I drove Becky to work in Boston today, and after parking at the ***Otis House|http://www.historicnewengland.org/visit/homes/otis.htm***, I headed out to trek around the city, putting my new camera through its paces. I covered a pretty wide swath of the city, from the North End all the way over to Symphony Hall in the Back Bay. I must say, I’m quite pleased with the results. I shot today at my camera’s lowest resolution and lowest quality level, because my larger memory card hasn’t arrived yet… nonetheless, the camera still produced excellent photos. The 12x zoom came in mighty handy, and the optical image stabilizer worked just as advertised. Here is one of the best examples of the zoom capability. These photos were both shot from the same spot in Boston Common; the first with no zoom, and the second with full 12x zoom (zoomed in to focus on a spot on top of the John Hancock Tower, from the center of the first shot):

ggg|boston_20050313/P1000169|No Zoom|ggg

ggg|boston_20050313/P1000170|12x Zoom|ggg

Amazing! The rest of the photos (138 in all) can be found ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/boston_20050313?page=1***.