All In The Family

I finally convinced Christopher that it was time!  Time to get us a new camera. 

Both Caleb and Josiah have newer "cheap" cameras.  Caleb got his so he'd have one for his China trip.  Josiah has had his for a couple of years since he asked for one for his birthday.  Both boys have more mega-pixels and better zoom than either of our two camera!  Plus their cameras are just faster from click to pic.

Our "really good" camera has the better zoom of the two, but is over ten years old.  You push the button, and then next year it takes a picture.  Not so good for kids sporting events.  Actually, it's just not good for anything kid related.  Most of the time I'm just missing the action.

Our "newest" camera was pretty top-of-the-line for mega-pixels in a point-and-shoot...when we got it.  Recently, Christopher called to ask me how many it had (can't even remember why?).  He was shocked and even argued with me that I had to be wrong, had to be reading the wrong number.  Uhm...right on the front of the camera it says "6 mega-pixels"!

Stop laughing!   Yes, even our cell phones now have about as many mega-pixels as our real camera does!

As I said...it was time!  So I got a new camera! 

Technically, I'm saying it is for Christopher's birthday present.  I figure it works since the last camera we bought was my "birthday present," but he neglected to tell me how to turn it on for over a year.  But truthfully...it's totally because I wanted it!

So yesterday I was trying to get the camera charged and set-up.  It's so high-tech for low-tech me!  The printed instructions just basically tell you how to put in the battery and plug it into your computer because the REAL instructions are a PDF file inside the computer's brain. 

I plugged it in and the software went to work.  It imported ALL my picture files into the software and then started to run a face recognition application on all our pictures.  Thousands of pix later, I could tag all the faces with people's names. 

Of course, I spent most of the day messing with this silly camera.  But I figured that if I did this now, then it would be so much easier to keep up with it as I take pictures.  Right?

This high-tech stuff was so funny! 

Once it "knows" the name and face that go together, it compares every face and recommends possibilities for you to tag the new face with. 

Now after Christopher took dozens of cousins pictures while we visited his sister back in June, I spent forever straigthening out who was who with the computer.  My nephews and niece have a "look".  The poor camera/computer couldn't tell them all apart in the blurry photos.  Drove me crazy!  When I look at them, I see girl vs. boy.  Duh!  Plus the twinkle in the eye, or the shape of the chin, or color of hair and KNOW who is who.

Funnier still was helping the camera/computer sort out my own family.  Now there were givens.  Christopher and Caleb mix-ups.  Josiah and Elijah confusions.  Poor Miranda and Elijah were also confused with ME!  (At least the computer thinks some of my kids look like me!)

Now I was a little upset with the camera/computer because it thought anyone in our photos that looked Asian was Keziah.  Stereotyping from my computer!  So all her Chinese dance friends and anyone in our pictures from China were assumed to be her.

The next thing has me giggling still...the camera also kept mixing up Keziah pictures with Miranda and Elijah!

The face recognition program "saw" something that most people miss when they see us all together - We are a FAMILY!

Loving it!