Before the holidays I was on the hunt for a new pocket camera. While I have an Iphone with a camera, I prefer a camera-camera to take my pictures and my videos. My trusty little Canon Powershot SD800 IS camera that I'd had for many years was falling apart and not working at picturesque times. My husband told me to research cameras. "Go to Target and try them. Hold them in your hands. Practice." My husband researches all items over $100.
I liked the look of my Canon. I liked the size of it, the pictures it took, and the fact that it had a "night snapshot" setting that let me take pictures in dark places, and I mean dark places. If I couldn't see my hand in front of my face in a dark place, my camera would. It was a gift from my husband and when I first got the camera, like most new electric gadgets that my husband buys me, I wasn't all that keen on it because I liked my old camera. The one thing I picked out was that I could only use the rechargeable battery that came with the camera and nothing else. Which meant that when I forgot to charge the battery I couldn't just replace the battery with some double AA's like my last camera. Turns out it wasn't a big deal; the battery life lasted forever. I eventually fell in love with the camera and was determined that despite it coming apart I could manage with some duct tape. Unfortunately, the innards of the camera weren't always lining up when pushed back together and I would miss important events that should have been photographed.
I decided to begin on the Internet for my camera search so that I could narrow down some choices and then go "hold them in my hands". The first thing I knew I wanted was a camera the same size as the one I had. I carried my Canon with me in my purse all the time so that I could pull it out at a moment's notice and snap away. Before the camera phones, I was the official photographer for all those who forget their camera because I always had mine on me. This detail helped me eliminate a large section of cameras in my research. Unfortunately, as I read I had no idea what any of the details in the cameras meant.
I really just used my Canon to point and shoot. There was a menu with all sorts of different sections with different choices, and beyond knowing how to turn the flash and the date off and on and how to get the pictures on to my computer I really had no idea how to really use the thing. I decided perhaps I should start with getting to know my old camera first so that I could find something comparable to it. Turns out that my trusty little Canon is no longer made and is now considered an "old version". I read about the new versions of the camera, but it didn't seem to be so highly regarded compared to other cameras. I researched and wrote things down. When I found something like IOS, which meant absolutely nothing to me, I researched it. After it still meant absolutely nothing to me I thought perhaps I should just buy disposable cameras. Eventually I narrowed down a list of five cameras, all of them more than I wanted to spend.
Luckily for me, Christmas was fast approaching so I began pulling out all the ads with sales on cameras. I would look for one on my list and compare prices with those online. If I saw a camera I thought looked good I would research it. Most of the time those cameras weren't highly recommended so I crossed them off the list and tried to stick with my list of five. At one point during my Christmas shopping I stopped at the camera department at Target and played around with some cameras. I did not have my list of five, but I tried to stick with the brands I remembered. I couldn't really tell the differences between them and decided that if I put together my Canon and it worked then I would try the duct tape route.
Then Christmas morning came and I unwrapped a new camera from Tom. Immediately, I felt that familiar electronic feeling of "what-my-old-camera-is-just-fine". I hemmed and hawed and oohed and awed and thought, "But I researched cameras. I did all of this work like he told me too and now he buys me a camera that I don't think is even on my list of five." There was also a part of me that was relieved to have the problem taken out of my hands and so I took the camera out of the box and began examining it.
It looked much like the Canon except thinner and it did not have nearly as much abbreviations and nonsense in the menu. In fact it had very simple instructions and fewer buttons. It had a better zoom, one of the things I had wanted, and it churned out some decent photos.
The blimp (photo 1) was as we were coming over the causeway heading to a breakfast place that Tom wanted to take us to and I whipped out the camera to see if how well my camera and the zoom worked.
Turned out to work quite well. As do all of the electronic gadgets that my husband purchases for me. It also turned out that the camera was on the list of 5 Best Budget digital cameras that I had written down. So who cares that I spent an entire two days researching cameras. It all worked out in the end and he paid for it. Now if I can only research every little detail in the menu so that I can use the camera to its full potential...
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