Playin'

A couple of weeks ago. I ordered myself an early birthday present, and it finally came in a couple of days ago. A local store had this camera on sale, and since it's waterproof and shockproof, I figured it would be just the right camera for me: I have a problem with dust here, and if it's waterproof, it'll be dustproof too. And I like to pack a camera in my pocket or in a case on my belt, which means a lot of bumping, so shockproof is a good idea too.
So off I went today, looking for old barns for the Sunday Stills challenge, but not before checking out some of the settings at home.

I'm happy with the detail at full zoom in low light.(Cropped and edited for brightness and saturation)
This next shot is straight out of the camera, with minimal cropping and resized- the files are over 4000 pixels, and I resize to 800 for the Picasa web album.

Beamer was doing his own brand of playing on this beautiful day so that was a good time to check a few of the functions, like 5 photos in less than a second, which turned out well, and of course, the sports mode- all done in full auto.

Sooc, except for minor cropping. Not bad for a black horse on a really bright day, these were taken right a noon, which is usually terrible light for taking photos of horses.

This one was a little over exposed, but some brightness, contrast, and highlight tweaking fixed it. So far I like the sports mode.
Also like the macro setting- I got really close to this orchid, and got good focus.

And, also important to me is the videos- a must for trying to sell horses.So far I'm not too happy with that- I might have to change the settings to 8 megabites instead of 16, because during playback I'm getting pixelation and jerky action although the sound continues properly. Guess I'd better download the  reference manual!
Overall, I think I'll have some fun with this camera.