New Camera Day!

I love my Nikon D-50, but ever since I traded in my trusty old battle-scarred QV-R40, I’ve really noticed how handy a pocket-sized camera is. I’ve been waiting to find one that I really liked, and finally settled on the Panasonic DMC-TZ3. Aside from having a Leica lens that boasts 10x optical zoom and virtually no shutter lag, it’s just a really nicely designed camera. I’ll be testing it out for a while, but here are some preliminary pictures from a 5 minute walk around my neighborhood:

A bee pollinates a California poppy, which also happens to be our state flower. Its bright orange is much like that of the Garibaldi, California’s state fish.

A few months ago, Pacific Grove installed these tsunami warning signs along the coastline. I swear I’ve seen a design very similar to this in Japan somewhere.

This barnacle shell has been taken over by seaweed. The shell broke off, the seaweed dried out, and now it is resting on the beach at Lover’s Point.

With this smaller camera, I can be more discrete when taking pictures, I can take it places where the D-50 is impractical, and I can use it to shoot in ways that the D-50 can’t.
With this new camera I’ll be able to shoot using a display, which should be interesting. I find that the style of my photos is a bit different when I use a viewfinder, as opposed to looking at a screen to compose a picture.
It feels good to have more than just an SLR again. I wish every day could be New Camera Day!