My New Camera

I got a new camera this week! I've wanted one for a long time, and had my sights set on a digital SLR because... you know... it's fancy! But I came across one particular camera last week which challenged my thinking. It was the Fujifilm FinePix S1500. It was in my price bracket (thanks to a tax refund) and you can't attach anything to it, except a tripod, and I'm seriously thinking about getting one of those. And that's the beauty of this type of camera. It does all kinds of wonderful things, but I don't need to spend much more money on it, unlike an SLR, where the basic camera is $1 000 (or more) and then you lenses, then filters, then ... It all adds up, and I don't have that kind of money to splash around. That's what I have my scrapbooking for (insert evil chuckle.)
So then I shopped around. I looked at what I was getting, and how much it would cost. After looking at a few different cameras, I came back to the Fuji. For the money I was paying, it was as much as I needed, and enough to learn on. Maybe one day I will upgrade to a proper SLR, but not this year. And, with shopping around, I ended up getting the camera, the camera bag, the memory card, and batteries for the price of the camera alone at the original shop.
So... Piccies :) All of these are straight out of the camera - isn't it wonderful?

This is a cactus/succulent/thing that is growing in my garden for some obscure reason.


This is growing in the lawn. It has escaped from someone else's garden, which these plants are notorius for. Mum has some, and they are forever popping up in random spots in the lawn.


The bottle-brush has just started blooming. This shot is looking up at the plant, and then to the eaves of the house, but because it's on Macro setting, it just sort of blurs into that greenish background.


No idea what this is. I thought it was a camellia, but the flowers don't look like it. Any ideas?


This is the old Toowoomba Council Building at night. I could not have gotten this photo with my old camera (I tried - blech!)

I'm actually entering the Coucil Building and the Bottlebrushes into a local photography competition with the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers. The photos have to be a minimum of 4mp, and my new camera is 10mp, so that means I can crop the photos a little, if I need to. My old camera was 5mp, and that means you only have a very little amount that you can crop before it drops too low.