My go-to digital point and shoot is an older Nikon P60. Incredible camera....I shot an entire Eric Clapton concert with it and the results were perfect. They're a bit hard to find...I think people hate to get rid of them. I bought a second one for my husband with a broken screen for $12. Easy fix, an new screen was $19 and had another great camera...and they are capable of video as well. Interestingly, the broken camera had a sticker and bar code on it....from a press corp.... Someone at a newspaper used it. I was even more impressed. Nyms

WOW...!! I wish I'd shot that...!! I'm jealous.... Nyms

Wow....what an incredible answer....this is a great way to look at it. And with a digital camera, you can always erase what you don't like. As an ex college photography instructor I would also say shoot slightly wide to give you more options on cropping. What looks good in the camera may look much better on a computer screen. Nyms

I forgot to mention the surreal effect of the donkey's head with the distant back half of another donkey. I don't know if you meant to or whether it was simply the magic of the moment but it is really cool. Nyms

Wow...!! Very nicely done. Nyms

These are both very nice shots. I really like the first one...it's quite eerie with the blown out white. Nyms

I like your donkey shot....they are such cute animals. Even though there is a lot of green reflected light around the area, I'm wondering if perhaps the donkey is a bit too green..? Although I also have printed colour in the past, I was lousy at it...I had no colour meter and the assorted stuff for good prints. So..I assume this is correct for the place you shot it. Is it a wee green in the whites or is that how it's supposed to be..? But I love this shot, and I'm glad someone still uses colour darkroom equipment. I now develop the b&w, colour, and slides, but scan them and work on them there. I still have all my enlargers and would like another b&w darkroom. Sorry for the long note. Nyms

I find it interesting that, to me, the grass in the very bottom foreground seems in focus. I don't know how close that grass is to you or the bird but the DOF is going to be quite shallow. Even though teleconverters usually soften things a bit, are you sure you focused correctly on the bird...? Just a thought.... Nyms

What did I tell you about running in the house...?!!

If you mean me, I got it on ebay, did very little cleanup on it, and it's fine. I'm running the first roll thru it now. But some of my other old ones I've gotten great photos. Lately, I doing a lot with my 'older than 1930' cameras. But here is the sellers photo of the 1902 Kodak Brownie No. 2. with red bellows. The b&w is from a tiny 1927 Kodak Vest Pocket Hawk-Eye folding camera for 127 roll film. One shutter speed of about 1/25th second and four apertures. Probably f11. No photoshop except for scanning the negative for upload and spotting. The film is Kodak Verichrome 120, split to 127, and frozen since 2002. Nyms

(Download)

I was a photography teacher at college. In my experience, I believe that digital or film photography can be done this way: Learn your apertures, shutter speeds, and film speeds. That's about 10% of it. The other 90% is composition. Many will disagree with that. If you can learn these, you can shoot great photos with any camera. Even a disposable cardboard camera. Even antique cameras. Right now I'm shooting with a 1902 Kodak Brownie No. 2 folding camera....the first camera to use the 120 size film that Kodak invented. It has one shutter speed, 1/40th of a second, and three apertures, f11, f16, and f22. By balancing those three things, aperture, shutter speed, and film speed, everything I do to make a good photo is composition. I have a Nikon D60 an entry level digital camera. I'll never upgrade that because it does all I need, too much, actually. I know this doesn't pertain much to your class, but by learning these, either from books, youtube, classes, you will turn out as good an image as most. It doesn't take long to learn those settings on the camera, composition you'll always be learning. Don't be fooled into thinking you have to have a $2000 camera for good photos.... Nyms

Molly, here is the download site for the D60 manual. http://cdn-10.nikon-cdn.com/pdf/manuals/dslr/D60_en.pdf

Hhahaahahaahaa...!! Good one...!! I needed that... Nyms

It really is...that's sad... Nyms

I bought mine in a pet store in Denver in about 1991. I assume they were legal back then. Mine is the east coast fancy like the male pictured above. I know they are now cracking down on that trade. Interestingly, when I grew up in NJ for my first 18 years, I only saw one in the wild. The potato humping male died but he was much older. Alicen has it better than most turtles. I don't believe in the '20 gallon terrarium will be fine' idea. She has the run of the entire house, the dog door, the walled in back yard, knows where her food and water are, and even knows her name. She's a rare one. Sometimes, she just crawls over to my foot and wants to be held. Since she'll live to be 50 to 75 years, she was a good $39. Nyms