Cameras and photography

[PINJOHN]

I have also been given a camera for Xmas but reading all that has gone before this post tells me i have just inherited a major headache,...if i said my technical skills are woeful then you should consider that as bragging [they are infinitely worse than that,
for the record it is a olympus D_720 14 megapixel hd 10x super wide. all Greek to me i'm afraid

[chris-uk]

I have also been given a camera for Xmas but reading all that has gone before this post tells me i have just inherited a major headache,...if i said my technical skills are woeful then you should consider that as bragging [they are infinitely worse than that,
for the record it is a olympus D_720 14 megapixel hd 10x super wide. all Greek to me i'm afraid

John you should be able to get good pictures with it. I just had a quick look at some specs/features for that Olympus, so a couple of things I'd advise you to look for (bearing in mind I don't actually have the camera, so I'm making some assumptions based on information online)...
It can focus down to 1cm, so find out how to put it in macro mode, generally a button with a stylised tulip, or you may need to select it from a menu if you're unlucky.
You won't be able to use the flash when you're in macro mode, it will white out the picture, so work out how to turn off the flash.
The autofocus has a face recognition mode, which may be a default. I doubt the face recognition will recognise a snake, so I would turn that off if you find problems focusing.

At the end of the day it's digital, you get an instant view of what you've just taken, so have a play and take hundreds of photos to see how different modes respond. Enjoy the new toy.

[PINJOHN]

thanks Chris that's helpful ... to my surprise i understood at least part of your advice ....i am making big strides in this techno world... you will have to excuse me now as i am going to watch a movie on my betamax video recorder you just cant beat these new fangled gizmo's