The sort of thing that panics zette

There is nothing in writing which I can say truly scares me.  They're only words:  I can change, rewrite and do whatever it takes to make them into something I like . . . and I know, even then, they won't be perfect.  I've come to accept the fact, but not to let the idea paralyze me.  I also know there is no way I will please everyone with my books.  No one does.

So writing doesn't panic me.  Book releases don't worry me once I get that far. Even cover art, at which I have a lot yet to learn, doesn't worry me very much.

I went through last winter with considerable worry since I had to rely on three space heaters, two of which died in the midst of very cold weather.  But I survived the winter and so did the cats.  I hope not to have to go through another winter where I'm wearing 3 layers of clothing, a blanket, hat and gloves to work, but I know I can survive it.

Spring is here.  We had a thunderstorm this morning.  Lovely stuff.  No, weather doesn't panic me.

So what does?

My camera.

The Canon SX10 IS is my fifth digital camera.  I started with the Sony FD7 back in 1999.  Less than a megapixel per picture.  Before that I was a Minolta SLR person, with two bodies and a number of lenses, plus a fully manual Pentax K1000 as a backup (with the lens for it as well).  Going digital so early was an attempt to curb the photo costs, because the price of processing the film for a three day mini-vacation always cost us far more than the trip itself.  Now I could take pictures to my heart's content.  No, not great pictures, but still, I had fun.  It meant giving up my darkroom (I still have all the equipment), and I loved the work, especially black and white film and printing.  But I did it.

About a year after I got the Sony FD7 I moved up to the Sony FD91, which I think was a 1.2 megapixel camera.  A couple years later I got the Sony CD1000, which was 2.1 megapixel and recorded on mini-cds rather than a-drive disks and had a great zoom.  That camera stayed with me for a long time . . . but I am hard on cameras.  I take thousands of pictures a year, even on a quiet year without a vacation. By the time I replaced CD1000 with the Sony DSC-H1, they were up to 5 megapixels!  Wow!  This was another camera I put through hell, but the pictures were lovely!  Many of my favorites, even still, came from this camera.

I went with a Canon SX10 IS, 10 megapixel, next.  That one has done well but in the last few months has started displaying two worrisome problems.  First, it often gives me a lens error and shuts down.  I restart and everything is fine, but the moment of shutting down and restarting is annoying when it happens at the wrong time. The second problem is that it occasionally can't find the card.  Pull card and reseat it (even if it was working a few moments before), usually does the trick.  However, again, this can happen at the wrong time.  And there is a fear it won't come back.

Last night I ordered my new camera.  No, this is not wise.  I could really use the money for other things.  But Russ will be home in a few days, and the fear my camera would die when I am finally getting a chance to go somewhere (Wildlife refuge!  Zoo!) is really something that panicked me.

Russ and I were on Skype until about 3 am, going over stuff.  If . . . . if everything works right (ha! That should panic me!), then this is probably the best time to have ordered the camera that I could.  Better, we both agreed, to order on-line and have the camera ready to go (and a couple days with the manual), before he arrives.

So, what is the new camera?

Sony Cyber-shot Digital Camera HX200V.  http://bit.ly/Hy6Wsn 18 megapixel!  Fantastic zoom! Back to the sort of set up that, even after a few years, my fingers still automatically move to, which doesn't work on the Canon.

I've found some pictures (this is a NEW camera) on Flikr, which is what finally decided me on this particular camera.  To be honest, looking back at the Sony pictures and comparing them to the Canon . . . I just felt the Sony produced a more vivid picture, despite the lower megapixel.  This may just have been because I got to use the Sony in a wider range of situations, so I had a better feel for some things.  But I just felt better about going back to the Sony cameras this time.

I can't wait!

Yeah, this is a bit irresponsible, but I'll be paid in about a week (early, at my request -- nice of them!).  Russ gets paid tomorrow and he'll be paid the last day he's here.  (I did mention Russ coming home for a few days, right?  Yay!)  He will also have money coming from the classes he's teaching here the week he's back.  I am waiting for the payment from Smashwords so I can disburse money to the ACOA authors and editor and that should be soon, too.

I have been scanning in old slides (1400 of them so far), which has also been a lot of fun.  And adding cd/dvd's full of older pictures into the Lightroom database.  I LOVE Lightroom. This is the first program I've found that is easy to use for sorting pictures. I'll need to upgrade to Lightroom 4 at some point, but I'm really happy with what I have.  I already have over 10,000 pictures in the database and I haven't hardly started.  Yes, this is a lifetime commitment just to get the rest of the pictures I've already taken into it!  ACK!

I just got the notice that the camera shipped.

It's on the way!

I'll just go crazy for a few days now.