Fortunately, Martha has been taking pictures all along and while she was sleeping this morning, I scanned them all in. I think the biggest factor in the photo deficiency is that her camera clocks in at 1 lb and is a hand me down (w/ excellent optics) whereas mine is just shy of 3 lbs and I spent too much money on it. Therefore, I keep my camera in its padded bag, hidden in a back closet of Landshark. Martha keeps it in a ziplock bag (we did learn from the phone incident!) wherever the puts it down. Ergo, she has many more pictures than I do.
The only drawback to her camera that I see is the delay in taking a shot, usually there's a 1 second pause to focus & calculate. And as you see, Paul (aka "Dash") has learned to take full advantage of a 1 second pause. If I remember it right, he was sitting at the table when she picked up the camera. He got up, ran behind me, behind Martha and still made it into the frame well after the focus had decided what was important.
I know what you mean about cameras. I long ago made the choice to not spend big bucks for a big camera so I could have one that I could always carry around in my pocket and would not cause undue hardship if it broke. I don't think of them as "disposable", but I am on my 3rd such camera, the pervious two were KIA over the last 10 years or so, each worked dependably for 1000s of shots before breaking. The one I had before that was too big and clunky to carry around in my pocket.
ReplyDeleteMy current "pocket" camera is a Nikon Coolpix S550. (10M pixels, 5x optical zoom, SD cards, http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Product-Archive/Digital-Camera/26108/COOLPIX-S550.html) It weighs in a less than 5oz and is 2 x 3.5 x 0.875 inches. I bought it in a BestBuy store on the road last year in Eau Claire, WI after the my Casio Exilim stooped working. The Casio Exilim I've owned had an on/off switch that can sometimes get pushed while inside a pocket. This causes the lens to poke out... not a good thing while in your pocket. No such problem so far with the Nikon Coolpix. I chose it over other Sony models in the same category and price range because it used SD cards and I had lots of those.
Short videos have become more important to me lately and the Coolpix does an adequate job on those as well. I've really come to loathe the hassle of transferring video from tape to computer for editing. We have boxes of tapes that are largely untouched after they come out of the video camera for that reason. If I ever replace our dedicated video camera (which definitely doesn't fit in a pocket), I'm going to go for a flash or HDD camera. Tape is SO 20th century.
Speaking of pocket cameras, I've been taking more shots and videos with my iPhone 3Gs. It doesn't take pictures or video as well as the Nikon, but it is adequate in good conditions. On our last outing to the Oakland Zoo, Laura had the Nikon and I had my iPhone both snapping away during key moments. I was able to pick and choose video and stills from both sources when I put together a short highlight movie later. Sometimes two cameras are better than one.
Your experiences with water are enlightening. I've never gone to the length of keeping either phone or camera always in a bag, but there are times when I probably should have. I guess I've been lucky so far. Lord knows I've taken many pictures. :-)