Chewbacca Unleashed.

Today I used my wife’s piece-of-crap camera instead of my usual piece-of-crap camera. I’m happy to report that hers (a 3-year old Sony Cybershot) puts mine (a 4-year old Olympus 710) to shame. With just one set up I can already see big differences. First, the Sony has a much better auto focus mechanism, grabbing clear focus even for a ridiculously close subject like Chewie here. The Olympus gives up on the extreme close-ups. Second and more importantly, the Sony’s light sensor is much more responsive than the Olympus. With the Sony I’m seeing great color and contrast, even with my hacky LED lights doing their best to blow out the picture. True this isn’t exactly cause for a ticker-tape parade, but I think the quality of my exposures (and the time needed to arrive at them) just improved by a long shot without me having to spend a dime. Here’s to small victories.