Lake Howard Sunrise 001 Draft

I took this pre dawn landscape photo from a public dock at the Lake Howard Nature Park in Winter Haven, Florida. It was a little bit past oh-dark-thirty (6:40 A.M.) on August 13, 2014 when I took this photograph of the eastern side of Lake Howard. I was using as many manual settings as my GE X2600 camera would allow me to use. The Fstop was f/16.1 at 1/5 second with an ISO of 64 and a 35mm focal length of 199. I was of course also using a tripod for the shoot. While I feel that my X2600 is a great little camera for a bridge camera to learn on, it has some things that are annoying. One of the majorly annoying things is the picture degradation when using the electronically augmented part of the zoom magnification. Another annoyance is the lack of the ability to attach a secondary flash unit over the top of the onboard flash. As is the case with many point and shoot or other types of cameras with "on-board" flash units, the subject of the picture can get "burned out" when the flash unit is used. If it doesn't get burned out it is frequently underexposed, while experience will mitigate some of these problems, a secondary flash system is a definite plus. I am dreaming and scheming about a digit SLR as a replacement for my X-2600. I think that it is time for some serious research on the three major brands of camera. Well maybe this Christmas Santa will leave a new (or used) digital SLR under my Christmas Tree. I would not even care which major brand it was. Olympus, Nikon or Canon, in any order of preference.