A not at all Silent Sunday: Museum Day

Yesterday (Saturday, September 28, 2013), my friend Sally and I took off for El Dorado, KS, where we had tickets for the Smithsonian sponsored Museum Day.  As she was pulling into my driveway, I took my very first photo with my new camera, a Nikon CoolPix.   I had heard so many good things about these cameras, I finally bought one.

Unfortunately, when I got it, the battery was exhausted and I couldn't get the charger that came with it to work.  Sounds like the story of my life!  Fortunately, on Friday, I took it back and the man who originally waited on me, waited on me again.  He confirmed what I suspected.  Either the camera connection or the charger was defective.  He gave me a new camera, no questions asked.

After completely charging the battery, there was no time to take any photos before we left on Saturday morning.   I always save my photos at 1600 X 1200, which is the next to the lowest setting on any of the cameras I own.  The lowest setting is 640 X 480, but that doesn't give me any opportunity to crop.  Unbeknown to me, when I saved these photos, the file size was SO LARGE, I saved them on "0" or zero, the lowest PhotoShop setting possible.  When I added them to my blog, I was shocked at how pixelated they were.  They each started out at nearly 6 Mb, and even on the zero setting, they were still well over 100 Kb each.


These were lovely photos, but off the chart when it came to amount of space they used  on my blog.  Here you see our first destination,  the Butler County Historical Society and Kansas Oil Museum.

I was sick about these photos, because I took well over 350 and they were all so very easy to read and see.  But now you can barely see a few of the faces, much less read the words and biographies.

One of the photos I took a picture of was simply fantastic, until I saved it for my blog.

One of my first close-ups was very readable.  Even the multiplication flash card sign in the back was readable.  Click to enlarge the photo and you'll see what I mean.

The museum was partly dedicated to the history of El Dorado, and partly related to the oil that made it famous.

The  museum continued outside over 10 acres.  After we toured all the buildings, took lots of photos, and sat at a picnic bench to refresh ourselves, we toured the gift shop.  Sally was quite surprised I actually purchased something.  I'll show it once I photograph it.

Next, we went to the Coutts Museum, where I failed to capture even a single photo of the outside of the building.  This is from their web site and why it's so clear.

They are famous for their collection of Remington bronzes,

like this one I captured when we first walked in.  There were Remington bronzes on all three floors.

Now I need to determine how to show more of these photos, since I can't save them any lower, and they look terrible when I save them on such a low setting.  I'm going to lower the resolution, which I hope will help with the next photos I take.  Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.