New Toys for the New Year

Ahhhhh, what a wonderful New Year this has been. After Christmas we have been taking it easy, chillin' out, relaxin' all cool and shootin' some b-ball..... oh, wait. I finally finished the last of the Christmas presents on Friday night and it's blocking right now. And I am TOTALLY kicking myself for not taking any pictures of the Christmas gifts I made. My camera had a major ouch, right before Christmas. My hubby was shooting pictures of kids making gingerbread houses and he heard a weird grinding noise, then an error popped up that said "error, release shutter again." We tried and tried, but nothing would work. We looked it up online and many people who had this same problem were dumb enough to open their camera and put WD-40 inside of it. Seriously, people!?! No way was I going to do that. I took it to our local camera repair shop, and yes, it was a very expensive repair. Here's how I look at it though: I could either a)cry about it, decide that the repair was too expensive and wait and save up for a new camera. Most likely this would lead to an upgrade, because who wants to spend money on something that is the same as they already have? Probably total cost = $900. Or, I could b)put my tears away and cough out the $200 for the repair, not have my camera for Christmas, and keep using the camera I already know and love and keep exploring with. For me, this was no contest. $200<$900. Camera home > no camera for months. It amazes me how many people I know that would have just said "too bad, so sad," and bought another camera, most likely on credit and paid it off over the next year. I figure I might as well spend less money, take care of what I already have, and not have a very large credit card bill to pay off. Okay, enough ranting.

My camera is back now, and I love it so much. The nice repairman (a.k.a. total jerk until you are sugary-sweet nice to him, then he is super friendly and helpful) actually found sand in it. GAH! Sand!?! I need to start taking better care of this thing. A new camera bag for me is in the queue for sewing projects. Anyways, it was really hard not having it for Christmas, but my hubby got a friend for it under the tree. Here is the new buddy in the house:

Ahhhhhhh, I love having a 50mm f/1.8 lens in my home. I am still learning a LOT about this lens, but oh boy is it fun. The parts that are in focus are very sharp, while the parts that are out of focus are very blurred. We played with a bit of bokeh techniques and focal range points, and I love how well it auto-focuses. It has been really great for taking more monthly pictures of Baby J (photos to come soon) and I love shooting at 1.8 for lots of stuff now. I think I will name it Sherman.

I also ordered a remote for my camera right after Christmas. I am hoping to use this to start getting myself in more of our pictures, and making family photos a heckuvalot easier. It works really well, too!

Another buddy showed up under our tree this year from "Santa" (my parents). Seriously, this has changed how we are documenting our family.

It's not this exact model (I think she ordered it from QVC) but it's an AMAZING video recorder. It shoots in 1080p, it's waterproof and shockproof, and it also works as a point-and-shoot camera. Wow, do I love this thing. I have been shooting random clips from different events, then putting them together with music to make really fun movies. (I'll start posting them soon.) We had a video camera before, but it used stupid tapes and you could always hear the tape humming in the background, plus it was a pain to upload the video. This thing makes it SO MUCH EASIER to capture life on video. Okay, enough blabbing. Look forward to the next month with lots more pictures, videos, and cards to share! And yay for getting 4 new followers after the feature on beckyhiggins.com. I had such a fun time with that, so welcome newcomers :) Blessings!