Fun new toy

When I get a new camera I have to head toward my favorite subject - The Boys. My poor, long suffering kitties put up with so much from me but with the new camera they don't notice as much. It's got 12x zoom. My old camera was 10x zoom but for some reason it didn't like to focus really tight in the close ups. This one has face recognition and stabilization and all sorts of other fun things so I can sit in a chair about 10 feet away from Chief and get "in his face".

 One problem I used to have is taking pictures with a bright light behind the subject. Not any more. This shot of Bert would have been a white background with a silhouette of him in the past. Now, look at that cute face. Why, you can even see the nap of the towel he's sleeping on!

What would a new camera be if it didn't take good pics of the knitting projects? This shot was taken with not the greatest lighting coming from the windows to the side of it. With my other camera this shot would have been kind of yellowish looking or I would have used a flash and it would be washed out. I'm still in need of playing with the different modes but this is already a huge improvement over what I used to get.

Oh - the project? It's the Ten Stitch Blanket. I'm using left over worsted weight to make it so, unless I decide this has to get done and I buy special yarn for it, this project will be around for a while waiting for bits of yarn to add to it.

Then there's black. Do you know how hard it is to take pictures of black yarn projects? You usually end up with a black blob and it's hard to see what the stitches are. These are a pair of black mittens in Woolease. I didn't bother with a pattern, just cast on what I thought would be a good size and started knitting. Of course, when I got to knitting the second mitten I had to rack my brain to remember how many stitches and rows I did. Heaven forbid I actually write something down so I can do it again!

While I was taking the pictures of Chief, Bert decided to come over and check things out. Naturally, Chief had to give Bert a quick cleaning before more pictures could be taken. This shot was in minimal light with the two of them moving around.

Nice and clear picture. I think I'll keep the camera!

A couple things:
1. I had to small up the pictures so the blog didn't take forever to load. They are 25% of the original size so I'm guessing will not be as incredibly clear and sharp and the originals. (the project pictures were reduced to 500 pixels for the width so I can post them on Ravelry.
2. Other than changing the size I didn't do any cropping, auto adjust or anything else for these pics. I wanted to let them be just as the camera took them.
3. So what camera am I babbling about? It's the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7. When the box came from FedEx today I couldn't believe how small it was. When I opened the box I was in shock how little the camera is. I can throw it in my pocket and not even notice it's there (well, hardly notice).

Tomorrow I'll play with the audio/video and see what it can do.