Today I bought my new digital camera, a Canon IXUS V. My criteria were that it had to be ultra-compact (fit in a mobile phone pocket), 1600×1200, CompactFlash and have WIA drivers. I chose one model up from this, the IXUS 300, purely because it has a 3x optical zoom where the IXUS V has only 2x. The 300 is bigger and a few hundred dollars more expensive. I know that there will be times when I will regret the zoom, but hey – I will have CONTENT baby!
A big problem with buying portable electronics: you have to charge the batteries before you can play. It happens with phones, it happens with CE devices, it happens with cameras. You shell out the $$$ and then you have to wait. The manual said 130 minutes to a full charge (I looked after the battery was charging) but I swear it was more like 134. Watching the red light (manual: orange), closing my eyes and wishing it would be green when I opened them.
It was worth the wait, as I’m sure you will agree. My flat is a little boring for test photos, especially at night, so I used the video feature of the camera. Yes, you read correctly: a still camera smaller than a Marlboro Lights 20s pack is also a video camera. Of course the video is crap, but since I hadn’t allowed it to sway my purchasing decision, it is ‘free’. Behold the provocative ‘Laundry’ series. The video won’t exactly stream, my backchannel is a touch, um, “limited”, but it is not worth the download anyway. Maybe the media might accidentally move to an E1.
***Note to PIT Team: you imagined the above line. And backchannel is free.