My weathered camera, an HP c610, finally started to have ghosts. It would randomly shut off on fully-charged batteries, constantly forget the date (which means that I’d have to set it up every time I started the camera), and generally was taking more and more time to get “quick” snaps. With vacation rapidly approaching, J– and I talked about getting a new camera.
Keep in mind that the last time I was shopping for digital cameras, I was on the bleeding edge; 2 Megapixels, built-in flash, auto focus with a bright LCD display ran around $500-600. Big cash for me back then.
But now, with the purchase of our new camera (which we independently chose), less than $200 gets us a pretty nice camera. We bought the Sony DSC-600, a 6 Megapixel unit that is half the size and weight of my old camera, takes clear photos and videos (which my old camera didn’t), and draws less power (two batteries have last through well over 6 hours of on-and-off use). All in all, pretty happy. With a 1 Gig expansion card, we can take over 300 photos in one go or almost 45 minutes of video.
Vacation will be the true test. I’m geeked just to have a new toy. (Stop rolling your eyes J–).