tucson botanical gardens

i've been thinking about ways to make my blog more adult, and some of the ideas i've come up with include giving it a new look, changing my writing style, and making my photos look a little more professional. giving the blog a new look is a bit overwhelming though, so i am putting that on the back burner until i feel like i've got my new writing style under control. the photos, however, are something i've been thinking about as a more immediate change. but to have professional looking photos does that mean i have to have a professional type camera?

i'm a big fan of my iphone 4, and up to this point, almost all of the photos on ice cream & sunshine have been taken with it. it's so convenient. i can put it in my back pocket and use it anytime and anywhere. but it will only take me so far. so i've been thinking about upgrading.

 

one option is to upgrade to the iphone 5; the camera is a little better and has the convenience of being small and super portable. but it has limitations. and so i was looking to add an ollioclip -- the ollioclip is three lenses in one (fish eye, wide angle, and macro lens) that attach to the camera on the iphone. at $70, it seems like a fun and fairly cheap way to spice up my photos.

 

another option is much more drastic -- buy a fancy professional camera. but if i'm going to do that there are a lot of things to consider. first, do i really want to carry around a huge camera all of the time? if i have a nice camera i would want to use it all the time, like i can with the iphone, but i won't necessarily want to pack the camera bag, make sure it's battery is charged, or the memory card is empty. second, there are a million different cameras to choose from, how am i supposed to choose the best one? i know that there are tons of reviews of each camera and everyone has their favorite brand, but which one would be the right one for me? and i feel like i should know about all of the features, including the manual settings, and that is a daunting idea.

 

so i had pretty much decided to stick with my iphone. i may buy the ollioclip when i upgrade to the iphone 5, but i would keep it simple and not stress too much about it. but then my dad came to visit and brought his nikon d90 with him. now everything has changed. because now i know what a heavy camera feels like, i know what the shutter sounds like, and i've seen the pictures.

and the pictures are amazing.

 

or at least, way better than my iphone pictures.

i tried to take the same photos with my iphone and the nikon to compare -- 

what do you think? which is better?

 

iphone vs. nikon

 

(2 nikon photos sandwich an iphone photo)

these pictures were taken at the tucson botanical gardens -- a cute little garden in the middle of tucson that has a butterfly house, tons of different kinds of cacti, a compost area, vegetable garden, rabbit, quail, and a miniature town surrounded by a train set, as well as benches to sit and ponder the beauty of surrounding nature. it's $13 for adults, which may be a little pricey, but the butterfly house alone is worth it.

the nikon d90