camera test drive and chicken barbecue

Saint Martin in the Fields church held its annual chicken barbecue and silent auction. I went there to serve food and take a few pictures. The camera that I have been using for the past four and a half years is, alas, in the process of passing away. I can't complain, though. It has been a good little camera and I have used the heck out of it.

Larry Austin, editor of the Island Dispatch, came to eat and to take pictures for the newspaper. He brought a camera for me to take on a "test drive." So that's exactly what I did. All of the pictures were taken with this little camera. It is a Pentax Q7. It seems to be a nice little camera with more power and better zoom than my current (dying) camera.

I took some closeups of flowers to see how it did with closeup detail.

I also went into the silent auction tent to see how the camera handled less-than-optimal lighting. There were a lot of shadows in that tent. At first, it was kind of a disaster. Then I realized that I could change the settings. When I changed the setting to "auto," the pictures got a lot brighter.

More closeups of flowers.

Mike Pohl wears the famous sombrero, covered by lottery tickets. It appears that there is more hat than human.

And speaking about hats, here is a lovely hat, with scarves, that was being auctioned off.

Pretty purse.

Fashionable doll clothing.

Beautiful handmade lamp and table, made by John Pickwell, who makes a variety of things in stained glass.

I seem to be attracted to things made of glass. Probably it is because I really like "shiny things."

Here is my friend Amy Heist, who was selling tickets for the silent auction. I got to watch her work, which was fun. Work makes a great spectator sport! She had already had the pleasure of watching me work on the food service line, which, I admit was fun.

Pretty in pink.

Kathy Killian and her little granddaughter.

Happy baby.

There is nothing like being with daddy.
I will continue the camera test drive tomorrow!