Phantom Planet's "The Guest" is an amazing album. Maybe I've just been listening to way too much crap lately, but I just love the simplicity of this album. And unlike other artists (*cough* Linkin Park *cough*) each song sounds DIFFERENT ... Just go download a few tracks and try it out (besides California, since everybody has heard that one now). Just a great chill album...

Phantom Planet - One Ray of Sunlight

Goodness sometimes things get bad
But I swear
I'm doing all I can
So try all you want to
I'm gonna try too

If I get one ray of sunlight to hold in my hand
Maybe we can be happy again
I'll try for one ray of sunlight to hold in my hand
Maybe we can be happy and then...

Things don't go as I planned
But I swear I'm doing all I can
So try all you want to
I'm gonna try too

If I get one ray of sunlight to hold in my hand
Maybe we can be happy again
I'll try for one ray of sunlight to hold in my hand
And I guess if this isn't the end
Maybe we can be happy again

I got my digital camera finally. And wow. What the hell did Canon do? They created the *perfect* digital camera. Really. Everything I could wish for in a non-DLSR camera can be found here. I mean, are they trying to shoot themselves in the foot? Is there some stupid thing here where once the battery dies, I have to buy a new iPod pay $99 to Canon to get it fixed (Thanks, MacDaddyTatsu), like some unnamed Cupertino, California fruit-named computer company is doing with a MP3 player that rhymes with iPod? Honestly, I don't see myself buying another point-and-shoot digital camera for the next 3-4 years, short of a revolutionary feature change in point-and-shoot cameras. But I definitely see myself purchasing a DSLR from Canon (which I guess is much better, since then I pay for the body and start paying for all the lens and stuff ...)

Note that these are mostly first impression; I've only had a few hours to play with it today, but so far I'm totally impressed.

So to begin, I got the Canon G5 Powershot for $450 on eBay with an extra 128MB CF card, a carrying case, the wireless remote control, the 6-in-1 Flash Card Reader, and all the normal stuff. The camera is 5 megapixels (which I wasn't even aware of until I got it today, I thought it was 4 megapixels ... in retrospect I should of known since it's a G5). The body is made of plastic, which was kind of a downer for me, but as it later turned out, this was a good decision by Canon engineers; the thing is pretty light and you can handhold most exposures.

Although the size is slightly bulky for a "take around everywhere with you" type of camera, the features well outweight the slightly large size.

This camera is ideal for people who want to learn more about photography. This thing has aperture priority as well as a manual shooting mode so you can set the shutter speed and aperture manually. The aperture range goes down to f/2.0, which is great for DOF shots (pictures where the thing in focus is sharp, but everything else is blurred out). I'm spoiled by my Canon lens, so I was slightly miffed about the lack of good DOF, but for a point-and-shoot digital camera, the DOF is great. The manual modes are fully manual, which can be such a blessing ...

Note that this is *not* the camera you take out when you're seeing friends and you want to take pictures. This thing will probably not fit comfortably in a girl's purse or anything a guy should carry (men should NOT carry manbags!) ... I would stick with the Canon ELPH if you want a small camera...

The swivel digital screen is great for composing difficult shots, like this shot. You can also see some DOF in this shot (this was taken at the widest angle at f/2.0).

Now, for the quality. I found out last night this thing has some "panorama" feature that lets you take a bunch of pictures and stitch them together ... so I decided to try this out today and took a picture outside of my studio.

Well, I'll link you to the full-sized image (warning: it's like 6618x1024 or something ridiculous like that; I left it at fullsize). This was taken at "medium" resolution .... and the camera was hand-held. Not much digital aberration ... and look, you can even see a reflection of me in the door at the far right!

Amazing quality... I guess that 5 megapixel is really wonderful for these types of high-detail images... And the stitching software is really easy to use!

Speaking of the software ... I've had many gripes about hardware companies making SHITTY software to transfer the stuff over.

I guess I got an amazing deal on eBay, cause I got a "6-in-1 USB Flash Card Reader." I wasn't really sure what this was when I bought the auction, but now I know.

Let me show you a picture of what it is.

The silver box connects to your USB port; you input your Flash card into one of the 6 slots (it supports different types of cards), and then you input the small CD to install drivers that let the flash card be read DIRECTLY as another drive.

So let me rephrase this for those of you won't don't quite understand. I don't have to install shitty proprietary software just to transfer images. I just install a driver, plug that drive into my USB port, and drag the images via Explorer.

Yes. Amazing. So simple. Someone finally did it. And the size of that whole flash card reader is tiny; not bigger than my iPod (use my craptop as reference).

Some additional notes:
- The G5 has a built in neutral density filter (which I'm pretty sure is just a digital thing...) so you can set long exposures on purpose, which is really nifty.
- I'm totally getting spoiled from this G5, but wouldn't it be AWESOME if it had a built-in polarizer? Although that thing seems to really like glass reflection (which could be a bad thing):

- The thing is pretty intuitive to use, although I constantly try to use the actual lens to zoom instead of the zoom button (which is usually where the manual exposure control is on my Elan)...
- rechargeable batteries. w00t.
- the 'continuous' shot mode can store a bunch of pictures in the buffer, so you can just hold down the shutter and take like 4 continuous pictures in a row!

So for those of you who love to take pictures, but can't afford a DLSR or don't want to pay for expensive film cameras... this is seriously the perfect camera for you. It gives you total control, but the quality and size and feel of the camera is nice ... the swivel LCD screen is amazing and totally awesome to use for difficult to compose shots.

What's really awesome is that the people who bought this originally are starting to migrate to DSLRs (which this is really the perfects stepping stone for...) ... so you can usually find great bundled deals on eBay from individual sellers just looking to dump off their whole G5 set (which includes CF mem and stuff) pretty cheap. $450 was a STEAL for me, and the price can only go down!