Using My New Baby

I have been very happily snapping away with my new (used) six-megapixel PowerShot A540 for some weeks now and am satisfied with both the quality, ease of use, portability and even the videos we took of a family reunion. 

Something that I use much more than I expected is the bright viewfinder. It's necessary when bright sunlight washes out the LCD screen, but I use it much more often than just for that. It zooms in and out with the optical zoom, but not the digital zoom-- which I usually don't use anyway. With it, I can more easily stabilize the camera, my eye pressed to the viewfinder and two arms forming a kind of tripod. 

I'm glad for the added stability, for I think I missed something that, in hindsight, I perhaps should have held out for-- image-stabilization. That little 'is' after the model number seems to make quite a bit of difference in sharpness for shots in low light or action shots-- think kids. It means I need to crank up the ISO sensitivity a bit, which adds more 'noise' to my images. 

 Do I still wish I had a DSLR?-- sure! But I think I'd also be using a second back-up camera to be able to catch the shots when I couldn't lug around the 'brick'. In fact, I'm still using my cell phone camera. People are often more at ease with the informality of whipping out my phone, and at other times my PowerShot is where? In my backpack.

Oh well. I'll keep you posted on my further adventures and let you know as soon as I can upload some of my new photos.