Monday, October 02, 2006

Death of a Camera

This weekend, while in New Hampshire, my camera has delved deeper into damage. It can now be declared, as in the movie Back to the Future Part III, past the "Windmill".

Back in August, while Renee and I went to Syracuse for The Great North Adventure, I had dropped my camera on our way out of the hotel room. No more than a minute later, not thinking anything of dropping it, I flipped it on and saw nothing but a white wall of imagery on the LCD. After that, I assumed the camera was broken. Finished. Beyond repair.

On the way home that day, we stopped at a Ritz Camera store for some B-grade answers inquiring about possible repair costs. Turns out the camera would cost, and you'll like this Sony-sanctioned robbery, almost the price of a new camera to repair at around $250 according to Ritz repair cost catalog. The DSC-T7, is, also one of the few Sony digital cameras which costs far above the quality it delievers while costing almost doubled the repair costs of other Sony cameras. Distraught, as if I had lost a member of the family I believed there was no hope. When I got home, I decided to take it inside and fool with it some. After smaking it around, the camera took a radical turn.

It magically operated as if the last half of the day never happened. It was like a black cat floating in blue sky.

Days and weeks pass and just from recreational use I'm just noticing little things that just don't operate properly. Just this weekend, at Target, the camera is dropped yet again (after a few times before it). It's done. Now, the camera is playing a wildcard game and if you tilt it a certain way, it goes all pyscho-delic on you. You can still manage to squeeze out a perfectly fine image, but the camera is certifiably damaged.


A neo-"psycho"-delic Renee produced by my now damaged DSC-T7.


After some shaking, the image is clear; nonetheless unpredictable.

While the camera has certainly served me well through thousands of mixed bag of pictures, I've read too much into Sony's steeply-priced electronics apart from my personal history with mediocre Sony quality. I won't blame Sony for my dropping my camera numerous times, and remarkably, surviving quite well through those many times, but I think it's time to look elsewhere.

I'm on the path to getting a new camera, decidedly, moving to the realm of Canon and their acclaimed products. I've done plenty of research and I'm pretty set on getting a Canon Powershot SD600.

Do you know the exact problem with the wronged image here? If you do, lay down a comment and maybe you'll get a Watermelon Blow Pop.