the dark ages?), and the battery charger has a US power plug on it. So today it’s out to look for a bigger card and a new charger (or at least a plug converter) because, damn, my batteries are flat already.

Despite that, so far it’s been pretty good. I’m a little disappointed at the macro function (one of the people I spoke to recommended an Olympus as the best for macro photography), and I’m still having to get used to the fact that it’s better for me to use the zoom rather than stand three inches away from my subject a la the cameraphone, especially if there’s a flash. I’m also amused that the facial recognition focus thing recognised Bizarro.

Anyway, my new-found interest in taking photos of random shit — mostly the garden and my cats — means I finally signed up to Flickr. The funnest thing? There’s an iPhoto export plug-in, which means uploading is as easy as pressing Option-Shift-E.

Welcome to Web 2.0, Dee.