where did this happen, and when?? this must be out your front door or something.

@Ana...a friend who lives on a creek was out of town when we had a large storm--some folks in Texas call them "frog stranglers." With some difficulty, I managed to drive to his house to take some photos of his creek, which you see is pretty high. His house was okay.

@ trzebiat...it is noisy, isn't it. This was taken with a humble digital camera that I borrowed from my wife. I understand that I can get a pretty good Canon digital camera body for about $7,000, so I am saving up </joke> I have a lot to learn about digital imaging and am looking forward to getting a quality camera, but I'm holding out for a digital SLR that I can't afford at this time.

@Dan...thank you. As I said, I have a lot to learn about digital imaging and WeeklyShot comments are helping me learn, that's for sure. The friend whose property is featured here owns a Nikon D70 that I can borrow. I'll post an image on the next theme using his camera and see what differences I can discern.

Side note: On looking carefully at the image and using Photoshop to reduce the "noise" (which I'm not in the habit of doing...is it a good idea?), I see that quite a lot of detail is removed that is not noise. Much of what Photoshop identifies as noise is either splashes of raindrops or leaves floating just under the water.

@uvikidd...probably. Does that make me a bad person? Be gentle, now.

What I've learned following the discriminating comments above: Using my wife's little Panasonic digital camera, this handheld shapshot was 1/8 second at f/4.3, ISO 200. The original is underexposed.

Now if I want maximum quality (e.g., less noise), I can't let the camera set the ISO for me, as it appears to make a big difference. As with film photography, using a tripod and bracketing the exposure would have helped a lot.

Thanks, folks, for opening my eyes to things I'm not used to seeing or looking for in creating digital images.

@ King I consider myself an average photographer with exceptional photoshop skills and with your image there are a number of ways that you could have reduced the noise without really compromising the detail - if you email me off the list I can point you to some very good sites that have tutorials. number5design@gmail.com

As for digital SLR, I myself couldn't afford one so I looked for the closest thing in my price range. I ended up with an Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom for $500, I can by additional lenses and an adapter if I really want to have more control. It is better than your average point and shoot digital but far from what I want, overall I have been very happy with the quality of the images it produces at the lower ISO's and night shots. I am sure that you will get better results and be much happier with the Nikon D70 over the Panasonic though.