OK, I have a camera. I have pictures. I just need to figure out how to get them from the instrument to the computer.
I think the people who write technical manuals need to be sent to a re-education camp. They'll tell you in excruciating detail how to put batteries in the camera, with four pictures, arrows and headers, but when it comes time to, say, take a close-up picture, it just says, 'Press the (picture of a flower) button.' Well, there is no (picture of a flower) button. There's a little flower icon printed on the camera, but it's anybody's guess which of the three adjacent buttons (which have their own labels) it is associated with. Then the software manual tells me to 'see page 10 for instructions on connecting the camera to the computer.' Well, a section called 'How to transfer images to your computer does start on page 10, but somewhere around page 14 it refers me back to the camera manual for details on how to actually hook up the cable (of which there are two, although one looks like an audio cable to me. I'm not sure why they think I need an audio cable for a camera. Maybe it's also an MP3 player. Or a cellphone. Who knows these days.
Maybe my mistake was reading the English copy of the manuals. The Spanish versions can't be much more incomprehensible.
One thing I have learned is that most digital cameras have about a two second delay between pressing the Shoot button and the shutter actually operating. Not a problem for still life shots, but a puppy can be in a vastly different place with a quite different expression after two seconds. At least I'm not burning film on the guesswork shots.
One week until The Masters begins!!!!!
