When shopping stinks
Went on a camera battery and miscellaneous stuff run this morning. I think with this being the last Saturday before Halloween, stores were more crowded than usual. All those last minute runs to the Party Store to get costumes for kids. Retailers are putting more ads on tv and radio to push people into that “holiday” shopping mood. Traffic was awful. Both of us have dinky easy-to-park cars but it’s not that easy in a crowded parking lot with big SUVs on both sides of you! I try to avoid the big chain stores after Nov. 1. But Jo-Ann Fabrics lured me in with a sale and I got some nice cotton prints. I have a couple of projects in mind for November. And I did remember to get the batteries.
Which leads to what happened: the camera still didn’t work right! It’s definitely broken, in that the video display doesn’t “display” I got on Amazon.com to look at product reviews written by users. I just wanted to see if there were a whole bunch of “this camera is a piece of junk” sorts of reviews. Yes, a fair number of them. Turns out that this particular camera had a problem with the CCD sensor- the video part of the camera. Some helpful soul listed a link on Canon’s website with info about it. Canon will fix the camera even out of warranty, free of charge! So I called them and they’re supposed to send a shipping label so I can pack it up and get it fixed. Not to look a free camera repair in the mouth, I have no illusions that it will take weeks.
I’ve found I really enjoy photography. Digital cameras have opened up a whole new pursuit to me. Before, with buying the film, paying processing, I was sporadic about taking pictures. Now, it’s like, “oh boy, the pie is done, I want to take a picture!” So we were checking camera prices online. Mike is a purist. He loves our Pentax K-1000 SLR, although we haven’t taken pictures with it in a good 6/7 years. Might be a German thing- he likes all the gizmos and control. I have to admit with an SLR, you focus and tweek and take the shot and get what you want. With “point and shoot” cameras, you get what it’s in the mood to take. As a random survey, I looked at pictures on Pbase and clicked on several that I thought were really good pictures. Most of the time the camera was a Canon EOS, and I’d bet in the hands of a trained photographer. Nice to know that when somebody spends $2000 on a camera, they get their money’s worth! Dream On Dorie. So for the next couple of days, I’ll be reading product reviews to find an easy to use digital camera, with pretty good pictures for not much more than $100. Don’t want much do I? But when the Canon gets back from the repair shop, we’ll have two cameras. Not a bad idea, you just never know when you wish you could take a picture!
We Watched: An Inconvenient Truth, finally. I thought it was very well done and have to admit Al Gore’s commitment impressed me. We both agree that a planet without polar bears would be sad! I’m very scared for the people who’ll live out this century. I’m afraid they’ll be living in a world like something out of Mad Max!
Not having my own pics to share, I got a nice one of a guinea pig from
FreeDigitalPhotos.net (Thanks!) He looks just like a little friend we used to have named Hot Stuff.
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