Finally, after years of delays, Nancy Street acquires a digital camera (DC). The new Canon EOS 400D camera is not just your standard domestic digital camera, it's a Single-lens Reflex camera (SLR).

The 400D was purchased from The Good Guys store next to Moorabbin Airport. For exactly $AU1500 we get the camera, and EF-S 18-55 lens, an EF 75-300mm lens, a 1GB memory card and all the usual stuff like cables, recharger, battery, straps, manuals, etc.

Early experiments with the camera in the simple auto-modes produce astonishingly good pictures in different lighting and at various distances. The camera can hold about 200, 400 and 600 photos on average at the 3 different quality levels. The medium quality images which we've been using are 2816x1880 and have an average storage size of about 2.3MB. Now we'll switch to the high quality 3888x2592 mode and see what happens.

Thank heavens that we will no longer have to take film to be developed. On the other hand, the camera can churn out so many photos so quickly that I had to write a special software program to catalogue, date and annotate the photos as they are added to the Nancy Street photo. A simple web application has also been created that allows searching for photos by event and subject. See Photo Database.

Some early test photos with the new camera can be seen on these pages:

• Cats - The Kittens
• Birds
• St Kilda Festival 2007
• Nancy Street
• The Computer Room
• Fourplay (string quartet)