Love Love Love My Digital Camera!

I may have said this before, but every time I get a great picture out of seemingly nothing, I have to say it again: Love my digital camera. I’ve got this thing about taking pictures of animals. The problem for most of my life (read: pre-digital cameras) was that I’d take my pictures, and end up with photographs of a boring landscape where I could usually (but not always) point out the little blob that was the subject of the photo. You could argue that I could have gotten a better zoom lens, but I’m into photos more as a remembrance tool, not to perfect the technical aspects. Also, it used to cost a pretty penny to have pictures (and even slides) developed, and the budget wasn’t big enough to luxuriate in hundred of shots. So…enter the digital camera. Not only can I afford to take hundreds of pictures a day (yeah for large memory cards!), and keep only a fraction, but manipulation to zoom in on the real subject is easy. This is especially relevant for my underwater photos, which I take while snorkeling, so I don’t have a whole lot of time to set up a photo, and I often can’t get real close to my subject. I thought about this recently when I came upon these photos. First we have the overall photo, rather bland, nothing striking. Then I zoom in on my subject, a saddled blenny. Not only is this distinguishable as an actual living fish, but you can even see the delicate fin rays and the variable colors of the eye. I can now make a positive ID, and check the species off in my book.

Not much to see here, right?

There it is! My saddled blenny, maybe a couple of inches long, from the center of the above photo.