Showing posts with label Camera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Camera. Show all posts

Thursday, April 18, 2019

A Stroke Of Good Luck

My camera sticks the lens out when I turn it on.  I suppose all digital ones do.  But 2 weeks ago, just as it was shutting off and the lens going back flush, I stood up an leaned on it.  Bizarre accident.  Since then, it goes halfway in and stutters and clicks, so I have to manually push it closed. 

Today, it suddenly went back to normal!  Sometimes random events work in my favor...

Sunday, November 20, 2016

New Camera

My current camera has been acting oddly.  There seems to be a waterspot "sometimes" near the center of photos, but mostly, it has been showing strange wavy shadows around the edges of pictures.  I can usually do some "straightening" (which in this case means "unstraightening") and/or cropping to eliminate most of them.  But it was obvious I needed a new camera.

So I went to Consumer Reports website to check the recommended point and click cameras.  The cameras are getting expensive $400 and over-featured.  I don't need an 83X zoom lens or 16MB pictures (I resize them all down to 100-250 KB for the blog or emails anyway).  And when I went to Amazon, people didn't like them!  The 1 star ratings were up around 12% and that's getting pretty high.

So it occurred to me that I had liked my previous camera pretty well.  It took fine pictures, the menu was easily to navigate and I liked the non-pop-up flash.  Its just that I left it outside one night and it rained.  So I looked for it refurbished.  Those got REALLY bad ratings!  But I found a dealer (through Amazon) who had new unopened ones.

It arrived yesterday, the battery was charged this morning, and I took a few pictures.  Just got done processing them and they look fine.   Its a Canon Powershot ELPH  130 IS.

Hurray!


Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Camera Troubles

A little over a week ago, Iza managed to knock my camera off a shelf and down the stairs  (SEE HERE).  It just wasn't working right when it worked at all.  I did some research and decided on a replacement.  The order confirmation came back with a delivery date of Feb 25-March 12, so I was delighted that it arrived yesterday.

Today, I opened the box to charge the battery, read the feature instructions, load the software, etc.  Oddly, I couldn't get the battery to fit in the charger.  Nor would it fit in the camera.  Its a special Li/Ion battery with a rectangular shape.  Checking the manual, I noticed that the required battery had a different model number than the battery in the box.

I called the retailer.  First, they said Canon only used one model  battery (NB-90).  Since I was holding an NB-5L and the manual listed an NB-4L, I knew THAT was wrong!  I finally convinced them that there was more than one battery type, and they checked.  Then they said they would be happy to send me the correct battery at no charge (gee, how kind of them).  And said "thank you for calling".

WHOA!  They didn't have my name, address, or order number, so I yelled "don't hang up"!  They (reluctantly it seemed) let me give them the order number and promised to ship the correct battery tomorrow and send an email confirmation.

Why do I have the feeling they won't...  I mean, they tried to get me off the phone without any idea where to send a new battery!  I fear I will have to return the whole package and demand a refund.  And then order a new camera.  And apparently there really aren't any more of this model available because there is a new version out (with all kinds of features I actively do not want (like a touch screen).

I already had crossed off the other cameras on the Consumer Reports list for various reasons, so I don't know what I would choose.

I sure hope they send me that replacement battery!

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Separate news...  A brother/sister littermate pair of cats lost their Bein suddenly and need a home.  They are in NJ right now awaiting their fate...  We are sure SOME of our readers have room for 2 sweet cats or may want to nicely domesticated ones as their first cats.  Please leave us a comment if you can help.


Sunday, February 17, 2013

Iza Strikes Again!

Iza is very adept at catching tossed toys.  It is nearly impossible to hand-fake her.  At the same time, she is amazingly clumsy.  If she jumps up onto the table, she lands with the grace of a bag of sand.

So it should have been no surprise to me when she went to go from the tabletop to the half wall along the staircase.  And managed to almost go over the edge.  She didn't, but she managed to send my camera over the edge instead.  Eight feet down onto the hard wood...

When I checked it, the lens made a "geary" sound as it came out or back in.  I took a couple pictures and it seemed to work.  Then I realized that the case was slightly separated.  Pressing it firmly seemed to put it back together.  So I used it as usual (trying not to wince every time the lens made noise).

Then the lens refused to come out and there was a message about restarting the camera.  A few times of that not working I figured the camera was dead.  But there were pictures in the camera and it DID allow me to download them.  Whew!

Looking at them in iPhoto, the most recent ones (aka "after the fall") all looked a bit weird.  They were all a bit blurry.  OK, some didn't surprise me, since they were action shots of the cats (and it never has been very good at those).  But most were normal still shots.  I assume the image stabilization has been damaged.

THEN I realized that ALL the recent pictures were rotated 90 degrees!  The iPhoto software will rotate pictures, but only counter-clockwise, and NATURALLY, the camera had rotated them in that direction.  So I had to manually rotate about 50 pictures 3 times each.  And they were all a bit blurred anyway.

OK, I have to get a new camera...  I looked up subcompacts in Consumer Reports.  Quite frankly, even subcompacts are getting too fancy!  All I want is a fairly simple point and click, but one that does the point and click very well, has a better than average image stabilizer, takes good flash pictures, and has a rapid "next-shot" time (a real weakness with the current one).

I specifically didn't want top-quality video capability, a touch screen, and 20 different exposure settings, etc.  I decided on a Canon  Powershot Elph 310 HS and went to amazon.com to read more about it.  It uses an Li-Ion battery, and no matter how much I searched around, I could not find anyplace that said it was rechargable!  The replacement batteries cost $10 and I sure wasn't going to keep putting a new one in every 200 shots! 

I gave up for the night and looked again today.  I finally found that there is a battery charger included with the camera, so I went back to amazon to order it.  Would you believe the price went up $40 overnight?  Apparently, there is a newer version coming out next week (with things I do not want) and the few places that had any of the 310 version left all jacked up the price.

I looked at the other models on the Consumer Reports list, but one had a poor optical zoom, another had a touch screen, another had good video but average flash stills, etc.

I grumbled a while and ordered the 310...

Looking Up

 While I was outside with The Mews, I laid back and looked up.  I thought the tree branches and the clouds were kind of nice. Nothing import...