My Grandaughter's First Digital Camera

Being a grandparent brings many joys. For me, as a grandfather, one those great joys came when my next to oldest granddaughter showed an interest in photography, my lifelong avocation. My son had bought his daughter a cheap key chain digital camera and she suddenly discovered the joy of taking pictures of everything she encounter in her day to day life-at home, at school, and at play. She had had other cameras but she never used them much because she was dependent on others to buy her film and on others to pay for the processing. That cheap digital camera freed her of those constraints and a very young future photographer was born. She came to me to download her pictures to my computer and to print them out for her. From the very first, I saw the raw talent there. From the very first, I knew that she needed a real digital camera that she could grow with and develop those talents. I am a dyed in the wool Nikon man, but I keep a Kodak Z camera in my car as a backup and I knew that it was the perfect camera for her. It is a camera that she could develop all her creative talents with and would continue to meet her needs as her technical knowledge grew.

The Z8612 IS is really a semi-pro camera with a price tag to match its capabilities. When set in one of its fully programmed shooting modes it is a point-and-shoot camera. There are four-portrait modes-portrait, self-portrait, night portrait, and back lit portrait. There are four landscape modes -landscape, night landscape, fireworks, and sunset. There are three bright scene modes-sport, beach, and snow. There are also a text mode that ensures perfectly exposed documents, a close-up mode for photographing flowers, and a Manner/Museum mode for shooting in situations where flash or sound is not allowed. These fully automatic shooting modes would give my granddaughter the satisfaction of producing perfectly exposed pictures while learning how to use the aperture priority, shutter priority, and manual controls of the camera that would give her total creative control. Before investing $200 in a new camera, I decided to see if my granddaughter and the Kodak was a match.

We took a day trip to the zoo; she loves animals so she never questioned my reason taking her on a five hundred mile round trip or for wanting to get her up at 5 a.m. When we arrived, I handed her the Kodak and her eyes lit up like 1,000 watt photo floods. The ergonomics were perfect, that camera fit her hand like a glove. As the day passed, all too quickly, I taught her how to use the 12X (36-432 mm) optical zoom and the selectable golden grid to help her compose her shots the way she wanted them. I taught her the "Rule of Thirds" and she caught on to the idea in a flash. On the way home, I introduced her to the principles of lens aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings and she surprised me with her understanding. Resolution was a little more difficult for her to grasp until I told her that the more mega pixels a camera has the higher the quality of the pictures it produces. When she understood that with its 8.1-mega pixels, she would be able to get a high-definition 30X40 inch print she understood the principle of resolution. Optical stabilization was another difficult one to explain to a ten year old until I had an inspiration. I pulled the car to the side of the road and told her to take my picture. I told her to deliberately shake the camera as she pressed the shutter release. She said the picture would be ruined. I said that it would not be ruined but perfectly clear. I told her that the lens had an electronic circuit that compensated for the movement. What is that old saying about a picture is worth more than a thousand words? For my granddaughter, that single picture explained optical stabilization better than I ever could without resorting to fuzzy logic and math to do it.

It was late when we returned home, but she insisted on seeing the pictures on the computer. I showed her how to download them using the Easyshare software that came with the camera. I showed her how to use the simple editing tools that are a part of the software. I showed her how to print her edited pictures. The look on her face as a print emerged from the printer was all I needed to know that I was going right out and buy her a camera.

That was a little over one year ago. Her work is impressive and I am seriously considering buying her a Nikon Digital SLR in another year or two.