4 posts tagged “photography”

I swear to god, I was going to write that I had a "new development," until it struck me that that was a pun.

Anyway, I set up a new blog for my photography. I'm not sure what it is yet, what I'm going to do with it, or why I set it up. Suffice it to say it's another item that you can put in your Google Reader and you've never really needed much more convincing than that. As ever, but slightly more in this case, comments will be greatly appreciated.

Show us a self-portrait.

What kind of camera(s) do you own?

I'm glad you asked me that question.

As many people know, I was without a camera for about six months. My previous camera, a Sony Cybershot DSCP200, was a compact, light, 7.2 megapixel deal that I loved very much. It was leaps and bounds beyond the Fuji I had before it and on a completely different planet from the two crap Kodaks I had before that (stick to film Kodak).

Sadly, my beloved Cybershot was rendered useless after an unexpected encounter with a tabletop; to be fair to the offending party, it did just slip out of her hand. There was a period of about a year when it sort of thought about the possibility of dying before finally rolling over one day. After that came the six months of waiting to have the $180 Sony said it would cost to repair it. Being at the time only sort of employed, then employed but trying to dig out of the debt from being sort of employed, my passion for photography had to be moved down on a rather long list of financial priorities. Add to this the fact that the serial number had been rubbed off the camera, making Sony refuse to even look at it, and prospects for repair looked bleak.

So one day a few weeks ago, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to pop in to Best Buy to see how much my camera, now over two years old, would cost new. I didn't find my exact model, but one very comparable, for $189. I was mildly surprised and sort of agitated. Since the camera's serial number was sort of an unsurmountable obstacle, I decided it would be best to just buy this new one.

But wait, I thought: if I'm just going to buy a new one anyway, why not see what I could get for the same amount I paid for this camera originally?

Enter my new best friend: the Sony Cybershot H9.

I'm sure you're thinking something very similar to what I thought at the time; if I can't afford $180 to fix a camera, how can I afford $470 to buy a new one? Well, with a camera this beautiful, you make certain concessions. Enter the Best Buy credit account.

When I heard that they had 18 months with no interest, I mean, it just seemed sort of meant to be. The fools gave me a $2000 limit for some reason (Fernando said he had a list of items he wanted me to pick up) so I got the camera, the year-long service plan (which now covers physical damage, ha ha!) and a new memory stick, because, of course, Sony has changed their format yet again (you'd think that, for a company that wants us to use memory sticks for so much different stuff, they'd pick a standard and go with it).

So what did I get for my latest $600 of debt? My first real, grown up camera, and some of the best pictures I've ever taken.

The technical specs on this thing are only half the story, but they're a big half: 8.2 megapixels, 15x optical (OPTICAL) zoom, full manual functionality plus a plethora of shot and scene modes, 100 shot burst mode (1 shot per second!), and a pivoting viewfinder, which I surprised myself by using so much, and loving.

Many, many people are annoyed by my habit of not using the flash when I take pictures, but I just can't stand the way auto flash washes the color out of an image. This was fine in daylight with my previous Cybershot, but forget about nighttime shots. This camera, on the other hand, grabs any light source at all and magnifies it. If there's a candle lit, I have all the light source I need.

I could go on in this vein, but let's leave it at this: best $600 I don't have I ever spent.