The good news is that, after years of holding onto my old technology and taking pictures with a beat-up decade-old 35-millimeter camera, I finally got a new digital camera! I'm very excited. But I'm also a little wary. And kind of scared.

On the one hand, my new camera has a lot of exciting gadgets and features. It has 10 megapixels, two types of zoom, and about 24 different picture-taking modes. I do not know how to use any of these.

What I really like is the nifty LCD screen on the back of the camera that instantly shows me whether or not my picture is a keeper. This is very exciting - my old camera kept this information a secret from me until I developed my photos and discovered that my finger was blocking part of the lens throughout my entire trip to the Caribbean. On that vacation, in every picture it looks like everyone is about to be blotted out by a giant fingertip-shaped monster. Though judging by our smiles, we don't seem to care.

With my new camera such fingertip invasions are evident right away, so I can delete the photo and try again. Despite my excitement about this feature, it seems to have made more enemies for me than friends. Whereas in the old days, my picture-taking process was little more than, "OK smile now got it," now I go through several iterations before getting a shot I like. "Great photo - oops no, someone was looking away, let's try again. Ah, that's good - wait, a bird flew by and ruined the symmetry of the shot. OK, this one's perfect - but I don't like the lighting, let's wait about 20 more minutes for the sun to get lower in the sky and we can try again." For some reason people end up throwing things at me and my new camera before I can capture the perfect shot.

Despite all of the wonderful and mysterious features my camera offers, I must admit that I'm a little bit afraid of it. Whenever I turn it on it plays a little tune, which strikes me as a bit presumptuous, a camera thinking it's a musical instrument. Even creepier is the messages it gives me sometimes after I take a picture. "One or more of your subjects might have closed his or her eyes," it will say. Or, "Try this photo again using sports mode." Or, "I didn't like the lighting, let's wait 20 minutes for the sun to get lower in the sky."

How does a camera know all of that? It makes me nervous when a camera starts rivaling my own intelligence. It's not afraid to tell me how to take my pictures; will it start telling me what to do in other aspects of my life? Or when I'm taking pictures at a cocktail party will it start telling amusing anecdotes and leaving everyone in stitches? That would be the final straw, I think - if my camera left the party with more friends than I did. At that point, it'll be back to my old trusty stupid 35-millimeter!

BILL ZUCK has been having nightmares about giant fingertip monsters. You can reach him at wcz78@yahoo.com.