Last year my brother bought me a Nikon Coolpix 885 Digital Camera for Christmas. I know, what a great brother. It was my pride and joy for only a few weeks. It was stolen in January when a drug addict climbed up to our balcony and broke in to steal it, my mobile phone and the keys for my car. The car was found the next day, abandoned along with an empty syringe packet and needle swab. Unfortunately Kilee and I hadn’t insured the apartment and I couldn’t claim the loss.
Last night I finally replaced it. After several hours research on the net – many thanks to dpreview.com – I narrowed the list to the Canon PowerShot S30 or S40.
Both cameras are small, robust, and feature a good range of manual functions. In fact more manual functions that my old Nikon. The only difference between the two is the S40′s 4 million pixels compared to the S30′s 3.2, the S30 has an extra ISO setting (800), and the greater price of the S40. On closer inspection it looks like the battery life differs between them, and due to the greater image size the S40 stores less in a Flash Card.
I’m a gadget junky, and often base my decisions on price. The higher the price, the more likely I am to buy it. That’s why I surprised myself when I purchased the S30. I justified the lack of pixels because I am unlikely to print many photos that require the quality. A standard 6″x4″ only requires two million pixels. Potentially cropping images and zooming would benefit from the extra million, but not for an extra $AU400. After all, it will need replacing in a couple of years.
A great feature of the Canon range of digitals is the PhotoStitch mode. The ability to take up to 26 photos and then stitch them together to form a larger photo. Fantastic for panoramic shots or where the object is larger than a single frame will do it justice. So, using the function, here is the view of the beautiful city of Perth from my apartment’s balcony.
