Marylu, I don't know much about the Sony H5-- it came out after I'd already moved on to my Canon camera. But! There's a really active and helpful Sony forum over at DPReview.com. There are lots of "personalities" over there, but more often than not you'll get some great help. Even if you didn't want to get involved in another forum, it would be well worth reading through posts. Every conceivable question gets asked and answered. Thanks wigardenerwannabe. I mostly take photos for my own pleasure, but have used them for my work (graphic design) quite a bit, too. I've sold a few images, but it's not something I actively promote. I'd like to do that someday, but have to get to the point where my portfolio is a lot stronger than it is now. The good news is that I am finally almost to the point where I am pretty consistent at being able to grab the shots I want, but I still have so much more to learn. As far as knowing when things are in focus, it's likely just going to take some practice. I know nothing about Panasonic cameras, but check your manual to see if there is an option to turn on a beep when it's focused. Or some cameras have a blinking "shakey hand" icon which shows up when not in focus. It took me forever to realize that a sort of moire pattern would show up when my Sony was focused. Lisa's settings will likely help you the most. It's cool that it's got a macro/flower setting. One other thing to consider is that camera lenses generally need something contrasty to focus on-- light/dark or hard edges usually work. For a kind of decent tripod at a next-to-nothing price, check out Walmart. I used one of these for a couple of years before moving on up and it did just what I needed it to do. Anne, something you'll need to get used to is that Canon images are generally not sharp right out of the camera. They've done this on purpose, because in the long run it will give you a great deal of flexibility. Do you have Photoshop or some other image editing program? Are you after trying to zoom in for macro shots or are you wanting to zoom into things that are further away? If you are like me you probably want to do both, but I am going to guess that you are wanting to zoom closer to things further away. Heh... you can always do what I was told to do after a friend got tired of my whining-- zoom with your feet. ;-) In all honesty, the best image quality comes from lenses designed for each specific job. Most of us would give a lot to own one lens that does it all (macro, landscape, zoom zoom). There are a few lenses that come close, but they all sacrifice quality. A DSLR owner eventually has to wrap their brains around the idea of switching lens. A lot. I still hate it, but I've finally accepted the notion.... though I still look for and dream about *the* lens. Disclaimer: Lens selection is an extremely personal thing. There are so many choices and so many individual needs. You can read up on these lenses (highly recommended!), but for every pro recommendation, you'll read a con. Photographers are very opinionated and aren't shy about saying what they think... and what they think is often based on limited experience with a particular lens. I guess I am no exception. No matter what I tell you, you still need to make the decision for yourself and you need to know that you won't make me feel bad if you end up doing what you want to do and not what I think you should do. (lol) So here I go, telling you what I think you should do. The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM is a lens that I actually have on my Maybe Someday list. I've researched it like crazy, because it has a super duper range on it -- great for a walk-around lens. The IS is really attractive for sure. The problem is that it's only F4, which means it's a slower lens-- you can't stop it down any further to let more light in. The IS compensates, which is great.... but you're not going to get the great creamy backgrounds that you'd get with an F2.8 lens. The other thing that concerned me is that I've looked at hundreds and hundreds of images from that lens and have seen only a small handful that I really loved. The color isn't even as good as the kit lens, which strikes me as odd for a Canon brand lens. A couple of lenses you might think about: Canon Zoom Wide Angle-Telephoto EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM The 24-70mm is an "L" quality lens, which is about the best quality you can get in a Canon lens. It's just so hard to put into words the differences between L-quality and the rest. Incredible sharpeness, incredible bokeh (background magic), color, brightness, etc. This lens doesn't have the IS, but it's an F2.8 lens, which will let you shoot some really low light shots. The older version of this lens (28-70mm) is my current walk-around and portrait lens and I wouldn't trade it for any amount of money. The biggest drawback is the weight (loads of glass inside there!), but I found I got used to it fairly fast. Having waxed on about the 24-70mm, the lens I would really recommend to you is the Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. Oh man, this has everything, including a great price! Great reach on the long end, plus you can focus this thing at a distance of only 5ft., meaning that you can actually get some decent macro shots. What I am trying to say here is that you won't often miss the 24mm on the wide end.... unless you want wide angle (landscape) shots, but then you'd probably switch to the 18-55mm kit lens. The color is really nice on this lens and it has a decent brightness to it. Even though it's only an F4 lens, you can get good creamy backgrounds by zooming into subjects. On this lens, the IS really does count toward getting those lower-light shots. The really good news is that if it turns out that you don't like your lens, you can sell it without much loss. There's a real market for these lenses-- a great place to sell them is on FredMiranda.com. As for that 18-55mm lens being sharp, hang in there, because for such a cheapy lens, it really is a workhorse. Check out the link at the bottom, then read the EXIF info below the photo. This image was taken at a super low speed at ISO1600, no flash. Just imagine how sharp it might have been with decent light. Nancy Here is a link that might be useful: Miss Em

Hi Lisa It is amazing how many of the eggs do hatch. The last batch had 22 eggs and 19 of them hatched. Only one duck stays till the end and is the only mama. The others are fought with and generally give up after they lay their eggs or they find a new nest for part of the eggs. The one nest we have now had 27 eggs and I am sure there is at least one more in it. I did not go and count eggs today as we had grandkids all day. Where are you located. We have so many wood ducks and I am sure part of it is because of the boxes. They say the female will come back to the area that she was hatched in. I keep telling my hubby we need more boxes, but he says no, he will not ring the pond with duck boxes. Connie

"I'm so impressed. This has helped me a great deal. I would love to just verify one thing. You said Image Stabilization is possible thru the use of a special lens?" Yes, some lenses have it, some don't. Some don't matter as much. My 10-22 does not have it, and it gets photos as if it did. Each lens is different. I only have one lens with IS, the 28-135, but what it basically means is you can get clear shots at lower shutter speeds (NO BLURRING DUE CAMERA SHAKE BUT BLURRING IF YOU DIDN'T NAIL THE FOCUS RIGHT), down to like 1/10 sec that you could not without it. 1/60 a sec is about the limit handheld w/o IS, but some people are steady enough and/or use a monopod and can get 1/30 and still sharp. Monopod you can get down to around 1/10. Any lower than that and you need a tripod. When you look at the lineup of Canon lenses, it says IS on the description. That means it has image stabilization. With Nikon, I think it is VR. Means the same thing. IS is almost a must if you have a long zoom lens and want to shoot say birds closeup without a tripod. JoanMn made some good comments. "Shooting pics in RAW you need to make color corrections?" Not always. It just gives you a second chance to change exposure and white balance, also does color corrections if needed. Some are not needed. "So it's not a perfect picture just by pointing and shooting with RAW?" Not usually with me, but when you have more experience and know what settings and approach to use, you up your chances of getting a perfect photo out of the camera. That is the goal. RAW just gives you a better second chance. Post processing jpgs gives you a second chance with color, sharpening, contrast, other things but will not get back lost detail. It gives an otherwise blah photo more "punch". RAW can do that but sometimes the lost detail just isn't there. "You still have to make corrections?" Most people do on photos they display on the web, those who want perfection, here I think most are posting out out of the camera shots. At small sizes, it's not such a big deal but can be. If you want really nice prints, you should tweak most of your photos but you do not have to. At the minimum, you should straighten and sharpen them. Photos out of dslr cameras tend to be soft. A little sharpening makes them look better. I sharpened my white dogwood blossoms. You can tell the difference. I did not have to shoot RAW to do that, but did have to shoot RAW if the white balance was off (I liked it the way it was) and I lost some of the detail in the bright areas. With RAW, I got most of it back. You can't do that shooting in JPG. There may be other things about it I'm not up on yet that make it more advantageous. It can be a pain because it involves some more steps in post processing, but it is worth it to me on my nicer photos. Others I don't bother, like one you want to post on ebay, proofs, quick and dirty, etc. "The photo's are beautiful and the hands on monitor pic is great. If I only understood it. But, I'm learning a bit as I go." After I saw it explained about 10 times and saw examples people posted on another forum, can't name it here, rules, I began to see the advantages. Once I started doing it, it started making some sense and I'm comfortable with it now, but haven't reached expert status. I was looooooost at first. But my experience with my little point and shoot which had some advanced features helped a lot and in no time I was shooting in aperture priority, shutter priority, and doing some night fireworks shots full manual. If you do decide to go dslr, you can get some basic settings from people, shoot in program mode just like a point and shoot and grow into the advanced features at your own pace. Some of this is advanced, and you cannot possibly be expected to understand it. You will understand it more as you see it discussed and think it over. I inundated you with too much information, but if you are thinking about a Rebel XT, those are the possibilities. One very important thing I failed to mention is that with the low noise at high ISO on the XT and mine, you can take really, really nice photos indoors without a flash. Nikon isn't quite as good that way but excels in other ways. Sometimes you need a flash anyway because the available light is just not sufficient. You get to know by practicing what you can and cannot do. The big thing with some people are concert photos. If you get the XT or a Nikon, you are not allowed to use flash in some venues, sometimes no camera at all. If you are not allowed to use a flash but are allowed to take photos, you bump up the ISO way high (advantage of Canon, silky photos at high ISO, no noise until 1600 and 3200, amazing) and get photos you simply could not get any other way. Stunning ones by those who know what they are doing with just the right lens for that situation. I chose the white blossom photo because of the white highlights, there were others I could have used for an example. I shot a race today and I did not get my exposure right and did not shoot in RAW for the action shots won't go into why, shot all the stop action shots in sports mode. Thank heaven for Photoshop. The runners are too dark because the camera metered on the whole scene, the bright buildings in the morning sun and the runners were mostly shaded. I should have chosen a mode where I could use partial metering. Now I am going to have to use the shadow highlights tool to correct most of them, shot 595 photos. You can batch process, I don't know completely how to do that, so many things to learn yet, but as far as I am concerned, CS2 was worth it just for that one tool, shadow highlights which will fix most of the keepers for me (I actually got a bunch of duds I will toss) even though you can probably do it in other programs as well. That is going to be a lot of work and is an example where you color correct even though you didn't shoot in RAW. I shot a few in RAW where there wasn't so much motion. I should have taken some trial shots, read the lcd and histogram (you want a nice mountain touching both ends if you can get it, sometimes not possible, have to compromise) and used those numbers to go full manual or something, don't know yet but will find out. I can't see those little numbers that well for one thing on the lcd or in the viewfinder, and I am not expert enough to shoot full manual a whole series of shots. Some do. There are other ways around that, and I will try to get some answers as to what I should have done from the "pros" lol. If I was able to be any help to you, I'm happy for that. Kind of a hasty response; I've been up since 5:30, and it is getting hot. Days of it ahead yet according to forecast. As you move along, you will get some "aha" moments, that's what she was talking about. That's the way it's been with me. I need some more "ahas" myself lol.

Ah well, dragging toes in the dirt, when I bought my Kodak 3400 some years back, it was then pretty XXXY. It was a reward for myself for finally getting up the courage to go to the dentist for some major pain. I loved the camera then and I still do, though whew the improvements and the price drops since then!. Still the wisest words the camera salesman ever told me was -- don't drop back and look in the window next week. I saw Ian's camera at his open garden, it looks fantastic and takes incredible shots. Mind you, for half what I paid some years back, you now get 3 times the resolution!!!