New camera

They closed Clark street near my building two days ago to film a scene from the John Dillinger movie that's going to star Johnny Depp (the scene was Depp-free, or I would have played hooky to watch them film). They had a 1920's-style car marked "Police" parked right by the awning with my company's name on it. And I didn't have a frelling camera. My cell phone camera is not deserving of the name, and my slightly tired 7-megapixel Pentax Optio was at home, because it's too clunky to carry around on a regular basis.

Yesterday there was an airplane fusilage parked in front of the building next door, wing-free, with a big truck saying something like "execujet" - I think they were trying to sell planes? Camera was still at home, DAMNIT.

So on the way home I bought this bitty thing, and it'll be done charging by now, and I'll never leave home without a camera again. 8 megapixels for $150? Awesome. Will post some pix tonight.

New camera sample photos

The new camera (Kodak M863) isn't bad. It's not amazing, but for $150, I don't need amazing. Without the flash, low-light pictures are really grainy, and the first shots I tried had pretty crappy color. But once I set the color to "high color" I started getting true color, and the flash produces really nice results, even with white resin dolls.



My other camera is Pentax Optio 750, and its flash is so bright it kills all the detail in the dolls. On the flip side, it takes nice, low-grain pictures in low light. So I think I'll probably keep using the optio for portraits, but this one will be nice for Doll photography as well as snaps. The tiny size makes it easy to carry in a purse or pocket, but hard to hold steady - it does have a tripod mount, so I may get a small hand tripod for photo excursions.



It also has a built-in panorama mode that stitches two or three photos together as you take them. It'll only do 3.1 mp panoramas (I have to see what's up with that, it might be a limitation of my SD card, not the camera) but they're pretty cool. This one, of the building going up at 353 N. Clark in Chiago, is a vertical panorama stitching two photos together. The stitching isn't perfect on most of the ones I tried, but it's still fun, and a lot quicker than doing it myself in photoshop!



These are Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls, by the way. I have a few of them. It's a terrible, terrible addiction.