i heart my camera - a lot a lot

I love taking photos.  I love capturing beauty in a frame.  Weather it is the lighting, the color, or just the moment between people, I think I will never tire.  I try, especially, to find a way to portray the feeling of the day, its warmth or its solitude, whatever it may be. And now that is way more fun with a camera that gives more justice to the vision in my head. Here is a little info on why I chose the Canon G12 camera after ueber researching and also a few links to great photography sites.

I love the low light ability of the camera I got myself last year.  It is almost my one year anniversary of having it.  It is a Canon G12 and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants Single Lens  Reflex quality photos, but a less bulky camera. I decided against the SLRs because although they look impressive, all my favorite photos were created by just happening to have my camera in my pocket or purse at the right time, so I needed something with the same capability and quality, but smaller. It has a great grip, the full ability to adjust settings on knobs instead of menus, and a swivel LCD screen, plus a true site viewer. I wanted a fast camera, great in action shots, low light, zooming in distance and focus close-up.  I waited an extra month for the new one to come out that has HD video as well.  Many do these days.  I love it!  I still need to learn a lot about the manual mode, but the auto mode is wonderful too. I dismissed the preset settings, that come with most every camera these days, to create special effects because they seemed too easy and cheesy to me in the past... but they are starting become a fun tool for me as well. I do enjoy getting to know my tools well.  

More than a few professional photographers have told me that it is their camera of choice as well! If you like something a little smaller and more affordable, I recommend the Canon S95.  I never tried it, but it sounds great in the reviews.  It is essentially the same camera but with no optical view finder, no swivel screen and with menus instead of knobs.  Everyone deserves to have one like this!  As far as an SLR, I think I may have gone with the Nikon D40, if I were to get one.  

My friend at work, Brian, showed me a great site that reviews cameras, which helped me to decide (Ken Rockwell), in addition to investigating tons of reviews to the point of fascinated obsession.  I asked Brian because he has amazing travel and nature photography. (I linked his name to his wonderful desert nature and world travels photography site).  

While I am mentioning other photography sites, you may want to see my freind Chris Coopers' site: ineomons.com.  Many of his photos are from mountain top hikes in the Southwest and were taken with film cameras and developed in his own darkroom. Now he does digital as well.

 I cactus you

ps- Whilst in my phase of researching cameras for weeks and nervously talking Phoenix's ear off about my findings, Phoenix realized that Mead is to Cameras as Phoenix is to Video Games.  He teasingly called my camera 'ping pong', since I said his video games were like ping pong to me- meaning an activity I could play when with friends who have it at their house as their hobby, but that I wouldn't have a table at my house - naively not knowing that was a huge insult.  Oh dear. Well the ping pong days are over now and his games are now more fun to call 'piough pioughs'.- that is the distant sound of video game guns, which he made up :)