Looking through a new lens

After our trusty Fuji point-and-shoot died a couple months ago, Toby and I had resorted to taking photos with our iPhone cameras. The up-side to that is that we have our phones with us most of the time, so more photos were being taken than normal. The down-side is that our phone cameras were pretty lousy. Not terrible, but not great. In a fairly dark house with lots of shadow, it was hard to get a decent shot...until now.

This is my new friend, the Panasonic Lumix FZ47. She came home to stay last week, and we've been slowly getting to know her. She has hidden depths, I think (hidden to me, anyway - I'm a slow learner on these things). We've been playing around a bit, and here are some things we've seen:

I'm not sure which is my favorite - Noah's sweet smile,

Abi's "deer-in-the-headlights" look,

or Dan's "mischief-making" expression.

 

I'm looking forward to making the most of this new gadget (shutter speed and aperture?) and capturing all kinds of exciting happenings and rascally looks.

 

Any suggestions or tips from my photographer friends?