MY NEW CAMERA & 14th day is “TODAY”

First, I have to research ALL of the options, features, pros/cons, etc., and THEN I have to shop around comparing prices, checking to see when the next newest thing might come out so the price of the existing top of the line will go down and whether or not I think it’s worth the wait to save the $$ and not have the new features, see what Consumer reports has to say about it, and find out what my SHS friends have to say about it, etc. It’s a very long and complicated process for me to buy ANYTHING (I once bought 8 crockpots before deciding on the one I wanted) and THEN after I get whatever it is home I spend the next several weeks deciding if I got the best buy and second guessing myself as to whether or not I should even keep it… you know until the return date has passed. Now you see why I put “14th day” in the heading of this blog…. you see, TODAY, is 14 days since dh purchased me a new camera for our anniversary. I have until tonight to decide if I’m going to keep it… actually I did decide to keep it and I”ll explain more about that in a minute, but I have until tonight to go see if the noise it makes is normal or not and decide if I want to purchase the extended warranty.

I have been complaining for a couple of years that my old camera was too slow to catch all of the fast action shots at the kid’s ballgames or here at home while they are wrestling and rough housing. My old camera takes VERY NICE pictures and was a VERY NICE gift from my aunt which I was supposed to share with my brother and my mother. That didn’t work well because we all wanted to use it so my brother eventually bought his own camera and my mom borrows mine whenever she does want to take a picture. I’ve taken my old one on all 3 of our last big vacations and it has severed me VERY WELL! I never really considered getting another point and shoot because I was planning to go up to the Canon Rebel so our nice fully automatic/fully manual lenses from our 35 mm camera could be put back into use. I would use BOTH of the cameras then… the point and shoot when I wanted to take something in my pocket and the Rebel when I wanted action or more control over the settings. However, the drawback to that is the Rebel is BIG and I really LOVE the convenience of having a little point and shoot that takes great pictures and will fit in my pocket. The *only* drawback to my old camera was that it was too slow to take action shots. We were NOT in the market for purchasing a new Rebel and I had no idea what I would even want in a new point and shoot if we decided to go that route instead. Now I’m rambling… on with my story. Here is the old (on the left) and new (on the right) side by side:

For our anniversary, we normally don’t buy each other gifts. However, my dear and very sweet husband used his “private stash” of funds to go out and purchase me the very newest Canon PowerShot SD800 IS point and shoot on the market (it came out only a few weeks before he purchased it) as well as 1 gig ultrafast memory stick! Here’s the front and back:

On our anniversary I was so sick that I couldn’t even read the manual or do much searching online to see if this model would do what I wanted it to do. So, I relied on my SHS friends to help me out! They sent me all kinds of links and reviews and assured me I would be happy with it. And, my good friend Lee from WA had this to say: “Here’s my comment: Say “thank you” and don’t give it another thought.The camera is better than the one you have, and it was a gift from a husband who loves you. It may not be “perfect” but few things in life are. It was a very thoughtful gift, particularly because you live to scrap and blog. So just say “thank you” and let it go. Not very helpful, am I? LOL! But I know you tend to “overthink”things a bit, so I thought it might put your mind at ease a bit.” I can’t really argue with that. She is right. I DO tend to over analyze things so that was the end of that! No more searching, no more comparing, no more spreadsheets and charts. I found the continuous mode option. It did what I wanted it to do and this has been the fastest switch to something new I’ve made in a VERY LONG time.

A funny side note. Dh left the day after our anniversary to play bass in a band that was doing the worship music for a college retreat out of town. One of the guys brought his camera and said he was good for 600 pictures. Tim told this guy that he didn’t even think his wife would take 600 pictures in a weekend. BOY WAS HE WRONG! When he called the next day I had successfully figured out how to operate in the continuous mode and noted that I was able to take 600 pictures in less than 5 mintues (LOL)! That was SO FUNNY! It’s fast, it’s lightweight, it has lots of options, zoom that is great, image stabilization (which I didn’t even know I needed and now find it a MUST HAVE), and I LOVE IT! You’ll see some samples of my continuous mode shooting in the next blog. Oh.. .and I REALLY like the large size of the screen – 2x as large as my other one. And, another feature which I KNOW I will enjoy, but haven’t used yet is the voice recording that you can attach to a photo. The next time we’re on vacation and I don’t want to forget what I’ve just taken a picture of and I don’t have time to write it down, I can simply give myself a voice recorded reminder! Can’t wait to try that feature. I guess I better plan another vacation!

I’ll end with a THANK YOU to my aunt for the Sony Cybershot that she gave us which is really what propelled me into the digital era in the first place. If she hadn’t given us the camera I would probably still be using film because, as I already explained, I would STILL be researching whether or not digital is here to stay, if it’s really better than film, etc. (LOL). And, here’s wishing my mom many happy years of use with the SONY as I will now pass it on to her.