Blog: Articles filed under camera

I got my first camera (first digital camera too) on Boxing Day of 2005. It was actually the first time I ever went to a store early to try and get a deal—it was on sale at CompuSmart. They were only letting a few people into the store at a time. I snagged my camera; I also got a free printer with mail-in rebate. (I almost forgot to send in the rebate, but that’s another story. The printer is an Epson Stylus CX3810, and it works wonderfully. Best free electronic device I‘ve ever gotten.)

After two years, my Fujifilm FinePix A350 is old. It’s 5.2 megapixels, which is respectable, and it still works. The only major problem is that the shutter doesn’t fully open when you turn it on—you have to turn it off and on until it extends completely on the third or fifth or tenth try. This is only a minor inconvenience, but it’s a good excuse to upgrade.

I haven’t been intentionally shopping for a digital camera, as I planned to take my time. However, I saw one for sale in a Future Shop flyer. Very tempting. A web search turned up a few more possibilities. After consulting with my friends Neil and Nicola, both of whom know more about photography than I do, I decided that the camera on sale would work best for me. A couple of clicks later, and I had ordered a FujiFilm A900 for under $200. Nine megapixels, 4x optical zoom, sweet sized LCD screen with lots of nifty options. If that wasn’t good enough, Future Shop was giving away free 2 GB SD memory cards with every online camera purchase. I can now take 897 photos at a time.

So hopefully I’ll put up some more photos from time to time. Once I redesign my site I want to work on integrating my Flickr page into it.

Yesterday I learned a lesson that I already knew. One should not be late in replying to requests from the people giving one a mail-in rebate. They sent me a letter, oh, two weeks ago, kindly informing me that I had left out the UPC from the digital camera and printer (the items which have the rebates).

I was supposed to ensure that they received these no later than February 14, 2006. /me looks at calendar. Whoops.

Yeah, I was inexcusably lazy and didn’t get around to it in time. Which means that this “free” printer actually cost me money. It’s still a good printer; I just didn’t intend to actually buy it.

That was my life lesson for yesterday. Oh, I knew that I should be responsible before that. It just really doesn’t sink in until one has to pay for the printer.

Okay, eh, so you know that digital camera I talked about purchasing? Well, I bought it!

I woke up at 7 AM to go to CompuSmart for 8, when it opened. There were already many people waiting in the small entrance chamber outside the store. I felt like I was really participating in a “Christmas vulture extravaganza”. We got in, found the camera, and there it was! I got a 256 MB memory card to augment the 16 MB that came with it, and my dad snagged some discount CD-Rs and extra AA batteries. Oh, and the camera comes with a free Epson printer (after that insidious mail-in rebate).

I lack an AC adapter so I’ll need to buy one when I can find it.