Here’s the deal with me, I’m a great loyal customer and consumer to all the brands that I love and adore especially when they have great customer service.  Did you read my post about Southwest Airlines? But when you cross me or give me pitiful customer service I’m going to have a little rant about it – sorry Best Buy, but you have just lost two previously loyal customers all because of how I was treated this past New Years Eve.

On to my story/rant:

This really starts in October at my parent’s annual chili cookoff when my dad knocked my amazing Kroger Easy Share 12.0 mega pixel camera out of my hand.  YES, I know I should have been wearing the gosh darn strap that comes with most cameras but I had just pulled the camera out of my pocket to take a picture and poof, shit happens.  Skip forward a few months to New Years Eve and I’m standing near the camera department at Best Buy.  I had been doing research on which camera I would own next and I wanted to make sure to get a good one because I am planning on keeping this on for a long time.  I was taking a gander around the cameras when a Best Buy supervisor noticed me and asked me if I had been helped.  I told him I’d like to talk to someone about the cameras and that I had done some research on the camera features and did some price comparisons on Amazon.com.  He was unfamiliar with the cameras and promised someone would be over right away, which they were.  I was talking to the suggested  Best Buy representative with notes in my hand and questions ready regarding the Nikon Coolpix S570, I also explained how I found the camera on Amazon.com for only $137.57 and their camera was $199.99.  Now I know that Best Buy does have a “Best Buy Retail Store Price Match Guarantee” that says the following: 

If you find a lower advertised price on the same available brand and model prior to your purchase or during the exchange and return period, we will match that price. Simply bring in the ad of the local retail competitor or Best Buy, while the lower price is in effect and receive your price match.

Here is where I get a bit sour!  The Best Buy representative said that Amazon.com is tricky and they are only able to match the prices when it comes from Amazon.com and not a retailer on Amazon.  Not a problem because I had already done my research and I knew that the price was from Amazon.com.  So we went to one of their in-store Mac computers and looked up the price I had found on Amazon.com, sure enough it was $137.57 and sold by actual Amazon.com.  The Best Buy representative told me that he would need to get this price approved from his supervisor and then I’d be good to go.  We went to talk to said “Supervisor” in which he informed me that the price on Amazon.com was too low for him to match, they would lose money and he could maybe negotiate with me somewhere in the middle.

WHAT?  Doesn’t the “Best Buy Retail Store Price Match Guarantee” state that “If you find a lower advertised price on the same available brand and model prior to your purchase or during the exchange and return period, we will match that price. Simply bring in the ad of the local retail competitor or Best Buy, while the lower price is in effect and receive your price match?”

That let down really wasn’t what set me over the edge, when I tried to talk to the Supervisor about their price for the camera he just turned around and ignored me and started to talk to another customer inquiring about a bag.  Are you kidding me?  I was in the middle of a conversation with you regarding this ” Best Buy Retail Store Price Match Guarantee” forget the fact that my husband and I have spent close to a thousand dollars with you in 2009 alone and you completely ignore me.

I turned around, told the other Best Buy employee that I’m sorry but I’m going to have to buy my camera on Amazon.com because this supervisor clearly didn’t want my business and I walked out the door.  The supervisor watched me leave and didn’t say one word.  So now that the nail is deep in the coffin, I went home and told my husband we are never shopping at Best Buy again and that we will be using Amazon.com for our future DVD, camera, video game and other gadget or accessory purchases.  God love husbands when they know they really need to get on board or get out of the way because he was all for my new boycott and even cut up his Best Buy Rewards card!

For a happy ending to this story (I love happy endings) I was able to purchase my new Nikon Coolpix S570 camera on Amazon.com and they gave me free shipping.  Life is grand!

Dear Santa,

When you brought my owner, Lady Fi, a new black box thingie – something with four letters like DSLR – did you realize how annoying it would be for the rest of us?

As soon as I put  my head down to get some well-earned sleep and put in some good ole canine snoring…

… I am suddenly disturbed by her nuttiness oohing and aahing at my cuteness and all-round adorableness. Now, while it is true that I am pretty lovable, I don’t need to be reminded of it every time I try to get to sleep!

It’s no wonder then that after the umpteenth time of being asked to say cheese…

I started looking – how shall I put it? – cheesed off!

Please please let her go outside with her new toy so that I can get my beauty sleep!

Woof!

Oscar

For less annoying pet owners, please visit: Pet Pride

My daughter bought my son and me a small digital camera.  I’ve been wanting one to carry when I am walking and Win’s is old.  It’s something I wouldn’t buy for myself because I all ready have a good digital, but this new one certainly is handy.  I took it with me yesterday.  It takes decent pictures. 

This is the pier that my neighbor lets me enjoy.   I didn’t sit there today.  It was too cold and windy.  I didn’t relish the possibility of going in the river.  Can you see how high the tide is?

Jenn came down yesterday with a load of firewood for Doug.  She brought enough for two or three years.  Doug was happy as can be.

Here’s my goofy Gus.  He loves his walk.  If it weren’t for him, we probably wouldn’t walk nearly as much as we do.

Flo loves to curl up on my sweaters.

I’ve been looking for my camera case pattern, but I can’t find it anywhere.  Win has all ready asked for a case.  He wants red.  I have a nice metallic knit and some brown suede for the inside.   I haven’t decided on mine yet.  I have lots of pieces I can use.

i bought a new camera.
i think i'm in love.

Before Christmas Eve, I’d been stuck without a camera since the Great Independence Deluge of Aught Nine.  Because my parents are amazing, the camera accessory on your Holly Wynne action figure is back and better than ever.  It’s an elph, and it’s green!  We’re already very attached.  I will be purchasing him a cozy little case, though, in order to avoid the tragic fate of my last PowerShot.  Maybe I’ll even start using my Flickr again!  (Don’t get your hopes up.)

I’m not a photographer, though I have friends who do some of the most beautiful things with cameras I’ve ever seen.  I just like to have one with me, and it’s been weirder than I’d have imagined not to have one by my side.  I’ve never been that great at picture-taking, honestly—the closest I came to being knowledgeable at all was when I was the photography editor of my high school paper.  I even learned a little about the darkroom for that, but those days are far behind me.

Now, I just use my mediocre brand of photography to save little pieces of days for myself.  Such as Christmas.  If I knew how to use the manual settings, I wouldn’t have so much blurriness.  As it is, though, I really don’t like to use the flash, so if anything moves, it blurs.  It can be interesting, though.  So…a few images from my Christmas for you:

My folks downgraded to the mini-tree. It's still pretty cute, I think.

Because I had just been given the camera, and because I'd just given my dad HP6. Also because a lampshade superimposed on Dumbledore is way cool.

Marleykins has taken to running into dark rooms to hide and play. Weird kid. Love it.

Blurry Marley, like her blurry aunt (not pictured), likes argyle.

The carnage.

Obligatory self-portrait.

Best Apples to Apples hand ever.

Las navidades me han dejado una Holga 120CFN… a ver cómo es esto de disparar con carretes de 120mm.

Xmas just brought me an Holga 120CFN. Let’s see how is it to shoot with 120mm film.

Calvin Dexter Official Website

Wow! A new camera, you say? How cool is that? So, what are you going to do with it now? This article will start a discussion about that shiny new camera that, hopefully, will pay dividends in your future life as a photographer.

How to Compose Photographs
Photography is built upon a series of compositional rules, many of which were developed centuries ago by some of the greatest painters in the world. While it may be true that rules are meant to be broken occasionally, it can be said that you rarely will go wrong by adhering to these time-proven rules.

Most photographs that fail or just look wrong do so because they did not follow good, solid compositional rules. It is important for you to familiarize yourself on them over time. Browse some good photography books, pick one that gets into composition, buy it, and read it. I also recommend a book called “1000 Hints and Tips for Better Digital Photos & Videos” as a good first book. It presents small bite-sized tips that, if heeded, will eventually improve your photographic expertise and sharpen your skills.

I urge you to learn at least the rule of thirds, the rule of repeating pattern, the rules of eye transitions, and the rule of balance. Let me point you at some sites that should start you on your journey to learning the ever-important rules.

• www.livingroom.org.au/photolog/tips/digital_photography_composition_tips.php
• http://www.digitalphotoguides.com/composition.html
• http://www.geofflawrence.com/photography_tutorial_composition.php
• http://yanikphotoschool.com/tips/an-introduction-to-photography-composition/

Metering Advice
Understand that your camera is a powerful computer with neat systems for metering light. However, it is important to know that it can be fooled by the “rules” of photographic metering. It has been long determined that the average exposure of a pleasing picture is that it should be 18% gray if all the tones are averaged. Thus, meters are centered on this 18% gray value which, works amazingly well for most scenes.

When the scene becomes too light or too dark, the meter will be fooled into providing the wrong exposure. As I read many years ago, it will attempt to make a white cat in a snowpile into a gray mush (underexposing the photo) or a black cat in a coal cellar into the same gray mush (overexposing the photo). A suggestion in these situations is to learn how to exposure lock your camera and then to follow these steps:

• Step close to the subject and hold your hand in the light bathing that subject.
• Without casting a shadow on your hand, point your camera at your hand so that your hand fills the field of view.
• Lock your exposure with the exposure lock feature.
• Recompose your subject and shoot with the “correct” exposure.

Another option in this case is to use your camera’s auto bracketing feature (if it has one). Bracketing captures 3 or more shots in a row at different exposure steps. It is a way of hedging your bets by assuming that one of these shots will be at the right exposure.

The moon, Earth’s closest celestial neighbor, tends to make a wonderful addition in photographs. Commonly, this object is overexposed horribly (which may be ok, depending on where it fits in the composition). The reason for this is that we tend to forget that the moon is bathed in sunlight and thus behaves like an object on Earth’s surface at high noon. However, our light meters in our cameras are fooled by all the darkness surrounding the moon and attempt to make it all gray mush. On a point-and-shoot camera, try shooting with a flash mode program (and auto ISO turned off if possible) if the flash will not affect your main subject. On a DSLR, shoot in manual at 1/125’ at f/16 and bracket around this.

Create a good backup plan for your digital images. A single crash can wipe out all your hard work and great memories so protect them well. I recommend that you read my blog entry on this topic entitled Backup Strategies in the Age of Digital Photos.

Finally, let me pass along some advice I read early in my photographic career: “sometimes, a trashcan can be your best friend.” Every photographer takes bad shots or less-than-perfect shots at some time or another. It is your job to help these photos to the trashcan. The difference between a good photographer and a mediocre one is that the good photographer only shows their good photos while a mediocre one will trot out all their shots, including their bad ones!

Food for Thought
There is no single use for a camera, really. Yet some of the use you get from any camera will somewhat depend on the type of the camera you have. The basic point-and-shoot (P&S) by Nikon, Canon, Kodak, Olympus make for nice rugged all-around cameras that are small enough to take anywhere and everywhere. Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) cameras are powerful since their lenses can be changed and offer more control than a normal P&S, thus providing you more creativity under more conditions but at the premium of their less conspicuous brothers.

The lesson that we can learn from this is that everything in photography is a give and take. It is up to you to determine what you want to give up for what prize.

It is important to remember, and don’t ever forget this, that People take photos not cameras. Cameras are merely the tool at the end of the entire creative process that starts with your eyes, traverses your brain, and twitches the muscles in your shutter finger! It is easy to get sucked into brand-name wars (like “Canon is better than Nikon” or “Nikon is better than Canon”) or the more/bigger is better mentality. True, a wide array of photographic options can make getting that perfect shot easier, but there are lots of people with tons of equipment who can’t catch a good photo if their very lives depended upon it!

On the other hand, some of the best photos were taken with very simple equipment or under the worst of conditions. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel inadequate – work on improving your vision and compositional skills!

Join a Community and Use It
I urge you, as soon as possible, to create an account on one of the free photo sharing sites. I am partial to Flickr (www.flickr.com) but there are others such as Photobucket (photobucket.com), Picassa (picassa.google.com) which are equally good.

There are several reasons that I recommend this step. First of all, these are great places to learn by seeing good photographs and being able to communicate with the photographers themselves and ask questions. Second of all, to get better at any skill, one needs to participate. The same is true with photography. Use Flickr, Photobucket, and Picassa to showcase your best photos. Last, but almost most important, as you encounter good photographers whose vision match yours then add them as contacts. This way, you start cultivating a group of friends who will comment on your photos and who will help hone your skills as a photographer.

Gear? What Else Do I Need?
There is no way that this subject can dealt with adequately in this one small section, but let me point out that there are a couple key pieces of equipment any digital photographer should consider adding to their arsenal.

A tripod ultimately will be worth its weight in gold one day. Some photographers swear in using a tripod for every shot, but I am not one of them. I do recommend one when the light starts failing in the late afternoon or early in the morning. There really is no other way to take a decent night shot or a fireworks shot without one. A good tripod is solid yet lightweight, easy to configure to any height and angle, and makes it easy to attach and detach your camera. Shop around and ask questions before committing to one. Also, consider your future use of the tripod. You may buy a new camera one day, but you will probably not replace your tripod, so choose with a bit of an eye for the future.

Photoshop Elements, a $60-$100 expenditure, should be the first program that you get. Remember the fact that there are two stages to taking a traditional photograph. The first of these is the commitment of the image to film and its development. The second of these is the darkroom manipulation that takes that image and creates an enlarged print of it (forget the junk that an automated photomat like CVS or Walgreen’s produces, I mean a real hand-done enlargement). The equivalent of these steps in the digital world are, first the capture of the image to the CCD and subsequent writing to the memory card, and the second is proper post-processing using a program like Photoshop to produce a shimmering and fantastic image rather than a lackluster one.

There are many good books on Photoshop Elements. I learned with a book named “Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop Elements” which was a well written tutorial. I would recommend browsing your local large bookstore to see what they have and also would Google for tutorials. At the very least, you should master the Unsharp Masking process, levels and contrast layers, and hue/color saturation control. Just these techniques will start making a marked difference in the quality of your photographs!

Iam going to share with you a secret that not many know about the 5 Best Tips for Those Who Are Buying A Digital Camera for the Very First Time

1. Set a Budget Before Buying

When starting out in the world of digital photography, I would recommend not spending a huge amount of money on the high-end prosumer or digital SLR cameras.

NiMH rechargeable batteries and would be very weary of purchasing a camera that used a different type of memory unless its other features far outweighed those of competing cameras. Memory prices are going down, but cards are still not cheap and I don’t want to ‘throw away’ this media investment when upgrading. Some cameras are realizing that not many know about the 5 Best Tips for Those Who Are Buying A New Camera Planning on buying a digital camera to use their manufacturer’s proprietary media format.

For example, the upcoming (at the time of this tip’s writing) Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828 uses Sony’s Memory Stick format, but this digital camera stores or websites. Then, only then, make a decision. Do you really need the products? Does the package deal really save money, even if not as much money as specified by the individual items REALLY cost, and that may mean visiting other digital camera to use their manufacturer’s proprietary media format. For example, the upcoming (at the time of this tip’s writing) Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828 uses Sony’s Memory Stick format, but this digital camera also supports CompactFlash and MicroDrives.

Battery Type: If you currently use rechargeable batteries, factor into your purchasing decision whether or not your ‘dream’ camera supports the same types of batteries. I own six or seven sets of AA NiMH rechargeable batteries and would be very weary of purchasing a camera that had its own custom battery type. Of course, if the digital camera also supports CompactFlash and MicroDrives. Battery Type: If you are truly interested in buying a new digital camera? Among the many choices you have to make including megapixels, image quality, and zoom capability, here are two more things you should consider: Media Type: There are lots of media types available for cameras, such as CompactFlash, SecureMedia, etc.

Because of my previous purchases of CompactFlash cards that I used in older cameras, if upgrading, I would completely ignore advertised digital zoom magnifications and only look at cameras’ optical zooms. Digital zooming performs an interpolation, or computer-based ‘guesswork’, of an image to try to increase the perceived zoom distance. These can result in “fuzzy” images or those with less than optimal clarity, especially if you blow them up into 8×10 or larger photos. However, optical zoom provides for a true zoom-in or zoom-out on your subject.

3. Two Considerations When Buying Package Deals Be careful before you spend your hard-earned money. While these deals may save you money, they may not save as much money as specified by the individual products’ manufacturers’ retail prices. And, sometimes, these deals may save you money, they may not save as much money as the seller claims? I’ve saved money buying package deals when I really needed all the included equipment, but some people end up spending way more than originally intended on equipment they don’t need.

Don’t let the latter happen to you. If you just want a digital camera to purchase, I would not want to purchase a camera that had its own custom battery type. Of course, if the digital camera to use for friend and family photos, travel a lot and need something that takes up less luggage room, or just don’t want to ‘throw away’ this media investment when upgrading. Some cameras are starting to come with larger and larger zooms. While a high-priced large digital camera to purchase, I would not want to purchase a camera that used a different type of memory unless its other features far outweighed those of competing cameras.

Memory prices are going down, but cards are still not cheap and I don’t want to ‘throw away’ this media investment when upgrading.