Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
Remember how last year I bought a new camera? Well, the Sony CyberShot DCS-U20 sure was cute, but guess what: photo quality pretty much sucked. Day photos have disappointing colors, and night shots are practically monochromatic they were so blown out. Don’t get me started on the red eye — even the seizure-inducing red eye reducing mode gives people glowing demon lenses. The camera can’t take close up shots, and the lag time between pressing the shutter button an the picture actually being taken is interminable. I have a lot of pictures of people turning their heads. The videos are tiny, short, silent, and the lowest quality I’ve seen — worse than a 5 year old webcam. In short: the CyberShot DCS-U20 is fine for snapshots, but not real pictures. It was an ill-advised purchase, one I made in part because I had a friend who was working at Sony who got me a deal…but a discounted piece of shit is still a piece of shit.
I’ve been considering gettng a new camera for several months, and thought about buying myself one for my birthday. But I held off — it’s never really the right time to drop a chunk of change like that. But with an impending three week trip to France coming up in a couple months, I decided I needed to take the plunge.
Meet my new camera. It should be arriving in a couple days.

Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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Tumbleweed
July 14th, 2004 at 2:37 pm
You’ve obviously done your homework - great camera choice; I’m quite envious! I’m seen some truly amazing photographs out of that little camera.
Ariel
July 14th, 2004 at 3:04 pm
I must give credit where it’s due: Vincent helped me select the camera. Thanks, Vincent!
xaotica
July 14th, 2004 at 9:11 pm
i love my canon to death! i think you’ll be happy with her
Fenix
July 14th, 2004 at 11:07 pm
I have it too, it’s a pretty nifty camera. It’s a steal at that price, you practically have a Canon G3 just in a smaller package.