I. Give. Up.

I'm really not sure what I was thinking: buy two new pieces of electronics and plan to photograph major life events within two weeks. And not freak out about it.

In case you're not keeping up, I just purchased a DSLR camera. And a video camera. I'll try to make this as concise as possible since both of them currently make me want to pull my fingernails out one by one. So I'm going to get this post done and move on before that happens.

I've currently taken more than 700 photos with my DSLR. I tinkered around with the settings a little but nothing seemed to make too much an impact in the quality of the photos, so I just kept it on Auto most of the time. Then I figured out how to download them onto my computer...yay me! I accomplished these tasks, mind you, without reading the manual. Aren't you proud?

I'm not.

Of the 700 or so pics, about five (1, 2, 3, 4, 5. F I V E) turned out the way I wanted them to. Something is wrong, you could say.

Could it be that I haven't read the manual? Surely not!

But it seems that my little point-and-shoot is currently outperforming Big Bad DSLR. And I believe I have only myself to blame.

And the unread manual.

So I need time to study it. The camera, the manual. And I believe taking a class is in order as well.

Ya think?

(The basic problem is: the photos are mediocre at best in clarity. And the file size of most of them is 4 MB or more. For each photo! At that rate my computer will explode before Alex's fourth birthday in September.)

So until I've learned to trust myself with the big gun, I will continue relying on my limping-along 5 megapixel Canon.

As for the video camera, at least I've been able to shoot video and Pete magically made it appear on our TV. But successfully burning a DVD...you know, the really useful thing for videos...is still a mystery. I've been studying that manual, though, so I'm thinking a lightbulb will come on there pretty soon.

I'm sure it'll all come eventually come together and I'll figure out how to make these machines willingly do my bidding.

Probably just in time for my computer to crash.