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When I bought my camera (Canon Powershot A40) in Spring 2002 I also bought a 128Mb Compact Flash card. This means I can store about 130 photos at maximum resolution (1600x1200) and quality. This maximises the amount by which I can 'digitally zoom' by cropping, and minimises any .jpg artifacts. I can take multiple pictures without worrying about lack of storage space, which is particularly nifty in low light conditions or if the subject (or even me) keeps moving. The most obviously out of focus shots can be dumped straight away, and the rest sorted out later on my PC. This so beats expensive 35mm film, where you are always reluctant to take multiple shots, as they all have to be developed, whether they are in focus or not. As for the camera features, the macro mode is how I manage to get so close to many of the subjects. It also has a 3x zoom, panorama mode and can be run in automatic, semi-manual or fully manual depending on how much control you want over the shot. I find semi-manual (or programmed) mode the most useful. The shutter speed is automatic, but I can set things like ISO myself.
I then went for an upgrade in Spring 2004. I bought the Canon Powershot A80 and a 256Mb Compact Flash card. Being a 4 megapixel camera the maximum resolution was upped to 2272x1704 and the picture size doubled, so I can still get about 120-130 pictures on the card. Now I can crop in even closer to small targets. The other most immediately useful improvement is that the screen can flip out and be twisted, allowing for some unusual (and maybe arty) angles. Other new features were things like manual focus, and separate manual aperture and exposure controls. The performance of the camera, and its menu system, and much more, is also a lot better than the old camera. This simply means I can now do more, and be more inventive. Already I have been able to get closer to butterflies than ever before, and view some objects from unusual and interesting angles. I expect a lot more of that to come.
After 4 years of faithful service and great pictures despite the abuse that left it looking rather dog eared and tatty (but still works fine) I decided once again to upgrade. This time I bought a Canon Powershot A650IS at end of January 2008. Compared to the A80 I have triple the megapixels (up tp 12) and twice the zoom. The lens and CCD are both slightly bigger as a result. I also have a bigger screen (still flip out and twist) and a number of new features such as image stabilization, and better videos. I bought a 4Gb SDHC card to use with it. Now pictures are 4000x3000 and with the 6x zoom on top of that I can take much better shots of distant objects. It is also much faster again to focus and operate. 4 years is a long time in digital photography. Suddenly the A80 looks atleast as outdated as the A40 did when I bought the A80. Straight away I have started producing some interesting new shots. The only downsize is that file sizes are now up to 5 megs so I may switch from CD's to DVD+R's for photo storage from this point on. See how we go.
I had previously bought a Canon Scanner (CanoScan N67OU). This came with the photo editor called Arcsoft Photo Studio 2000. I particularly like the Auto Enhance feature in this software, and is the main reason why I use this instead of Paint Shop Pro. This combined with the light sharpening to overcome the sometimes soft focus of the camera produces a nice sharp image. I use this software to crop and resize the image to position the area of interest in the centre of a 640x480 image, and then apply the auto enhance and (if necessary) the light sharpening to finish the job off. I remember one image in particular that was off focus, but I was able to rescue it enough to be good enough for the website (OrangeTip2.jpg; General; 23/04/2003 for those who want to see). Even for in-focus shots, and scanned in 35mm prints, the sharpening sometimes improves the picture significantly.
With that done, the obvious next step is to get them on this website of course! Now stop reading my ramblings and check them piccies out. ;)