In the mountains and at the concert try out some of the weird settings like "starry night" and night shots. I'm dying to try them but every time I can do it it is cloudy. I just had someone in my office and he noticed the camera. For the next half hour all he could talk about was how cool the camera was for night shots, (he had the TZ3).<br><br>

LOL this is a daytime event and we will be home before dark but I am dying to try those out. I tried some of the hot tub last night but need to familiarize myself with the settings more. I posted these on myspace in my album section and I got this comment from my niece on the light purple pansies:<br><br>I am absolutely amazed at what great pics that camera takes! I can't figure out how to take a close-up like that. Maybe you can show me at the picninc? I have a Nikon D40 X.<br><br>How do I explain this?<br><br>oh yeah, that's going in the blog

Hmmm, maybe "sell that big honking expensive camera and buy this little thing." (I know, I wouldn't say that to my niece either.)<br><br>Cute dogs. The camera really does cute dogs well.<br><br><br><br><br>

Thanks we like them. They keep Rick sane since he is disabled. Here is a real character shot. That is Oliver.<br><br><br><br><br>oh yeah, that's going in the blog

Oliver looks familiar. <br><br>My dog pulled some stuffing out of my couch ... <br><br>

The wren living on my porch is always annoyed when we leave the house. So this time I didn't and shot these through a window with high digital zoom.<br><br><br><br>Luckily my daughter never puts her bike away. The exposure needs some work so a quick bracketed shot before she flies away.<br><br><br><br>The mandatory flower pot shot closeup<br><br><br>And before my neighbors catch me outside in my boxers, my kayaks getting ready for the river:<br><br><br>The dirt seeded patch in the foreground is where the stump grinder removed one of four stumps yesterday. I actually thought I was going to do that myself. Thankfully sanity prevailed and I wrote the check.<br><br><br>

I finally decided to RTFM and found two solutions to things that bugged me on the TZ5.<br><br>1) Plug camera into computer and a menu shows up on back asking if you want to download to a PC or show the pics on a TV. I never want to show on a TV. I want it to immediately get to iPhoto.<br>A simple setting change changes this default to want I wanted.<br><br>2) The 460,000 pixels on the back with a 3 inch LCD and I find myself looking and zooming in a lot right on camera to diagnose a shot. Something I never did on any other point and shoot since the view was crappy.<br>But if you shoot 90 degrees the picture is flipped 90 before viewing wasting a lot of the nice LCD screen. I don't want it flipped when viewing in camera.<br>A simple setting change changes this default to want I wanted.<br><br>This software is not 1.0 and it shows.<br><br><br>

Here is a flower pot from normal standing position.<br><br><br>I saw something moving so I zoomed in from the same position.<br><br><br>The zoom on this just amazes me.<br><br>Mine never did ask me how to download, it just mounted as a volume which is what I had the CoolPix set for. Sounds like I need to look more at the settings now. But then again there's a hot tub calling my name.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>oh yeah, that's going in the blog

movie with the TZ:<br><br><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tHFGPClOfdQ&hl=en"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tHFGPClOfdQ&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br><br>it was a very windy day and the mic on the TZ5 picks up wind very easily. the sound was quite crappy. i put it into iMovie and turned the sound down. iMovie has some golf swing special effect sounds . . . i inserted them in the appropriate places and it *almost* sounds legit. the few family who have watched it haven't noticed that it's fake audio. heh.<br><br>--<br>[color:red] Kansas Jayhawks -- 2008 National Champions </font color=red>

It's obvious once you told us that the sound of Tiger Woods swinging good wood at Augusta is added but if you hadn't we would just think your kids were golf prodigies.<br><br>Very funny.<br><br>