The other day I met with most of my band – The Blue-Eyed Hermits and One Black Guy – at the Carleton Tavern. Ten groupies also showed up.
We have meetings periodically to review applications from people who want to join the band, and to talk about things like where and how often we should practice, and what kind of music we should play (there’s currently some unresolved tension between Hip Hop and Baroque).
It was an excellent afternoon, although now that I think about it I we didn’t accomplish anything or make any decisions.
My son, who plays the turntables for the Hermits, suggested that I give him my current camera for his birthday when I buy a new one. Good idea. It’s a perfectly good 3-year-old Canon Powershot A610 that takes good pictures. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the viewing screen is too small for me. My son, being half my age, doesn’t have this problem.
The very next day I went out for lunch with a friend. He dropped me off at my place afterwards. I got out of the car and dropped my camera case on the sidewalk. I picked it up. Then the camera fell out of the bag and smashed on the sidewalk. I picked it up and tested it and it still worked.
But not very well. The casing is bent and the menu doesn’t work anymore.
So it looks like my son and I will both be getting new cameras.
Any recommendations?
Hi Zoom.
Most of the Bruce pics you see on our family blog were taken with our Panasonic FZ8. It’s relatively inexpensive considering its quality and feature set. However, the screen is only 2.5 inches.
I needed a camera I could take with me everywhere so I recently got a Nikon Coolpix L18. It has a 3 inch screen, but not as many features. Most of the pics on my own blog are from this camera. I like it because it’s BLUE.
There are other, newer and better cameras in the Coolpix line that have more features. (I just went for a cheap one).
They’re worth checking out.
Speaking of pictures, we need a picture of your band. With instruments. (But no audio please!)
Andrew
Thanks Andrew. Your pix are all good. And 2.5″ is a lot more than I have now (mine’s maybe 1.5″.) I had a Coolpix many years ago when digital first came out, and it was a piece of crap, but I’m sure they’ve improved exponentially since then.
As for the picture of the band, well, they’re a little on the shy side. And a couple of them don’t have their instruments yet. It might interest you to know though that your favourite high school teacher is the recorder player.
I love my Coolpix but it is 3 years old and Peter thinks I need something new. I have taken about 10,000 pix on it. I would also like a larger screen but I use the viewfinder for when the screen doesn’t makes sense (bright light, I can’t see it, etc.) so I want one with a viewfinder and a surprising number of them don’t have that.
It depends on the kind of pix you take and what you want the camera to do for you and the pix. Peter has the Nikon D300 SLR because he wants to be able to change lenses and take things like HRDIs. I just want to take snapshots.
Canon S5-IS
I hate it when I drop electronics. I wish I could say “if I dropped”
Big screen. Any size, weight, or price range preference?
ooo this reminds me of last summer when I got my very first ever digital camera that I had wanted very badly in case I decided to become a blogger : )
I bought it second-hand from a famous Ottawa blogger photographer who does not know (but will know now) that soon after I got it home I dropped it on my kitchen floor. I was excitedly showing it to my friend Stephen when it slipped from my hand and bounced off the linoleum. Stephen stared in horror and I gasped and caught it on the first bounce. Stephen’s horror turned to admiration and he said, “Nice catch.”
The camera was fine.
So sorry bout your loss (and thus Jamie’s loss).
Still considering blogging….
I’ve been keeping my eye on Canon Powershot prices all summer.
The A590IS is down to $150 at a couple of places. It is a camera that is a step up from the A570IS that Milan carries. Really sweet.
Meanwhile, Bestbuy is selling refurbished A530s for $60 before tax and shipping. The A530 seems to be very close to the A610 in feature comparisons, with some things a bit better and other a bit worse.
I’ve been looking at Canons because I’m used to them and there is excellent software support for them.
But there are some great deals in other cameras. Yesterday Staples had a one-day sale on a Fujifilm camera with a 10x optical zoom. They had it priced at $150 when the cheapest competitor was at $225.
I have the Canon S5IS and love it but it is big and cumbersome to carry around. Don’t think that it will work for the person that carries their camera everywhere.
I left it at the cottage two weeks ago and can’t wait to get it back tomorrow, but in the meantime, I have been using my old Sony…it is certainly a lot more portable.
oh right recommendations…
the bouncy camera with resilience is a Canon Powershot A620 and it takes beautiful pictures.
ditto Deb and Robin…Canon S5IS. Love mine. It is bigger but takes great pics
Thanks for asking this question, Zoom because I’ve been wading through the new camera jungle myself and wasn’t even sure where to start. There are some excellent suggestions here from people who I know know what they’re talking about. Let me know if you find a great bargoon somewhere.
The problem these days is there are too many options. And they’re all good! Like Julia I at times need an optical viewfinder in bright light and many of the pocket Nikons (my camera(s) of choice) have dropped that option in favour of an extra half inch for the LCD screen (3″ vs. 2.5″). One exception, though, is the Nikon Coolpix P50 with 8.1 megapixels, 2.4″ LCD screen, vibration reduction, “face priority” auto focus, and it even uses AA batteries which you can get anywhere. $165 at Blacks, with a 15 day, “Love It Or Return It” return policy. It’s not the smallest camera out there, but that just makes it harder to drop! It’s worth a look. Good luck.
Mine’s a Canon A720 IS. It’s a little bulkier than I’d like but it has all sorts of features – anti-shake, manual settings, white balance, etc. Uses double A’s so a corner store will be your best friend when the batteries die.
See Darrell at Galaxy (Bank at Catherine) when you know all the features you want, (including viewfinder). Check out DPReview for reviews of pretty much everything that’s available.
Thank you all for the suggestions. Bikerider, I agree, the problem is an embarrassment of riches, which isn’t that bad a problem to have.
I like the cameras which take double-A rechargable batteries, because I have a few sets of them and a recharger. I like a viewfinder (although in my Canon PS A610, the viewfinder isn’t accurate – there’s a shift between what I see in it and the resulting picture). I like the swivel screen on some of the Canons. I like the prices of the cameras David mentioned, the return policy bikerider mentioned, and the bouncability Patti mentioned (and Patti, absolutely, you should start blogging).