Gear Envy

After dilly-dallying for the longest time, I finally bought an advanced digital camera last November on installment. It helped big time that there's zero interest on the payments. It is a Canon PowerShot S3 IS. It has lots of features I haven't fully explored yet. I'm still doing the monthly installments when just recently, the S5 IS was announced. So what's a guy to do? Fall into gear envy, of course. The new model now has a flash hot shoe, just as I am feeling the limits of my camera's built-in flash. The S5 has a 3-inch LCD screen against my camera's 2.5-incher. You get the idea.

I have to restrain myself and be reasonable, just like how grown ups deal with situations like this. It was to be expected. New models come out every month. I remember the first camera I bought. It was another Canon, the original Elph/IXUS. The APS film format is coming out strong then and it seemed promising. I was not enjoying filing 35mm negatives and thought APS will help me get organized. Well, you can judge its success by the number of people who still remember what APS is.

Anyway, when I bought my Canon Elph, it was so new and chic and fashionable some Hollywood celebrities were being caught in public clutching or using one of their own. I had my own short period of fame while taking shots and people would get amazed at how small and beautiful it was. I never got my celebrity status though. LOL

After a few weeks, the Canon Elph 370Z/IXUS Z70 came out. It had a longer zoom. The pop-out flash looked sturdier. Needless to say, I had gear envy.

It was not exactly a happy ending with my Canon Elph. I definitely had some fun with it, not to mention some memorable shots. I still have it but now, it doesn't have a lens cover. It was malfunctioning and replacing it meant replacing the entire lens assembly. Losing the retractable lens cover was more practical. I would be hard pressed to find film for it now and I always hated the weakling CR2 battery it used. Thank goodness for digital.