What We Be Shootin' With

I've been meaning to answer a quick (haha. just wait until you see how long this post is. quick. please) question addressed to me after our Bahamas cruise. We have two cameras-- one is super cheap, and one is more expensive which we consider to be our "nice" camera.

The cheapie was purchased in February 2010, I can remember quite vividly. Our Canon Powershot S5 IS just bit the dust while I was touring the house we now own. Lens Error. It would not longer retract. We were in the U.S. at the time for our quick house selection and would be returning to Europe for another month. In that month, we would be visiting Switzerland and Hamburg and wanted to have a camera for the rest of our European living experience. With very little time to spare and no time to research prior to purchasing a nice new camera, we opted for the cheapest one we could find at Best Buy right before they closed. We've had that camera, that $75 including-tax camera, for over a year now. It has almost outlasted that stupid Canon Powershot S5 IS that cost 6 times the amount.

Our "nice" camera {for two people who do not claim to be photographers} is the Nikon D3100. We also bought another lens so we can take fancier shots from far away... along with some other gadgets I'm not cool enough to understand. Anyway, we bought it for Andrew in November. We wanted to be able to take cute baby pictures. Needless to say, it's collecting dust in the fancy bag we bought for it.

So back to the purpose of this post. When we went to the Bahamas, I snapped some photos. I have about 1 hour of training under my belt via the video our Nikon came with. Other than that, I'm an absolute novice. My husband used to work for a dot-com in LA (between Air Force and his current position here in IL) that specialized in running all the editing/sales/distribution for professional photographers. There were some super talented folks there and one in particular who shot our entire wedding... so we know some talented folks, but we are not among them in skill.

I'm pretty good at going off on tangents. We went to the Bahamas. I snapped photos. Here are a few again for your viewing pleasure.

These are my favorites among the group since I was attempting to use (except the last one-- husband gets credit) my 1-hour video training to take them. Now because I found it super interesting myself... which camera did I use?

Our cheapie:

Or our "nice" camera?

Well friends... it was the...

CHEAPIE! It just goes to show that in many circumstances (though super cool lenses with night capabilities, etc. definitely trumps...), it's the photographer and not the camera that is taking crappy photos. Something I personally learned myself. It made me a little proud that so many commented on the picture quality from my, no joke, $75 camera. Hooray! Imagine all the possibilities with a fancy-schmancy camera!

And an aside for the family since this whole blog was started for them to keep track of our lives anyway...  <3
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