At last, a new camera!

!!!!!

Some of you who have known me for a while know my history with digital cameras. Heck, some of you know my history with disposable cameras, including the summer of 2002 where I easily blew $200 on developing one disposable camera after another at Walmart, of all places.

That was the winning argument in convincing my mom to go half and half with me on purchasing my first digital camera, a Sony DSC-P31 for $200 that October.
For my first digital camera, this was everything I thought I could want. 2MP was about all we could afford, and 5x digital zoom. After all, I didn't really label myself as a photographer nor really even think it would become a hobby. I just wanted it so I could have some control over pictures I took of myself and take pictures where I wouldn't have a double chin. Basically, I just wanted it for myspace photos before myspace existed. LOL.

The summer of 2003 changed all that, when Zack and I went out exploring abandoned places such as Rocky Point Amusement Park, Ladd School, and many other fun & exciting places.
It wasn't like the Sony wasn't without its limitations, however. Vegetation looked a little too radioactive green. Everything in existence looked like it had an unusually high cyan coloration. All could be fixed in photoshop. And 5x digital zoom ROTS.

But...it was what I could afford. And I took some wonderful shots that I would have loved to sell as prints, but at a 2megapixel resolution...the photos looked good only for the web. Too grainy for print. Too obvious that I was too cheap to get a *real* camera.

The breaking point came in 2004 when I had a chance to see John Kerry 2 days before the election. Knowing the digital zoom was crap, I figured it wouldn't be so bad....until I got stuck 200 feet back in a crowd and the zoom was all I had.

Can you see Kerry? He's wearing a yellow coat.

Then I moved closer, maybe 100 feet?

And then I got even closer, maybe 10 feet or so, but at the last moment someone hit my arm and the only shot I had left came out blurry! Love affair with the DSC-P31 was officially over after this day.

Then my 21st birthday was coming, and my mom wanted to buy me a new camera since she knew I wanted one so badly. With a budget of $500, we went camera hunting. I didn't really know what I wanted except that the camera had to have a decent macro setting and an optical, not digital, zoom. We ended up settling on the Kodak DX7590 - 5MP, 10x optical and 3x digital zoom.

And from the start, I was pretty happy with this camera! It took a little more getting used to, some pictures didn't come out quite right, but one of the first places I went to experiment with photography was the Jewett City Flea Market.

And the following week, NYC & Central Park, where The Gates exhibition was going on.

New camera total ♥!!!

And all was well in the land, for the most part. Of course I quickly discovered my Kodak's limitations (low light, blech!!!!) but I figured these were things I could deal with until the day I would ever be able to afford a digital SLR. Note, that day still hasn't come, but all will be revealed shortly.

My Kodak served me well; in its first year I'd taken well over 5000 photos. Working as a journalist will do that though; it was common to take 300+ pictures at a single event, and some days I would cover 3 events. Unfortunately, things never worked out with that newspaper even though I tried working there twice, and I ended up working on the web team of Yankee Retail. And I went back to exploring abandoned places, like Holy Land USA, Fort Wetherill, and a couple other places. The camera continued to serve me well and went to Egypt with me. And so did the Sony DSC-P31, but that did not return.

This photo of the Africano Cafe in the Cairo Mall was pretty disappointing. Like I said, my Kodak hated low light with a passion. 2007 ended up becoming the beginning of the end for the Kodak--it reached 10,000 pictures in January, and then in September things started acting a little funny. Pictures that I had taken right-side up were coming out up-side down. The camera couldn't orient itself. It began to lag. Finally the menu button broke and only worked in one direction. It stayed that way for a couple weeks and then failed altogether. I almost bought the Nikon D40 from Best Buy that Christmas...but decided against it, which was good because I got laid off in January.

So all through 2008, I've taken every photo with a broken camera which has been more than a pain in the behind. In September of this year, something happened to the lens and there's a permanent smudge in the photos when pointing at direct light. (That happened during my trip to Canada).

So...Christmas came and went and I joked that all I wanted was a new camera, blah blah blah. I didn't really expect it to happen any time in the near future. Insert sad Megan here.

Then last Sunday my grandmother called. "Rather than pay you a little bit of money here and there for computer lessons," she said "I'm going to let you get that camera you want...and pick out one for me too while you're at it." (Her camera, an Olympus something or other, has been completely broken since 2005 but it treated her well since 1998.)

So it took three days of really shopping around, comparing features and consumer reviews, but I finally picked my new camera, and it's NOT the Nikon D40 or D60. It's a Canon Rebel XS. Now the waiting for it to ship is going to be the hardest part!

Again, with a budget of $500--I got this one from Amazon for $445. And I picked out an Olympus Stylus 120 35mm camera for my grandmother (she didn't want digital.) I also picked up an IR filter, camera case and some other stuff, but I'm paying for that myself.

New...camera...!!!!! In exchange for computer lessons for the rest of my life (nevermind hers! lol)....I'd say that's a good deal! Computer lesson tomorrow. :)