Sunday, July 08, 2007

Dead Cameras

When I was in DC last month, I went to use my 2 year-old digital camera (Canon SD400 Digital Elph), and it was dead. The battery was fully charged, but it wouldn't work. I finally took it to Ritz Camera the other day, convinced it needed a new proprietary battery. The clerk, who happened to be the manager, was arrogantly sure that it was the camera and not the battery. He was right. Damn! He tried to sell me a new camera, but I wanted to check my warranty. I checked it and called the service company which is sending me a call-tag for repairs. The call-tag still hasn't shown up, and I'm required to use it to send the camera off to Pensacola for repairs. I'm worried I won't have a camera to take to Los Angeles.

So, I pulled out my old film camera, which I use occasionally. It's a 35mm Pentax point-and-shoot. It was dead, too. Damn, damn!! I took a look at the screen, and it apparently needs a battery. I'm headed to Radio Shack for a camera battery tomorrow. If that doesn't fix the film camera, I'm sunk.

In a way, I'd love to have a new digital camera that has more of a zoom than my little Elph. However, I just don' t have the time or mental energy to researching and learning a new camera. What to do, what to do? I'm open to suggestions.

2 comments:

Mary said...

Alto2

In my "family" (us, SIL and her family, Crem, and TallGuy (who was best man at our wedding) research is usually done once. For instance, at one point in time us, TallGuy, and Grandma all owned the same digital camera -- one person did all the research and everyone else road the coattails. We also have the same dishwasher as Crem (we needed a new one right after he bought one, and we just got the same as he did).

It's a tad more difficult with high tech items as they change quicker, but if anyone you know recently got a camera -- ask for their thoughts.

Anonymous said...

I recently upgraded my Digital Elph to the SD900. It wasn't that expensive compared to my first (I'm on my third) digital Elph which I think ran me about $500 with all of the accessories and extra battery. You can get a pretty powerful camera now for only a couple hundred bucks and you'll get a bigger screen. Go for it! Also, a 2 Gig media card was only $18 at Amazon...makes me cringe to think of what I paid for a 1 gig card 3 years ago. Don't forget www.stevesdigicams.com