My Christmas Gift

One of the joys of the holidays can be treating yourself to a gift. This year for me it was a 14 MP Samsung HZ50W digital camera which features  a 26mm Schneider-Kreuznach wide angle lens and 26X optical zoom. It uses a rechargeable lithium battery and includes an AC adapter which charges the battery while its in the camera. There is a small start-up guide; the more detailed user guide is on an included CD-ROM. Remember the days when you got a printed manual?

In the past I’ve owned 35mm film SLRs and, in recent years, a couple different brands of digital SLRs – all  with assorted lenses, macro to telephoto. All that equipment is gone now – sold for varying reasons. There’s no comparison between a digital zoom point and shoot and a digital SLR in terms of photo quality. But after awhile, it became burdensome to carry around so much equipment.I switched to longer point and shoot zooms and owned several models. In recent months, the last of these was sold and I’ve been using an old Fuji 6X zoom which takes good photos but lacks “zoomability.”

Samsung may not be in the same league as name brand heavy hitters, but this one was offered as a special deal online at under $200, so I gifted myself this holiday season. Today was the first test shooting birds at the outside feeders – shots were taken indoors from our kitchen window and outdoors in late afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you think of its performance?