Happiness Is....

A camera that lets you capture the moments of your life with ease and beauty without getting in the way and may even help you be a better photographer by making the right decisions for you. The shutter lag problem that has plagued digital cameras for many years is coming close to being a non-issue in the most current generation of cameras. Here's a story abou two of them in the NYT.

Cameras That Reduce Shutter Lag to a Mere Asterisk. Two new cameras from Casio and Kyocera claim to minimize "shutter lag" - the delay between your finger's push
and the shutter's snap. By David Pogue. [New York Times: Technology]

The other souce of happiness is great looking output, whether on a screen or in hardcopy. I finally pulled the trigger on a printer - the Canon i960 (small drop size, speed and consistently great user reviews were what got me) and I could not be happier. $185 from Amazon before a $30 rebate from Canon. This printer rocks. In my test. I shipped the same digital files to Ofoto, printed them at CVS at a Kodak PictureMaker, printed on several HP and Epson printers and the Canon blows them all away for image quality. The very best results I've gotten were with Canon's Picture Paper Pro (though the Picture Paper Plus is also quite good) using the supplied Easy-PhotoPrint application. The results I got printing from different applications was quite surprising. The Canon software definately works some magic in harmony with the capabilties of the printer and it is a pleasure to use. I've printed a load of 4x6's so far and tomorrow will pick up some 5x7 and 8x10 paper. I can see some bulk ink purchases in my future.....

This for me is a bit of a revelation. I knew inkjet prints were getting good but this has me re-thinking some things.