From 2006 - Colorado 05

This is the second of the two...an important shot in that the frustrations of using just a point-and-shoot really hit home:

• It would have been much better to use a neutral density filter so the shutter speed could be extended to about 1/10th of a second. Even if I had one the Fujifilm s7000 that I was using could not have accommodated it.
• There is a fair amount of color fringe due to the contrast between the mountain and the blue sky. I learned after returning home that that is a function of lens quality. Naturally, with a point-and-shoot there is no option there.
• The dynamic range limitations in the sensor were underscored, as considerable lightening of shadow areas was necessary to keep the shady areas from looking downright black.

All of those considerations, in the moment of the shot and in post-capture afterwards, made me for the first time really wish I had better equipment. From then on my objective was to wait for the right moment to acquire a camera that would mitigate those limitations. Fortunately that moment came last month. Now I'm waiting for "just the right moment" to buy a heftier tripod, a nice flash unit, ....