Bounding Beagle

I LOVE my Canon Power Shot SX710 HS camera!

It has been a decade or so since my backpack full of Canon camera gear served any useful purpose. Fresh 35mm film that delivered true colors simply became unavailable.

End of a favored hobby.

A friend gave me a show-n-tell on his Canon Power Shot and I was convinced I could come reasonably close to having the best parts of my old hobby back.

There are some things it doesn’t do quite as well, but almost everything is far better with the technology they packed into this little pocket powerhouse.

A lit box in the screen on the back of the camera outlines where the camera is focusing. It automatically sets the distance to make that area come into focus. Better still, it also adjusts the light gathering for that area.

Photos in the snow were challenging in the good old days. The dramatic differential between sun-lit snow and warm blooded animals favored the snow, making people and pets so dark you could hardly make them out.

Canon conquered this. Point and shoot. Get the subject you want in the square and fire away.

I will admit at this point that I only read the manual through once, and have not played with the camera much at all. I just started shooting and enjoying the results. Thus some things happen or not based on things I don’t understand. But it is working for me anyway.

One of the mysteries I have yet to investigate is how it decides whether to take a single shot or go into machine-gun-mode.

Who cares? Film is cheap … free, actually. There is as much electronic memory in this camera as a decent computer. I will NEVER run out of space for pictures.

Instead of a back pack full of camera, lenses and associated gear, I have a little point-n-shoot sized camera in a pouch on my belt. Thus I have it with me A LOT more than the old-school Canon I loved. It was, therefore, with me on a walk up the lane with Scooter from whence these shots cometh.

Kudos to Canon. The one where she is exploding out of the snowbank was a single [lucky] shot. The rest were me telephoto-ed out on her standing down the lane, then burst-firing as she ran at me. I could only guess if the camera was on her and got incredibly lucky that she was.

Now this truly amazing feature that literally does not seem possible. Electronic Image Stabilization.

To capture this poison chemtrail spray plane, I zoomed in with maximum telephoto, which is a lot like looking through a telescope. The camera did such a good job of eliminating human inability to hold it steady that you can clearly see an airplane 4 or 5 miles away!

Holey Smokes!

Can’t be done.