New camera!

Here's the trusty camera that I've been using for 2 years or so. It gives me really nice photos for a camera of its class, but some minor irritations bug me. Firstly, it's pretty noisy at higher ISO values. In addition, automatic flash exposure is a little wonky so I find myself using Manual mode alot, just so I can choose the desired amount of flash.

But the real reason why I'm buying a new camera, is, well, mom and dad want another one. So I'm passing this Canon A520 to them, and then I'll get a newer one!





Ang Mo Kio hub's insanely crowded in weekdays, and it's filled with idiots who can't vacate the escalator landings, thus often causing near-accidents where people have nowhere to step on when they reach the end of the escalator! Ouch.



Went to MS Color in AMK Hub (they used to be in AMK central nearer the MRT). They have pretty good prices there (significantly below the manufacturer's recommended retail price) and so I'm back here after buying the A520 from the same place.

Decided on another Canon from the same series, an A710, which has a whopping 6x zooom and 7 megapixel resolution. And image stabilisation woot! It lets you shoot better in low light by allowing you to use longer shutter speeds without having the whole photo blur over. Hmmm I might just be biased towards Canon, but it's one of the 2 brands with a decent implementation of optical image stabilisation, and I don't like how Panasonic Lumixes handle skin tones.



It has a humped top, to accommodate for the larger lens. Not such elegant design, it looks as if they just took the casing from the other cameras and made the top part humped to fit in the lens. The same way a high end BMW sported a weird-looking hump on the hood to fit the huge engine. Inelegant.

They no longer sold the Canon Powershot camera pouch which I had liked for its sturdy belt loop and compactness, and the third party ones they sold were a little clunky. Eek. Now I gotta shop around for a pouch.

I like MS Color. Good prices, good service.

Filled up 5 lucky draw forms (ouch, my poor hands) and submitted them, before heading to Harbourfront to collect the freebies from buying the camera! Was originally planning to pop by NTUC to grab some groceries, but well, the place is a warzone with full of nasty people pushing and shoving.





The freebies were 1. a GP NiMH charger with 4 2300mAh batteries which I didn't really care for, since I have an even better charger and enough batteries at home and 2. a 2GB SD card woot!

Canon provided a 16MB MMC card with my A520 2 years back, which stored all of 8 photos at high quality using that camera. (though they had a 128MB SD card as a freebie too.)

Knowing how absurd it is, Canon decided to change things. Now it's a 16MB SD card, which holds all of 5 photos using a 7 megapixel A710. Gee, why waste all that plastic making these memory cards no one ever uses?

Walked around Vivocity looking for a suitable camera pouch and arrghlifesuckswhydoestheworldhatemeeveryonecantstandme I couldn't find anything I liked.



Screw it, I'm getting ANOTHER of the same casing. Went to that Canon showroom place, and after asking at the counter and all, I got the casing. It's originally meant for the A520 but hey, it fits the A710 snugly. A little too snugly perhaps, so I can no longer squeeze in extra AA batteries in the same pouch.



The same pouch!



The thing about Canon cameras with image stabilisation is, switch it to panning mode, and you can get really beautiful panning shots. A pity this poor Honda Civic got its rear chopped off, or it'd be a beautiful shot. Richie thinks it's photoshopped! But all I did was to run it through the resize/sharpen routine all the photos on this blog get.



Huge LCD display. I like. Though it's frustrating how the button layout is similar (but yet different) enough to my old camera's to confuse my poor thumbs. And it now has an option to grey out the top and bottom, so you can see which parts would not be printed when you use a 3:2 paper format like the traditional 4R.



And guess what. They fixed the problem with iffy flash exposure. Not to mention I can choose flash exposure compensation in modes other than Manual now. Yay! It makes me look good!