Sue, thanks for posting these. All are beautiful and what fun to see your pics from the same day and almost the same time. You saw things to frame a bit different than I did and that was really fun to see. I think sometime we need to have all the Idyllers present at some function or other and have everyone take photogaphs so we can all see everyone's 'view'. I also loved the narrative. I still can't believe we did all that driving in just three days! I really love your shots of the shade and vegetable gardens. It was a bit too dark to photo down on the flats when I was outside so I never was able to get a photograph of what was my favorite garden too. I'm tickled you got the pics of the kitties. For some reason I never got around to snapping photos of the furbies. I had a good laugh again when I saw Minou in your bag. She kept climbing into our suitcases as well. OK I guess I've got to get outside and get things watered so I can get off to work. I do not know how the heck you keep up with all you do with a full time job. I can hardly get home and get dinner on the table let alone take care of the gardens and exercise. Teaching a class for eight hours wipes me out. Deanne

While Digatal SLR's do not have the same problems with camera shake as Point & shoot, it can still be an issue particularly at longer exposures. I have moved to Nikon VR lenses for that reason and I am quite happy. Mind you it will also depend on the kind of photography you are planning. I do a lot of macro using a 105 mm and bird photography using a 70-300 amongst others. Longer and heavier the lens the more valuable I have found the VR.

You can purchase a lens TP lens that magnifies x1.94. shooting range approx. 1.2m to infinity...My question is can you get really good close up shots like of birds with that magnification? Don't want to buy one if that isn't very good. my fujifinepix e500 alone has a 4.1 mp, 3.2x optical zoom....

Well, I guess I answered my own question. I went out to look over cameras today and fell in love with the Sony Cybershot T100. It looks like a great camera and seems really easy to use. I called a friend of mine to see if her husband who used to work as a professional photographer could check out the specs online. He didn't have to, he owns two! I guess that is a good enough endorsement for me, I'm going to go buy one tomorrow. He even offered to help me with anything I had questions about, but he said it is so easy to use (with a couple exceptions) that I probably can figure it out with no problem. Thanks for the input. By the way, my Elph bit the dust in an interesting way. I was showing my husband some shots I took the day before and saw my rabbit being cute from the corner of my eye. So I switched to picture mode, adjusted the zoom (before turning so she would not stop playing with the paper bag), the turned to snap the photo. When I looked it was so badly blurred it looked like the picture was melting. So I looked at the screen, and everything I looked at looked that way! Something must come have loose, a lens I guess? If I gently shake it I can hear something rattle. The guy at the shop said I must have dropped it and jarred something loose, of course it was in my hands when it suddenly went blurry. Weird! Believe it or not, I have owned it for 5 years and never dropped it, my cell phone wishes I could say the same about it!