The Digital World

For a long time I was reluctant to purchase a digital camera. I had grown up using film and had spent enough time developing my own negatives and printing my own enlargements that I felt an attachment to that world. In addition, I became proficient with higher end SLR equipment, whose digital counterparts I still can't afford (though the prices are coming down dramatically). What swayed me was the realization that I ended up with rather few pictures of my college experience, because it was just too much effort to carry around a big SLR and then have the negatives developed and prints made. What I really needed was a camera that could go with me anywhere, and would be as hassle-free as pretty much everything else in my uber-digitized world. I shopped around for digital cameras, went to Circuit City to see how they all felt in my rather large hands, and became very fond of Canon's Digital ELPH series. If I was seeking to print the pictures, I would have gone for the 3 or 4 megapixel versions. As I really only wanted a camera for email/internet purposes, the 2 megapixel S200 fit the bill, and the order went through to Amazon.

Now that it's been through its first vacation, I can say I am quite satisifed. The images aren't razor sharp at their original 1600x1200 resolution, but resizing them to 800x600 leaves a very clear image at an ideal size for email. I really enjoyed the standard benefits of a digital camera, namely that we immediately knew whether the photo came out well (and could delete and retake the shot if not) and were able to take several hundred pictures to come out with the 50 or so that really illustrate our experience (and already have them, faster and cheaper than one-hour prints). I will say, however, that I think the niftiest feature of the camera is its panorama feature. This allows you to take a series of photographs (up to 360 degrees), each time showing in the LCD the edge of the previous photo (so that you know where to line up the next shot). When you get home, the included software helps you to "stitch" the individual photos together. The results are pretty impressive I think, and certainly far beyond anything I could do manually.