I'm interrupting this blog's long winter's nap with some news

Erica and I braved 19 degree Black Friday early morning temps to stand in line for a bit at Best Buy for a new camera. Crass, I know, but James was already well up, Cheryl was willing to watch him crawl around for awhile (we're in Naperville), and we figured there was no point in waiting for them to sell out of the door buster camera deal we've had our eye for quite awhile.

After much research, we settled on the pricey-but-worth-it Sony a6000 as our Christmas present to one another.  We weren't really satisfied with the quality of pictures we were getting from our point-and-shoot (which also lately has developed a spot on the sensor which appears as a dark blob in every shot), so we pulled the trigger on something that we hope will take excellent pictures and do so for many years. 

I'm a complete photography novice past "point the camera at desired object and press button," so I've been reading up on how to use all of the bewildering options this camera has, as well as some of the basic manual settings know-how that will allow me to make the most of what it offers.  So far, so...decent?  Yesterday's shots were a mixed bag, save when the auto function was on; I went outside this morning to take picture of the snow, and ended up with a lot of white-outs (again, unless the auto settings were engaged.)  Still, I'm very happy with the quality of the good ones.

Here's a sampling from this morning:

This one got a bit overexposed

There's a little bird in there, making this Nature Photography

The James shots turned out pretty well.  We did a photo shoot for our upcoming Christmas card, and I also got some good ones of him ranging over the house:

We're excited to set the camera loose on our sure-to-be-scenic trip to Puerto Rico over Christmas vacation with mom and dad, Aunt Molly and Uncle Mark, and Silva and Claire.  We'll have full daily reports.

Grant