Wide Angle Lens

I've never used a wide angle lens before. I have just barely scratched the surface with my new Lumix camera (thank you again Blipfoto staff). The biggest difference that I have noticed thus far, is the sweet little wide angle lens. You get like 1/3 more of your surroundings in the photo. I took a photo of my son coloring at the kitchen table and basically got a photo of him coloring as well as the entire room that he was sitting in. Wow. That was cool. I barely had time to flip through my manual today in between errands and appointments but my battery was fully charged so I took my new camera with me as we ran a late afternoon errand as a family. This little camera is like a computer. So many options. Full manual settings. A whole selection of automatic choices to choose from. Auto focus. Manual focus. It takes 190 minutes of HD video and holds up to 360 photos in its internal memory. Amazing. And, this wide angle lens is so new to me that I am going to have a ball snapping pics with this.

As my husband was driving this afternoon, I was sitting in the passenger seat fiddling with the camera. My kids want to play with it soooo bad. I have told them that they can use 'duct tape camera' whenever they want. But they have to ask before they take a picture with this one. Just like they have to ask before they take a picture with 'fancy camera'. I wanted to learn everything about it all at once. Totally focused during the drive. Then thankfully my husband said, "Are you going to make yourself carsick?" Oh yeah, I can get myself totally carsick. My brother and sister-in-law know all about that. So I forced myself to take a break from all the new learning.

On the way home, it was getting dark and I noticed the most gorgeous orange hue over the horizon. I took a photo of the traffic ahead of us and was astounded with the effects. Wide angle. Never have I been able to capture so much at one time. I am going to have to learn so much more about this. I really like the way the camera captured this traffic scene. Not a usual blip for me but I wanted to practice using the different settings and did a lot of experimenting on the drive. I like this one. It reminds me of the hustle and bustle of holiday traffic, lights, and shopping.

And now I must end with a very funny story about our daughter today. We are saving her main birthday present for her party on Saturday since she really doesn't believe that she is three yet. But my husband went out and bought her two presents, wrapped them, and let her open one yesterday. A kitchen 'pizza set' that is made of velcro and she can slice it and add toppings. A huge hit. So the second present has been sitting near the bookshelf in our family room. Nicely wrapped. My husband told her yesterday that she could open it at her party. So today while my husband was working on the drywall in our kitchen and he and I were talking about this remodel, our daughter walked in carrying a hot pink guitar and said, "Daddy, look at my new darbie duitar (barbie guitar)". We looked over at her and she was holding a barbie guitar box with wrapping paper hanging off of it and one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen on her face. We started laughing so hard it made her giggle. She pressed a button and all of a sudden teeny bop music was filling our home. The look on her face was priceless. The innocence was heart melting. She LOVED her new barbie guitar. Poor little honey is so confused about her birthday anyway. We are telling her that she is three but her party isn't until this weekend. She got two presents yesterday but could only open one. Pretty confusing for a little one. But seriously, that laugh was a touching one. One of the cutest little moments to date.