After looking at a bunch of reviews and comparing store prices over the past week, I got myself a digital camera, a Canon PowerShot A460.The camera I originally had my eyes set on was the Canon PowerShot A640, a much more high-end beast. A workmate of mine had one a few weeks ago on our Malapascua outing, and the results were spectacular-- it's like every picture he took was a radiant work of art. But upon more consideration, I realized that I don't need to be spending twice as much money for a bunch of camera features I don't know how to use. "Point-and-shoot" does seem like a somewhat pejorative term for a camera that panders to newbies, but it exactly describes what I know how to do.
The PowerShot A460 takes pictures just as good as any other Canon camera I've known, so there's nothing to complain about in terms of picture quality. It feels very "solid", has a nice brushed metal body, and it's small enough to fit in my pocket. Plus, the store bundled in a 1 GB memory card.
My only gripe is that it uses 2 AA batteries rather than the rechargeable lithium-ions that I've grown accustomed to and love so dearly. This may be more of a psychological liability than anything... I just like the idea that I won't have to buy batteries at the store. By my calculations, I could replace the disposable batteries a hundred times before it would reach the cost of getting rechargable NiMH batteries. I have not yet exhausted the batteries that came with the camera. If it turns out battery life is unacceptably short, I'll just go ahead and get rechargeables.
This camera will come in handy this week as I'll be spending most of Holy Week in Manila. I'll be flying from Cebu to Manila tomorrow (Monday) morning and meeting my family there. Not sure what the itinerary is, aside from general "vacation". I shall fly back to Dumaguete on Saturday, spend my birthday (April 9) at my real home, and be back in Cebu for work the next Tuesday.
Congratulations ... I myself have a Canon too (A700) and it uses AA batteries.
ReplyDeleteI just love it because you'll never go into the problem of getting empty battery have you really need to take some pictures.
One time, I went to Patag in the mountains of Negros Occidental and my battery (I was using a camera using rechargeable lithium-ions back then) went empty half-way during the day and there was no electricity available.
We spent the night there, so it was very very grueling for me not to be able to take pics of the spectacular scenery.
Besides, I'm not sure if there's a "CD-R King" store in D'gte ... you can buy rechargeable AA with charger for a reasonable price there.
happy birthday mike :D
ReplyDeletealaine: Thanks :)
ReplyDeletechymera: I don't think there's a "CD-R King" in Dumaguete, but there are lots of places with rechargable batteries. So far I've been pretty happy with the battery life of the camera, so maybe I won't need them.
Hello fellow bloggers, here is an excerpt from an article I found to be quite interesting:
ReplyDeleteIn January 2007 Olympus released a new model, the SP-55OUZ, which seems to be the prodigy of this line, being a lot more performing than the previous model, the SP-51OUZ. The main characteristics of this camera are the image stabilization, 7MP resolution, and the 18x optical zoom range. The Zoom market became quite competitive and the model in discussion competes with other high quality models, such as Sony H5 or Panasonic FZ8.
This new Olympus camera is supported with Olympus Master software and AA batteries, has internal memory and xD picture card slot, over 20 scene modes, 25 language options, RAW and exposure modes, super macro mode, and 7.1 Megapixels. The SP-55OUZ model is not a small camera so some may not prefer it because of this, but taking into consideration its qualities, the size is not at all an inconvenient. It is similar in many ways to the Canon EOS 1Ds digital camera
Another great digital camera is the new FinePix S4700 from Fujifilm. This model is the optimized version of the FinePix S4600 model, which was voted last year as the European Zoom camera of 2006 by the most important European association of electronics consumers. The new model is compact and lightweight, has 10x optical zoom lens, Fujifilm Intelligent Flash system, having several scene selections. Its menu system is highly improved and it is ideal to carry with you anywhere, since it can be easily operated with one hand.
The most significant changes FinePix S4700 has over its predecessor are the ergonomic design, reduced proportions, improved ISO sensitivity up to 1600, new flash modes and a 7.1 Megapixel CCD sensor.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-g1 is another great digital camera recently released on the electronics market. The G1 model, in particular, is Sony's first wireless digital camera, which has 2.0GB of internal memory, 6 megapixel and a 3.5 inch LCD with a 921,000 pixels resolution screen – similar stats to the Canon PowerShot S50. This model has the ability of sending photos wireless to other digital enabled devices such as laptops, palms, PCs or cameras. Reviewers say that Sony G1 model is the perfect take away digital camera, since its internal memory is pretty generous.
Hope you found this to be a good read,
Michael