My friend's 3-year-old opened her beauty shop in her parents' home. First mommy and daddy got their makeup and manicures. Then it was my turn. But who was going to take the pictures? Well, I put the camera in her dad's hands--first time he'd seen it, let alone operate this digital camera. I knew him to be a good photographer, but also knew that untried digicams are always tricky, especially when it comes to learning to deal with shutter lag.

Well, there was no time to learn, since my beauty treatment was immediately under way. But her dad popped off about a half dozen exposures and showed them to me. Wow! I couldn't believe that he'd hit the mark each time. After all, the little girl was not stopping or following direction. She was doing what kids do, running at full steam, using her imagination and fully attentive to the task at hand.

The dancing avatar comes on screen (to musical accompaniment) at start up. It's thoroughly entertaining and can be customized, or disabled.

Still, I had to wonder, no near misses? And that's when he told me that he'd erased the missed shots. He intuitively figured out the procedure for reviewing and deleting images--sans instructions of any kind. Now, that, my friends, tells you this is a user-friendly camera.

Most of the CD and DVD creation software include a slide show builderWhile flash recycle times may have hindered my ability to snap off shot after shot, the camera's responsiveness was good enough to capture this moment as the makeup was being applied to the face of the little girl's dad.

And It's Fun
I'd bumped into a friend and her 2-year-old one day on a New York City street. After catching up on the latest news, I brought out the U-CA 3. But before taking any pictures, I wanted to see how the baby would react to the camera. This digicam has two interesting features. One, the LED on the face of the camera flashes an array of colors a.k.a. the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The mom found this entertaining.

But then came the pièce de résistance. I turned the camera off, then switched it back on and directed the color monitor toward the toddler. As the camera came to life, a dancing avatar--a 3D animated figure--appeared, to the delight of the child. He was laughing heartily. Adults find it amusing. Admittedly, I continue to be entertained by it. By the way, you can change avatars and customize the dancer, but I was not inclined to take it that far. Teens and young adults--a prime market for this camera--are likely to devote the needed time and energy toward this enterprise.

Slow sync flash.

Flash only.

At New York City's Toys `R' Us Times Square store, I wanted to compare forced flash with slow-sync flash, using this animatronic dinosaur as my subject. When employing slow-sync flash (with an available support), the ambient lighting clearly influenced color balance, completely overshadowing the strobe illumination.

A Toy Store Story
One day I'd met one of my Shutterbug colleagues for dinner in New York City. He shall remain nameless, but he was in town on business, hailing from Toronto.

Anyway, after dinner, we went to the big Toys `R' Us store in Times Square. The store has a working ferris wheel, with seats decorated in various popular children's themes. I'd decided to see how well the flash would work in combination with ambient lighting, both with flash fill and slow-sync flash.

The U-CA 3 did a great job with this available light portrait of commercial photographer David Allan Brandt and wife Elaine. Adding to the window light inside Ellen's Stardust Diner, a famed New York eatery, was a mix of indoor lighting with its mix of colors. White balance was set to Auto White Balance.