I have the canon sx 50 hs. Overall Quite happy with it. Can take close up pics of the birds in the trees out behind the pond - which is a couple hundred feet away - from my living room window And can even get close ups of individual flowers or tiny bugs on flowers. The image stabilization works well - as long as I keep reasonable still! It's been a bit of a learning curve. Sometimes it's hard to get the autofocus to focus on what you want to focus on - the camera will focus on the flower instead of the butterfly. It can take some time for the camera to come into focus. And I've found that I have better luck stepping back and zooming in than getting too close to a subject - like when I want to take a photo of an individual flower petal. The camera isn't too big. And it's lightweight for its size. It's also a point and shoot. The camera has a million more features and I am unaware of how to use them and have no interest in learning. My criteria was point and shoot with a huge zoom and ability to take close ups. One thing I found when looking for cameras - many have wifi now. And no cable. Which means you can upload your photos to a photo hosting site on the internet. But cannot upload the photos to the hard drive of your computer. Pay attention to that if this is an issue that concerns you.

Jane, I was at the fair the past week so fell behind here. Alot going on in my world lately. So much to take care of and right now I'm just tired. This energizer bunny's batteries are ready for a Charge!LOL We talked to some of our friends at the fair and they have never been to Las Vegas. So the four of us are planning a trip to Vegas next spring. We haven't been on a trip together for 9 years and we decided it's time! My DF's haven't been feeling well so I've been helping them clean and paint. However, she just brought 5 qts of fresh canned tomatoes and fresh peaches to me today at the office. She uses tomato juice to add to the tomatoes instead of water and they are sooo good! They also did a phone run to our other office for me which saved me an hour of running. They are just the sweetest people and I love them so much. Tell DD I love her jeep and I bet she looks good in it! They had the new Jeeps set up across from us at the fair. I didn't look close cuz I was lucky and found another set of new chrome wheels and tires to fit my escalade a few weeks ago at a ys. The guy bought them two months prior and then decided to marry a gal with 5 kids. He thought the money would be put to good use so decided to sell them for $500. Dishes are calling so best get to it. So glad to have you back posting!!! Punk

Sydney, Any news? Did you get a new camera? September 26 is day to mark. Why? Photokina will start that day. Photokina is a large convention in where all the camera companies show off the new lines, makes, and models. Some companies are already making announcements of what they will be showing. I see your price range and there are a lot of good cameras in that range. It seems that to meet your expectations you might look into getting a camera that allows you have manual controls over the camera. Do you want to stay with Point and Shoot or would you like to move to the DSLR range? Some things to think about: a P&S camera is compact and it easier to part from if you move on to another camera. If you go the DSLR route, you are just not buying a camera, you are buying into a system. Unless you have money to throw around you will most likely keep that camera a lot longer. You will have to buy lenses for the camera body. In most cases the lens can cost as much, or near, as the camera body. Therefore you find yourself dedicated to that company. There are some very nice entry level DSLRs out there. Nikon had the D50, I played with it for a while, but I decided to pass. I had the Canon XT Rebel, but I fell in love with the Olympus E500 so I gave the Canon to my wife. I can expand later if you want on these cameras if you want more info. Check dpreview.com you can find just about any camera there and it has customer ratings as well. Unfortunately, the best advice I can give you right now is when it comes to cameras, most salesman at retail stores donÂt have a clue, honestly, they donÂt. So donÂt listen to them. I get angered at times when I hear them make recommendations based solely on the amount of megapixels a camera has. This is just FYI but my current cameras are: P&S - Canon PowerShot 620, Olympus SP 500 UZ DSLR - Canon 300D XT/ Rebel, Olympus E500, Olympus E1 Zitro

Alisande: About the Arminta photo My mother assumed this photo was the original, but on examination, I think it may be a copy that was made as part of manual rework. My photo shows signs of manual work on the image, particularly in her hair and shading around her ear. It appears that this image has hand drawn features, i.e., rework. It may have been a spoiled image that was repaired. My guess about the process is thus: A working copy was made of the original. This copy was enhanced using charcoal and artist pencils detailing a number of features. The reworked image was photographed and that's what I have, one of those copies. You may be correct about her age in this photo. She seems older than 16 to 18 years. I would guess mid-twenties. Its my theory that she would not have sat for a portrait during the period of 1861 through ca 1870 because she would not have had the means nor money to spend on non-essentials. This pushes the date out of the Civil War period and toward her marriage in the 1870s. Some important dates in photography: 1851: Wet Plate, Glass Frederick Scott Archer, a British photographer, coated a glass plate with a sticky, wet substance called collodain. This glass plate was dipped in light sensitive silver salts and it had to remain moist during the exposure, hence the term, wet plate photography. (The coating would crackle if it dried out before further processing.) 1856: Ferrotypes or Tintypes Photographers began using thin metal plates instead of glass to hold the collodion emulsion. These plates were called ferrotypes, and became known as tintypes. The images on ferrotypes are reversed left to right. A lady may appear to have a wedding ring on her right hand; For years, folks thought that Billy, the Kid was left handed until it was realized that his image was reversed on the tintype. 1861: Matthew Brady produced the first of his famous Civil War photographs. (Brady's crew, not Brady himself made most of the photos from the front lines. However, the Brady Civil War photos were a private effort organized and financed by Brady.) 1871: Invention of the dry plate process A British physician, Richard L. Maddox, replaced the collodion with gelatin. The gelatin could dry on the plate without cracking or harming the silver salts. This eliminated the need for a photographer to carry around a darkroom and lab with him. This was one of the greatest advances in photography. Late 1870s, light sensitivity of gelatins were improved. Early Daguerrotypes required an exposure of 10 minutes of more (tough for portraits!). The new gelatins of the late 1870s could be exposed in 1/25 second,