Learning Curve

I have taken over 1500 pictures since October 1st, trying to catch all the interesting things I see, which is apparently almost everything. I have read 86 pages of the instruction booklet, but am too stubborn to read the other 150 pages yet to see what else silly I didn't know. Like how to adjust the exposure - I thought that's what Auto did, but my daytime shots were washed out and wrong.

Another thing I learned is that the digital zoom doesn't work unless you have the camera set to the correct aspect ratio. I didn't even know what that did, but now I do. I'm keeping it set for more zoom. I can never have enough zoom or enough macro.

I learned that you can take pictures in vivid color mode, which thrilled me to no end, and probably requires an apology for the eye aches some of the photos cause.

I learned that sometimes, the reason everything is out of focus is not because the camera is too high tech for my old brain, but because the dog put a snotty noseprint on the lens, or somebody's fingerprint made a smudge.I learned that I can take pictures in all kinds of funny modes, like fishbowl, miniature, sepia, color swap. I had big time playing with those.

I don't know what I'll do with all this knowledge, and I can't imagine what I'll learn in the back two thirds of the manual. I am sure that I will keep taking way too many pictures, and that no matter how much I read or learn, sometimes taking a good picture is about just showing up with a camera and pressing the button.