New camera - Canon Powershot S2 IS
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I was fortunate enough to be invited to Rob Novak and Liz Olsen's wedding in Naples/Marco Island Florida. The wedding itself was FANTASTIC - beautiful, fun, and full of love. But I'm not here to talk about the wedding, I'm here to talk about a camera. I tell you this about the wedding because I took a bunch of great photos of the wedding.
And then I lost the camera.
We frantically searched, we called every place we were, all to no avail. So, I was on the market for a new camera. Now, we had planned on buying a new camera soon, but not this soon. I am more upset with the photos I lost than I am with the losing of the camera itself. One of the highlights of the trip was an airboat ride with my wife, Newbs and his wife Pat, and myself. Newbs and I actually got to drive the airboat for a bit, and it was one of the kewlest experiences ever, and was captured in my digital camera.
The one that is lost. Dammit.
Anyway, I decided I needed to get a camera pretty quickly, as we are coming into the birthday season around here. Rocky (10/09/96), Kelsey (10/20/93), Robin (11/25/97) and Tommy (12/21/98) all have birthdays soon, and I needed a camera quickly. So, I pinged the resident camera expert in our midst, John Roling (aka Greyhawk). I narrowed it down to a couple of cameras, and he steered me to the Digital Photography Review site, where I read the reviews and decided to get a Canon Powershot S2 IS.
My criteria for choosing a camera wasn't too picky. I wanted to spend less than $500, I wanted it to be at least 4 megapixel (preferably 5MP), and I wanted it to be able to go from simple point-and-shoot to varying degrees of manual programming. Oh, and of course it needed to take the best shots possible. After talking with Greyhawk about my needs he steered me towards the Canon, which is the same camera I had been looking at anyway. Based on the review at Digital Photography Review and Greyhawk's recommendations, I bought the Canon.
Now, I am not going to go into a ton of details - first because I am not a camera person, so my reviews couldn't do it justice; and second because there are quite a few great reviews of this camera on the Web. I will say that my first few uses of the camera have produced great results. The zoom is very fast, and the time from when I click the button to when the picture is taken is very fast (this was a huge beef of mine with my old camera). With my old camera I couldn't really get good action shots of my kids because by the time the camera had taken the photo the action was over with. This camera responds quickly, and has the ability to hold down the shutter button and take a ton of pictures in a row - that way I know I don't miss the shot.
This camera is a bit bulkier than my old point-and-shoot (Minolta Dimage 300), mainly because of the lens and the fact it takes 4 AAs instead of 2. The upside to more batteries is that I get fantastic battery life with this camera (well over 300 shots), something I didn't get with the old camera (something like 80 shots).
So far the camera is working out really well. I have taken some shots with it, and Debbie took it to Amsterdam on a trip and said it performed really well for her. I'll try to get some shots posted later this weekend.
So, in summary I have to say that the old adage still holds true - you really can't go wrong with a Canon for good quality photos. This camera is a great package, loaded with features at a reasonable price. I paid $450 for the camera. It came with 4 AA batteries (NOT rechargeable - I had to buy those separately), a 16MB SD memory card (HA!! That's like 4 photos), a lens cover and a strap. So, if you buy this camera you will need to buy a case, a bigger memory card (I have a high-speed 1GB SD card now), and some rechargeable batteries.
Great camera, decent price. Two thumbs up.
Rock
**Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better. - George Santayana
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Comments
That is a great outfit. You will not be disappointed.
Posted by David Vasta At 01:13:40 PM On 10/21/2005 | - Website - |