Say hello to my little friend(s)...

I shoot most of my blog photos with my little Canon Powershot SD700 because, well, our Canon Rebel (now discontinued but you can find it's next of kin by the addition of all sorts of fancy letters) is like a black box to me. I shoot on automatic because that's all I can figure out, and I don't like the the way those shots turn out. The Powershot is just... easy. But, the Powershot doesn't handle low light situations that well. Being that the sun goes down at... what... 4pm these days? This doesn't make for good pictures. So I built a pretty shabby light box, which sorta helped me make somewhat not-completely-horrible pictures. Still, I wanted more. I wanted pictures I could be proud of!

Then I read this. And realized... I have a husband who has no idea what to buy me for my birthday OR Christmas. SCORE! I told him *exactly* what I wanted, and he came through for me. Two new pieces of camera equipment sat patiently while we went to California for Christmas. And then sat patiently a few days more until I had time to sit down and figure them out. If I had known they'd be this magnificent, I'd have opened them as soon as possible!! I present... my Rebel, now adorned with a Speedlite 430EX external flash (now discontinued) and a Canon 50mm 1/8 II lens.

I have a long way to go in learning how to take really great photos, but these little lovelies just gave me a HUGE boost!