Looks like you did a great job with your new camera. Your roses look beautiful!!

What camera did you get? Someday I will find me an Anna Oliver like yours...or so I hope.

It is a Sony Cyber shot DSC-RX100. All I was looking for was a "point and shoot" camera which had a rechargeable battery which would last for a while. Well, if you just use the "automatic" focus setting I think it works OK as a point and shoot, but I am determinedly ignoring the dozens of settings they want me to fuss with. Came with lots of extra equipment, including another battery charger, so you don't have to charge the batteries in the camera if you don't want to. It does make clearer pictures, and close ups, which my first $100 camera did not do. The only thing I need to get used to is the itty bitty controls, the itty bitty fragile doors to the places where you plug in things, and the itty bitty print in the manual - good thing I own reading glasses!

Jackie

That's the same model of camera that I have, Jackie. I've had mine several years now and really like it. Like you, I don't fiddle with the settings much, just let the camera take control for the most part. It has amazing resolution.

The controls are itty bitty and probably the most frustrating thing is having fat fingers and turning something on and not being able to figure out how to turn it off (or even what it is!). That's when the manual comes in handy -- you can save your eyes and get it online here: Sony RX-100 manual, and, best of all, it's searchable.

...I also have a Sony CyberShot but a different model no... probably an older version... I do find that it doesn't take the very best close up, I think it used to but not so much now, maybe some problem... it sometimes leaves an image slightly blurry.... not wishing to sound too critical but I see something similar in your photo. 5th one down from the top, the rosebud isn't quite as clear as the foliage, and this is a problem I have too...

..it annoys me and I can't figure out what to do about it... I try it on both auto and close up settings and it doesn't make any difference.... a minor issue, but frustrating...

One work-around I've found for that, Marlorena, is to back up and take the shot from a further distance. The camera will likely get all items in focus, doing that. Then you can take advantage of the great resolution the camera has by cropping and enlarging that portion of the photo, so it is like a close-up.

Another trick is to experiment with the plane of the shot. By slightly depressing the shutter button, the camera will show you which areas are in focus in the field of view by surrounding those with green rectangles. If you tilt the camera slightly or shift it to a slightly different view, you will often find you can bring more of a view into focus by doing that kind of adjustment.

...I'll go try that out catspa.... thanks for these tips... I've recently learned about cropping and enlarging that portion and I know that helps... but I'd just rather take a good straight photo.... let's see... when I have something decent to take....

...nice clear shot.....much better ....

...I wonder if the background makes a difference too...

Beautiful, Jackie, congratulations! One suggestion if you don't mind, change the light setting by stopping it down about .7 of one stop. What it does is to act like a polarizing filter by reducing the glare and intensifying the color saturation so it is more realistic, less washed out. It can make all the difference in the world. The camera can't automatically make that adjustment, while your eye can. Stopping down the light just a touch can help keep the photos from feeling as washed out or over exposed as they may when the sun is at its most brilliant. I think you'll like the result. Have fun!

Very nice! Even with that great resolution I can't see any disease on your leaves. Anna Olivier is really pretty. I wish I had a rose with that color. Charles Darwin will just have to do instead.

I'm a great fan of cropping. It eliminates all sorts of awful things like yellow or diseased leaves, bare ground, more greenery than you really wanted around a rose, telephone lines, all the things I don't notice when I'm taking a picture.

Lovely roses! Especially - nope all of them :), that last shot does capture the long elegant Pax bud well, tho.

I'm a big cropping fan too- cuts out all the daggy and unfocused bits - I do it when preparing a pic to post online. Cropping out the extraneous bits ( noone wants to see an edge of hose, or worse, my fingers propping up a noddy flower) also helps with the file size as well, and means I don't have to shrink the pic as much.

I really miss being able to borrow a previous flatmates extra expensive really nifty lens- it took awesome closeups. Unfortunately he moved out taking is lens with him.

Beautiful! Great job with the new camera and I love seeing roses I don't have. Your plants look so healthy!

I hope my Anna Oliver (Greenmantle 3/16) looks like yours, Jackie. All beautiful!