New Toy!
I just got a Sony DSC-P51 digital camera. There was a good writeup in the Times a few weeks ago on small cameras. This Sony isn’t that small — it’s considerably bigger than the crappy Umax maybe-it’ll-do-old-VGA camera that I had years ago. That Umax was credit card sized and a toy. The Sony has heft, and isn’t. It’s sort of my first digital camera, since I don’t count the Umax for anything.
The main attraction was actually the Memory Stick storage format. I can swap MS with Grace’s Clie, and my brother has an MS-based camera, too, so we have spare sticks lying around. The batteries are also standard AA NiMH, so I can pick up extras at Radio Shack. In a pinch, alkalines can be used, but I think they throw off the battery meter on the camera. Lastly, the movie mode isn’t restricted to 30-second clips, but will run until the available storage is exhausted. Since I sold my camcorder to the dojo (really, it’s only been used to record jujitsu tests anyway), this is a nice feature to have.
Here’s a useful, how to do things review of the camera. I’ll probably look at this a few times, since I won’t carry the instructions around with me everywhere.
I also should put in a b2 hack for thumbnails, since I’ll be doing more photo uploads. Prior to this, it’s been shoot-with-SLR-then-scan. A bit slow, but I like my Nikon.
Oh, last note about these digital cameras and such things as ISO, f-stop and shutter speed: it’s a pain in the ass the configure these from menu, especially since I’m used to simply and quickly turning dials on my totally manual Nikon (I got it a few years ago, mainly to learn about such things as ISO, f-stop and shutter speed. I’ve upgraded the lens to a 50mm/f1.4 and it’s served me well, especially for low-light shots.). Oh, well: these consumer-grade digital cameras are fundamentally snapshot cameras anyway.