This is an overdue post, which should have been posted more than a month ago with the other new toy that i bought at about the same time.

So i decided that i should at lease clear this post before the end of the year, and i will have to tell the story from the very beginning.

I can't remember the exact day but it should be around the beginning of the year, the battery charger of my camera (Nikon Coolpix S700) died off. I then went to Sim Lim Square and wanted to buy a new charger. I had actually wanted to buy the original Nikon charger but then somehow was convinced by the storekeeper that the original one was too expensive and i could get a generic brand multi-charger at a much cheaper price.

And so i bought it, but the charger only worked for about a month or so before it stopped working - it would charge the battery for only less than 10 minutes and the indicator would then turn green and stopped charging. This means that the battery could only be charged a little bit and not fully charged at all, and it wouldn't even sustain my camera for more than 5 minutes.

(Lesson learnt: always get the original accessories for the equipment even though it is more expensive, and do not believe in the crap of those sales people)

I was very fed-up, for i've wasted money in getting a charger that was useless, and the worst part was that this happened during the time i was going to the USA. So my entire trip was rather pathetic. I gotta switch off the camera after taking one picture so that the battery can "rest" for a while to gain back some charge and then i could switch it back on to take one picture again. Even this won't last me for a few hours, and for most of the trips, i gotta take pictures with my two mobile phones (the iPhone and Samsung) instead. I was really pissed about it, as it was a rare chance to have business trips to the USA and yet i did not have a decent camera for the trip.

After i returned from the trip, i decided that i would not get a new charger anymore. After all, the camera was a gift from YY and it held too much memories as well. It was time that i should get a new camera.

Being the queen of procrastination, naturally i would not get a new camera immediately. So for almost the entire year, i've been camera-less and using my iPhone to take pictures.

Finally, i got a new camera in November. It's a Canon PowerShot S95. For the people who know me, you should know very well that i belong to the Nikon camp because i used Nikon SLR back in my school days when i was with the Photographic Society. I would always get a Nikon when it comes to photography. This is actually my very first Canon camera. Frankly, Nikon is not very good in the compact camera range. I had insisted in getting Nikon compact previously simply because of being a fan of Nikon. This time round, i decided to explore other options for the compact camera that i wanna get (but i will still insist on Nikon when it comes to DSLR).

After some research, i saw that Panasonic LUMIX and Canon S95 are among the top reviews in the compact range. Little brother has a LUMIX and he persuaded me to get S95 instead because of the size - LUMIX is bigger and not pocketable. I thought that since i would be getting a DSLR eventually, then i should get a compact camera that is really portable and yet still produces images of good quality.

So then, S95 was the choice, which cost me RM1,400.

The purchase came with some freebie, one of which was the camera case. I did not really like it because of the old-fashioned look. Anyway, after getting the new toy, i tried it out by snapping some random pictures here and there (and of course, the pictures i posted on my blog since i got the camera were all taken with this camera as well).

Trying out the different shooting modes on the camera case (because i had nothing else to shoot): Macro shot of dried flowers: Night landscape of the flats opposite where i stay: And some random pictures i took in the office:

Souvenirs from overseas A sad-looking little doggie sitting on top of my cubicle Microsoft calculator Google Lego blocks on the cubicle of our IT department Plants on my colleague's desk A Google yo-yo So far, i am very pleased with the images that this camera produces, but till now, i'm still unfamiliar with the many functions of this camera, so i'm using the Auto mode most of the time.

I will have to play around with it more to unleash its potential, even though it is just a compact camera.

Labels: toy

| Cogitated @ 4:37 am by PinPin 彬彬 | haha, queen of procrastination. don't call yourself like that lah. anyway, when it comes to battery and charger, always try to get the original or authorized ones for safety reason. batteries are considered explosive items and there are many stories of alternative batteries and charger caused the gadgets to explode (and fire in the house). yet the price for the original accessories is so unreasonable too. darn. handphones/PDA and most items with batteries < 5V usually can be charged using USB when connected to PC, but i don't know about compact cameras - ah, mine's cannot though but i'm not using nikon and it's quite an old camera. whatever it is, it's nice that you get a new camera indeed. it's just 2 months old and you have snapped close to 1000 photos (can tell from the photos filename img????), gosh, you're sure an avid photographer :).

hmm, and i thought google and microsoft are loggerheads. Anonymous, at 3/1/11 5:42 am

Haha! did I told u that my Nikon charger also spoilt not long after urs? I wanted to buy a Original too, but Nikon don't have stock, so after waiting for a few months, I was forced to buy a multi-charger too. So far, it's functioning well, and I haven't pay my cousin yet. (initially he let me use while waiting for the original to reach, so I suspect he actually know the stock will never arrive, so I'll be forced to buy "pirated" one in the end)
However, this year I also plan to buy myself quite a no of "toys" as a reward of hardwork. Will need your advice then.
Enjoy your toy.
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