Vanilla Custard Pie Topped with Peaches, and My New Camera

I got home, looked down at my doorstep, and there it was. The "package". My first thought was "OOooooh, Aaaaaaaah, CAMERA, WOoooohoooooo".

My second thought was, "darn, that was seriously fast shipping!"

After excitedly opening my camera, I realized I have to charge the battery for 2 hours before using it.

So for 1 hour I watched "Master Chef". Then I got bored and decided to make dessert. Based on the ingredients in my fridge, I decided to go with a Vanilla Custard Pie, and making a topping out of Peaches cooked in butter with a little honey glaze. Yuuummy!

I used a quiche pie crust (egg based), and a custard from scratch with brown sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, and a dash of cinnamon. For the peach topping, I heated some butter in a pan, sliced the peaches, and put them in. I sauteed them for a couple of minutes, then I added about a tablespoon of honey, and 2 tablespoons of water, and a dash of salt. I let them stew until they became tender, but firm (that is, don't let them turn to mush).

Et voila! (Recipe available on demand).

Picture taken with my spanking new camera :D no flash, low lighting, awesome result. It's a little grainy, but considering the indoor conditions, the hand holding, and my lack of technique, I'd say it's as good as it can get at this point.


And here's my cool new camera, which has more buttons and controls than an spacecraft control center! Playing around with the macro mode, it took me about an hour before I figured out how to take a good shot, all hand held, but I can't wait to get my mini tripod to do some serious work. There's definitely going to be a learning curve with this camera. So far it's leaps beyond my old little camera's capabilities, and I'm happy with it. Of course, I still don't know how to use anything beyond the iAuto mode, and a little macro shooting. But the 219 page pdf manual (O_O) tells me I can shoot HD video with it with stereo sound, and switch to a manual mode for all sorts of cool options and controls I've yet to learn.

Things that jumped out at me is a cool optical viewfinder which you can use instead of the LCD. A flash that pops out, so when you need it, you click the flash button, when you don't you leave it closed. The 18X Optical zoom, which I really can't wait to test out tomorrow. (For some reason, I thought I'd be able to use it in macro, thus the 1 hour's failing attempts, but that shows you how much I know about lenses, focal points, and photography).
And most of all, after trying out iAuto mode on a bunch of pictures, it seems that really is intelligent. Really good auto focusing and detection of what kind of scene I'm shooting (like macro, detecting a portrait shot and focusing on my face, night scenery outside...).



The pictures. You can't tell, but at full size, you can see the grain of the metal in the key chain (1.5" high), and amazing detail in the crystallized sugar Houda got me.