My new baby

Actually, it’s more like a baby and an amniotic sac. The baby is a Canon Digital IXUS 65/SD630. The sac is the WP-DC3 underwater housing, rated to 40 metres depth.

But Mary, alert readers cry? Haven’t you and Andrew been dying to get a DSLR for years now? How can you introduce an ultra-compact into your family? Is it worried you will love it less than its eventual brother?

It probably ought to be worried, but it has one unbelievable advantage, which is that the cost of the housing was actually less than the cost of the camera itself. As far as I can tell, that isn’t actually true for DSLRs, or at least the prosumer ones. Expect to pay more for the housing than you did for the camera, and expect also to be compelled to buy an external strobe rather than being able to use the pop-up flash. (Yeah, I know that an external strobe is a good idea anyway. Damn you all to hell.) So, it’s my wet camera at the very least.

How did the family react?

I’m thrilled of course (although not convinced by Andrew that this is what you’d call a good shot of me):

Mary is thrilled

Andrew is mildly pleased:

Andrew is mildly pleased

Liga is really quite calm indeed:

Liga is calm

Macbeth is excited by something else entirely:

Macbeth is always excited

And I have captured something of the pretty:

Bottle brush flower in a puddle Sapling Butterlfly