New picture

The picture of the witch hazel was blurry so I replaced it with this one. I retook the picture using the macro setting this time (head slap) and didn't use the zoom. The Olympus C3000 still seems very sensitive in it's focusing ability when trying to take a closeup. My wife's Nikon Coolpix 3100 is better when using the macro feature. The Nikon also seems to take a sharper photo. But some camera aficionados prefer a softer lens. Before buying a used Rolleiflex twin lens reflex camera I read messages on a discussion board to get some info on which camera I should buy. The Rollei was offered with two different lenses, a Zeiss Tessar and a Schneider Xenotar. The Tessar was by far the preferred lens because it had "bokay" (bokeh) a corruption of a Japanese word meaning it had a softness or very slight blurring like a fine gauze in front of the lens. My reaction was, give me the most analytically sharp lens possible. I'll do my own "bokay", they can have their atmosphere. Amazing how people can get carried away with something of supposed cachet.

But that's the advantage of a digital camera for an amateur like me--take a lot of pictures and choose the best one. With a point and shoot film camera I would have been hard pressed to take a picture like this. With the viewfinder not showing what was being captured and not having a macro lens it would be all but impossible. Even with a single lens reflex camera you would have to buy a macro lens and you don't have the luxury of popping it into the computer for a quick look.

Now all I have to do is learn to use the darned thing!

Funny thing about the Picasa and Hello programs that I'm using to post the pictures; it gives me the ability to post several pictures to a single webpage but when I choose that option, it doesn't do it but places each photo on separate pages. Oh well...