Darn Technology

I used to like our first digital camera - a Kodak, believe it or not - easy to operate, no worries about running out of film, and you just erased the flops, no worries at all, really.  Ok, so that little thing ate lithium batteries like other people eat popcorn, but except for that little flaw, it was almost perfect.  The other problem it had that it was turned on by a little wheel, which invariably turned to 'on' when you put the camera away, so that the batteries would drain even faster.  Still, I liked the camera, and thought it took decent enough pictures.
But Harold felt we should upgrade:
The next generation was a complete flop.  It is nearly impossible to take decent pictures with that piece of technology.  It is made for people with stick fingers, and is too slow.  When I push the button, that is the image I want captured.  Not something a third to half second later.
Now means NOW, as my mother would say.
So I gave up on the camera, when, glory be, Harold brought home yet another technological marvel.  It LOOKS like a SLR camera - old style - and those I can manage, but it only looks like one.  It is heavy too, since it is a metal body, but when it comes to image capture, its functions (and there are many) remain completely obscure to me.
You turn it on and it is set to some crazy setting that makes no sense, and occasionally I can even snap a picture with it, but lately it zooms in, then back out, all while I want it to take a picture not make me dizzy with the zoom.  It doesn't even take the zoomed in picture, so I don't understand the function.  The sad thing is, I cannot find the zoom on it, and often I would really like to get a little closer to my subject, but the camera is set the opposite way.
It has various sorts of focusing laser beams, red and green and shoots those out with incomprehensible logic, but they do not improve the image quality.
On the sports setting it snaps lots of pictures in a row, all blurry and out of focus.  Huh, I don't actually need a setting for that...
For a while it would display what it was looking at on the back screen - then it switched (for no discernible reason) to a display of numbers and stuff I don't understand.
I suppose I am to use the view finder then?
However, Harold pushed a button to make it go back to 'live display', but other things happen when I try that same button.  Also, apparently it is an either or... if you get the view displayed on the screen in the back, you can't use the view finder.  That sucks in bright sunlight, when you can't see anything on the screen, other than dark!  and by the time I push the many buttons available, I end up with a confused camera, and no pictures.

So after that preamble, here are a few more dog pics, in sunlight.

Mo-om I had my eyes shut!

I get the sticks as 'flowers' when Decibel is done with it.