Happy New Year !!!

Well, it's same old bang last night (New Year's Eve). Typically some small kids light a few firecrackers here and there during the day. It's watusi, thunder, rebentador and the likes. But it's mostly quiet and good. Then when it's about 12 midnight, the adults or what I call the "pasikats" or the "papansins" come out of their slumber to bring out what THEY think are big-ass firecrackers. These are the plaplas, superlolos, judas belt, sawa, etc. ad nauseam. Frankly, it's nothing new. It's all just these "ratatatatatat-pak-boom!" noise, fumes and garbage all over again.

We didn't buy trumpillos and roman candles this year and just basically stayed indoors to watch tv. The kids jumped at midnight. Before, I'd put up this frame for trumpillos and then when I light them at 12 midnight, I get blanketed by these fumes from the big crackers in the street which is suffocating. In the past we didn't buy a lot. It's really just to light a few sparklers coz really, in the end, you just "burn" money and left with nothing but trash from the burnt up crackers. I don't understand why some neighbors would want to buy that much at the risk of accidents. And I still wonder why they haven't lost their fingers yet. Hmmm, maybe next year.

I must admit that the old Casio camera was much much easier to learn to operate than this Sony. With the Casio, I've taken sharp, good pics quickly right out of the box. With the Sony, the first few pics and videos were bad. It's chock full of features - for me anyway. The manual's isn't too easy to understand either. There are a gazillion icons on the lcd screen and you can get lost with the maze of modes and menus. It's software, PicturePackage, is worse.

Here are some of the pics that I took later in the day:

Taken in "candle" mode are the kids left hands. I've long wanted to take pics like these while they were little. I pulled out my very old Silk tripod for this picture. The kids were bewildered as to where the tripod came from coz they've never seen it before. I've had the tripod since I was single and stored it away. Its great that this digicam can do macro-focus. The old Casio did not. Can you tell who's who?

That's a pic of the Nativity at our church. It would've turned out better had I used a tripod. But then, it would be difficult (and inappropriate?) to setup. We had to time our visit to the church in between masses to get a clear picture. There were too many people during the mass and more people were milling at the nativity stage after the mass. It's too bad that the colored spotlights weren't turned on. It would have been a real sight! Hopefully they will be turned-on on the Epiphany which is on the 8th. I had a funny argument with the kids coz I thought Epiphany or Three Kings was on the 1st Sunday of the year.

Finally, here's a shot of our church St. Peregrine with the tall Christmas tree at the side. This shot and the nativity were taken using the "Twilight" mode. Compared with the Casio, the Sony unit is a little more forgiving with slight movements when taking low light pictures. There's just no way you can take low-light or night pics with the old Casio without a tripod. Otherwise, there will be ghost images and streaking. I'm glad that I got this camera in time to take these Christmas pics.

Go ahead, post your comment below!

arGlene said...

hello! wasn't able to greet you early, but as the saying goes, beter late than never.. he he

happy new year! =)

great shots by the way...and the Sony Digicam too! :P

Blackdove said...

Thanx r-glen. Yah, the night shots did give my otherwise dark blog a "strange" glow.