My wife Cathy (top photo below) bought me a new camera for Christmas. I’ve been practicing with it. Below are some of my photos from the holidays. I’m experimenting with the settings and with different lenses. I really appreciate that this camera can take pictures with just 2 to 5 percent of the light (depending on the lens) required by my 4-year-old Panasonic camera. This allows the camera to shoot pictures indoors without a flash, even at night. The light in the room often produces much nicer photos than a flash. I’m looking forward to bringing it to blog-worthy events. The new camera is a Nikon D3100.

You really do have a Nikon. They’re known for taking realistic photos. Using a Nikon can be quite jarring if you’re used to the kaleidoscope of colors that others think makes a photo.
I’d love to have a camera from all the manufacturers: I had a Fuji that let me take this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/SaintDenisInterior.jpg
It was the right camera for that photo – but for motion it was horrible.