My camera: an unchanging classic?

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My camera: an unchanging classic? Saturday August 18

Around six years ago, Todd introduced me to a web page of one of The Coolest People You Will Probably Never Meet. His name is Pete, and he is funnier, smarter, better-looking, has more Game, and, generally, is cooler than Mark or Todd would ever be. At least, that was Todd and I's consensus at the time.

One of Pete's brilliances was his eye for picture composition. He sang the praises, though, not of his talented eye, but of his trusty Canon PowerShot, one of the sleekest digital cameras on the market in 2001.

So, when Todd and I got our first digital cameras, we did what any right-minded person would do: we emulated the success we had seen on Pete's blog. We both owned Canon PowerShots. I had two versions, as I was lucky enough to get the Best Buy warranty plan, so when one little plastic tab broke on my camera, thereby ceasing its operation, I just got a new one, and I traded up models. Never mind the fact that the camera was fixable, and operable with well-applied Scotch Tape.

My PowerShot SD110 lasted for years: it lived in my bag with my keys, my wallet, and many other items that had blemished its surface, but the optics have been good enough, and I like to think it's taken some damn good pictures over the years.

Recently, though, I've just felt that it's not quite up to snuff. 3.2 megapixel seems like nothing when I hear about today's cameras at 8.2 or more. Many of the models in Japan have a function that auto-corrects "blur" from your hand when you don't hold still and take a picture without a flash (this happens to me pretty often).

What did it for me, though, was the trip to the Great Wall of China.

I don't think many people know, but I will be flying to China in two weeks for a trip to a tourist-secluded portion of The Biggest Stone Fence Which Is Not Visible From Space. I don't know when the next time I'll have such an opportunity is, so I decided it might be just about time to get a new camera.

Today, I went to the Shinjuku Yodobashi Camera and bought myself the Canon IXY, which is really just the same thing as the PowerShot, but in Japanese marketing, this is what it's called.

What I was surprised about, though, is that while the megapixel difference is quite large, if you scale down the resolution of my new camera to the highest resolution of the old camera and take the exact same picture, they are essentially the same quality. This was a little disappointing, having just spent 30,000 yen (=USD $250) on the device. Did I just buy a bigger LCD screen, a new case, and the same old optics?

That said, the Canon PowerShot is an unchanging classic. Just ask Pete.