A birthday gift of one's own

After five years to the month and 9,912 photos and a few short videos, I have replaced my camera. This is my third digital camera. I can't say the upgrade from my first to my second made a dramatic difference in the quality of my photos but the first camera, taking four AA batteries, was not great to carry around.

I loved my second camera. It was so small and light and easy to slip into my pocket. It has been to England, Europe, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, along with Sydney and Adelaide and all directions radiating out locally from Melbourne. It's been in cars, vans, trucks, trains, trams, buses, planes, ferries, bullet trains and bicycles. It did not travel on the back of an animal though. In all its travels, it has let me down once when I forgot to charge the battery. Funnily, even though it is being retired, I was still recently learning about some its features. In summary, I would say it was a good camera and with a weight of 150 grams, very easy to always have on me.

I started looking around for a new one a few months ago, or as R puts it, procrastinating and dithering about buying a new one. I checked some prices with Manny in Malaysia and the saving was not huge. I looked at prices on the net and the savings did not seem to compensate for personal service at a shop and an Australian warranty. Nor did I want to go  into a shop for a physical examination of cameras with helpful staff at my side and then buying over the net. I did go into the large retail chain, the one headed by a cranky old bloke, a few times to look at them but nothing felt right about a camera there. I did not like their up-sizing deal if you wanted a memory card.

Yesterday, ah Thursday, I went to a specialist camera shop, the one with the camera museum above, and got what I thought was a good enough deal, assisted by a very helpful and knowledgeable young sales man. That he was so hot your fingers would burn if you touched him, was quite irrelevant and played no part in my choice. I have never seen such an obviously straight guy with such perfectly groomed fingernails.

While I would have loved to have bought an DSLR camera, as I said earlier, I wanted one that is compact and light enough to carry in my pocket.

The Canon IXUS HS510 fitted the bill nicely and weighed in at only 15 grams heavier than my old one.  Because of Highriser blog lag, it may be a while before you see any photos it has taken and I doubt anyone will be able to tell  the difference on screen. It is 10 megapixels and x12 zoom. Any more zoom than that and the camera starts to get bulky.

The old and the new. I am not sure that I like the touch screen controls. I find the screen works best if you use the stylus, part of the wrist strap. I did initially have to calibrate the touch screen. I suppose I will get used to the new method of operation. Like all things, by playing with it you become familiar and an expert in what you want it to do.