Shiny new toy

by Eve, in Design, Parenting (2 Comments)

It’s not just toddlers and middle-aged men who get excited at shiny new toys. Our new camera arrived yesterday — a Panasonic Lumix TZ20 — and I’m so pleased with it! A cynic would say it’s too early to make that call, since I haven’t tried its video function yet, and only a few of the picture settings, but it’s already proved itself to be much more inspiring than cameras I’ve had previously. Those predecessors certainly wouldn’t have produced the above photo, with no Photoshop post processing. (It’s only just occurred to me that in this picture Timmy looks disturbingly like one of the mail-order dolls advertised on the back page of china crockery catalogues. That’s either some clever camera capability, or I have an absurdly pretty boy.)

The 16x optical zoom has already proved useful: if I get close to Timmy with the camera to capture whatever picturable (that’s a real word regardless of what my spell-check thinks) action he’s doing, he’ll stop it to look quizzically at the shiny new object. But no more! Now I can stand well away and just zoom in! That’s how I got the hand inspection photo of my last post.

The manual says the camera can produce images for print up to A2 size, but I can’t imagine getting a print that size. Most people would have no use for an A2 picture — that’s over half a metre high! Those who would, studio photographers for example, wouldn’t be likely to print a sizeable portrait from a pocketable (that’s a real word, too — even the spell-check agrees) point-and-shoot trinket. They have real toys. But I appreciate the high megapixel count because it allows me the creative freedom to tightly crop images to one particular picture feature, without compromising picture quality.

My plan for the HD video function is to make the occasional Timmy video capture — the kind of thing that, much like holiday snaps, is probably of not much interest to anyone but close friends and immediate family. I have the idea of setting up a YouTube channel for them, and of making short music videos — although that last idea must come after the ‘learn to drive Adobe Flash or iMovie’ idea. My graphic design history and other computer experience has always nestled quite comfortably in the static image sphere, so venturing into video will be an intimidating foray into the unknown…