Never buy a new camera in the winter. Your shutter finger is itching, but there isn't much to photograph. It's dark most of the time. The sun is always at a bad angle. There's no color. The landscape is dull. No flowers. And, to make things worse, it's cold. I hate the cold.

Well, I guess the snow is interesting, but even that gets boring after a while. You can go for short walks, and on some days you can go out wearing just a heavy jacket.

Even so, desperate to play with a new camera, I was able to find some things to point my new DMC-FZ150 at. And for the record, I'm even more impressed with what this camera can do.

There are people out there who will take a very technical approach to this camera, going through a number of painstaking steps to tweak the last little bit of detail from their images. Don't get too caught up in this. Yes, some testing may be necessary at the very beginning. Sort of like zeroing in a new rifle. Or getting acquainted with a new horse.

But then it's time to go shoot lots of pictures. Try the different settings to see if there's one that turns you on. Try the high-speed bursts or shooting video. Play. Experiment. Have fun.

Yes, I know it's cold outside. That's why these pictures will have a winter theme.

Some technical notes: The pictures were shot with my Panasonic DMC-FZ150, in JPEG "Fine" mode, and the magic was added with LightZone 3.