RIP, Little Camera?

[pyat]

I am here!

Somewhat quiet as we have a very sick little girl in the house. Oi, you never saw such vomit. Gaming sessions (Werewolf tonight and AD&D char gen tomorrow) are cancelled till further notice.

In other news, I have misplaced or lost the ultra-cool, ultra-small Pentax Optio S kianir sent me. I'e checked the GO Train lost and found - nothing. I have a sneaking suspicion it fell out my pocket a few weeks ago. Those who have met me in real life will know this as "the little camera Pyat kept in an Altoids tin." It took photos superior to all the other point-and-click cameras I've owned, despite being smaller than a closed cell phone. I would happily buy another one, even though it's a bit outdated. I like having a portable camera I can keep easily in my briefcase, for recording random adventures. The Fuji takes better photos, but it's five times bigger than the Pentax, and I don't like subjecting it to the random abuse of being left in my briefcase.

Finding the Optio S rather scarce on eBay, etc., I decided to go as cheap as reasonably possible for the replacement, while still getting a name brand camera. I browsed the Factory Direct ("Guaranteed Refurbished!"), TigerDirect ("Take it and Get Out!")and finally settled on XSCargo ("Probably Not From a Hijacked Container Ship!"). I picked up a Kodak EasyShare C71, because it was cheap, fairly compact, and a brand name. Also, it allows me to use the Easyshare dock/photo printer left over from the camera I got second hand from doc_mystery, and happily used till infant Claire smashed it.

I am mostly pleased with it. Negative reviews on the web seemed to mostly be written by morons. One man complained that he hit the "Format" option and it deleted all his photos. Another person cracked the LCD by sitting on it. However, I'm finding that on every 3 or 4th power on, it tells me that the El Cheapo brand SD card is full. Hopefully, this will be resolved by putting in a name brand card.

Comments

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm fussy, but I'd've skipped a Kodak and gone with either Cannon, Minolta, Olympus, Nikon, or anything with a Zeiss lense (Sony Cybershot), essentially, anything by a camera manufacturer (with the exception of the Sony, but that has a Zeiss lense), though, granted, Fuji sometimes puts out a good camera, too (not always). 'Course, I suppose a Kodak is likely to be better than any of the rest outside of that category, like the crappy Samsung my parents recently managed to stick themselves with, despite my constant insistence that they should always buy from the upper end. My mother bought the Samsung because it was the cheapest camera with 10X optical zoom. Great. Now she can take really grainy, crappy photos from a much greater distance than a 3X optical zoom would (and, sadly, she discovered this just days after the end of the exchange period).

[pyat.livejournal.com]

No, it's fine to be fussy. For example, the Fuji FinePix s800 I have was bought only after doing a lot of online research and reading professional reviews.

If I'd wanted to get Canon or Nikon, the price would have tripled, even for a basic pocket camera. I bought this Kodak almost entirely on the basis of price, though I did read a few dozen reviews to make sure I wasn't buying a complete lemon.

[kianir.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about the Pentax. The C713 eats batteries and doesn't last very long (among the highest rate of returns at my store, anyway, Cx13 series), and the colors will be pretty cruddy compared to the one you had, but if the going rate is $50 you're probably at least getting what you paid for.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That is worrisome. The few pics I've taken were adequate, but that's all.

Maybe I'll exchange it and claim the SD card issue for the reason, and spend a bit to get a better brand.

Though, checking just now, I see all XScargo has is Kodaks, Vivitars (blech) and Polaroid chepies.

[kianir.livejournal.com]

If you can get your money back, consider:

http://www.adorama.com/IFJFPJ10SV.html

These are pretty servicable and sturdy metal-bodied models with a rechargable battery, more comparable in size to the Optio S than the Kodak.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

No money backs, I fear. I did manage to trade up to a Norcent Xias DC760, which was on sale at a larger branch of the same chain, "two towns over." It seemed to have fairly uniformly positive reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Norcent-DCS-760-Megapixel-Digital-Camera/dp/B000ZKR6ZC