Someone Get This Woman a New Camera!

Waaaaay back in the day when I was pregnant with Matt, my sister in law, Nicole (I know, weird, right?) gifted me with a Polaroid digital camera at my baby shower (a500 if you're technical and that means anything to you).  I thought it was the coolest freakin' thing in the world!  I'd never had a digital camera before.  Yes, in 2006 I was still going to get film developed and praying that the shots weren't blurry, too dark, washed out, or otherwise retarded.  Usually from a disposable camera. 

A flip open display helped take this picture

I was beyond excited to get this camera.  It was nothing too fancy.  You could zoom in and out, set the timer.  The display flipped open, which was awesome for me, because I take a lot of pictures of myself (no none else will).  There were three or four flash settings, including auto and off.  Timer!  Extra awesome when paired the the flip out display.  Basically, it served my needs, I was excited to have it, and I considered Nicole both generous and thoughtful.  I was a great baby shower gift! 

Close ups weren't great, but hey! Damn, look at those eyes!!

It didn't take perfect pictures every time, but I could *see* that the picture wasn't perfect... and take another and another and another until I got what I wanted.  More often than not I ended up with great pictures and was extremely pleased with myself.  And for it not having any settings (indoor, sunlight, action, whatever, whatever) it took plenty of great shots on the first try, even into the toddler years. 

At some point in those three years that we lived in sunny FL I started having a problem.  Annoyingly, the date wouldn't save.  Because the date wouldn't save and I was too lazy to reset it *every* time I turned the camera on, the pictures weren't saved on the memory card in chronological order.  SUCKED!  If I wanted to check out the  pictures I took that day, I'd also have to click through every other picture on the camera, from Christmas to the beach.

Luckily for us, a new, better camera fell into our laps.  At the time, Eric was working overnight at the Kangaroo.  If you don't know what that is, consider  yourself lucky!  It's like a Wawa.  Wait, what?  You don't know what a Wawa is, either?  Ok, convenience store/gas station.  Anyway, he was working overnights and there were all kinds of shady characters going in and out.  One night some kid (late teens, early twenties kid) offered to sell Eric his camera for 20 bucks, because he really needed the gas money.  It didn't have a case, or instructions, or a battery charger, or a USB cord or... basically it was a camera with an empty memory card and one battery.  Can we say "stolen!"    That was my first guess, but Eric jumped all over that opportunity and brought it home. 

A much nicer close up

It was an Olympus Stylus 820.  HyperCrystal LCD, 5x optical zoom. 8 megapixels... I don't know what any of this crap means, I'm just reading it off of the camera!  Basically, it was a much better camera than the Polaroid.  There were all kinds of functions: indoor, behind glass, fireworks, sunset, candle light, beach/snow, sport... I could go on.  It took videos, could super-zoom in on stuff, yes, had a timer!  The only thing the Polaroid had on this baby was the flip out screen.  You could crop pictures right there on the camera, instead of spending an hour fixing them at those touch screens at the drug store.  I loved it.  We eventually got all the extras for it.  Best $20 Eric ever spent.  Really.

Unfortunately, one of the extra batteries we bought... somehow became swollen.  I don't know what happened, but it wouldn't fit back in the camera, and we got rid of it.  I wasn't too too upset about it until last week, when I came home from work and noticed that the charger that I put the battery in was unplugged and on the table.  Not where I left it.  And the battery was nowhere to be found.

Crappy shot

So now I'm back to the Polaroid.  The pictures in my last few posts have been from it.  They aren't *bad* but they aren't great.  They aren't what I'm used to.  I wouldn't have gotten a shot like this one, for example.  Plus, I now remember that the Polaroid eats up double As faster than a cheetah can run.  Yes, I am completely aware that the comparison makes NO sense.  Neither does the rate I'm now going through batteries!

I need a new camera!  The simple solution would be to either find the battery or buy a new one, but the door where the battery goes is broken anyway, and it has a tendency to pop open and turn the camera off, which is frustrating.  So I think it's time for a new one.  I even entered a giveaway for a Canon Powershot last week.  I didn't win.  It was the only time I was ever truly upset that I didn't win a giveaway.  I don't know when we'll be able to afford a new camera, which is kind of ironic because two Christmases ago we bought one for my mother in law.

I will happily take donations while I save up, little by little.  Until then, sorry for the less than stellar photos.