Actually, I did want what I haven't got

My HP Photosmart 735 has pointed and shot its last today, after one ultimate electronics-rattling spill after three years of same, and it was clear to me that I needed to pick up a replacement digital camera for work. It's all part of that wave of stuff breaking down recently, I think.

The main things I wanted were a macro mode for taking close-up pictures of repairs, SD card compatibility, a good size display for previewing pictures. I didn't care about having lots of pixels, since I spend most of my time taking pictures at the lowest resolution anyway, and since I haven't gotten into shooting video or recording audio clips, I didn't care about any of those other multimedia functions. Above all, I wanted something which was rugged, since I carry it into the field every day in my camera bag and don't want to have to worry about the hard knocks it will take now and then. Oh, and I didn't want to spend more than $200 US.

Of course, there really is no such camera out there, as far as I can tell. On that next-to-last qualification, I am wondering why they don't make leather cases (not bags) that protect the corners and backs of the camera while still making it possible to take a shot just by unsnapping a couple of snaps, the way the old SLR cases used to be. I still have my old Nikon film camera from twenty years ago and more, and the body without a scratch because of its case, and it seems like some company like Rhinoskin should be impossible to do the same thing for the low-end digital cameras too. Or maybe one of those companies that make nose bras.

At the office supplies store nearest to my house I picked up a Kodak camera with twice as many pixels as I strictly need. It even fit under the last of my criteria, and they threw in a 512MB SD card as part of the deal. I can store 3437 pictures at the lowest resolution setting without changing out the card, which would probably take me years. I'm still getting used to the different auto-focus behavior of this camera. You can check out a picture of myself I took to try it out.