The tale of two cameras

Today I would like to pay tribute to my dear Kodak CX4200 digital camera. I bought this camera about 3 years ago and it had served me well through the years and captured many momentous and memorable moments in my life.



The Kodak CX4200 is only my second camera ever. My first one was also a Kodak digital camera which I forget the model number. But it was only 1.2 mega pixel then and no video recording. I dropped that camera several times and eventually it broke beyond repair.



The CX4200 is slightly better than my first camera with 2.0 mega pixel and 30 seconds of Quicktime Movie video recording. I know it's pathetic by today's standard but it was okaylah for a 400 ringgit camera. As long as you stood still while taking a picture you should get a decent blurry-free photo. For every 10 pictures I took, 5 or 6 of them will be blurry. And the video captured was rather grainy plus you had to restart every 30 seconds because it got a rather limited memory to record longer video clips. Forget about taking pictures at night (without flash) cause the result would be some dark and indiscernible photos. This camera is rather bulky too and it'll make a noticeable bulge when you slip it in your pocket.

Nevertheless the CX4200 camera had captured many memorable and important occasions in my life such as Adam's birth and 2 years photos of him growing up and several family member's weddings. And about a year ago I accidentally dropped this camera and I've been having problems with the battery compartment ever since. I get this battery low signal all the time even when I load a brand new battery. It is still usable though if I shake it vigorously several time.

Anyway the point of this story is, I decided to reward myself a brand new camera on Tuesday. I've been thinking of getting a Sony CyberShot but then changed my mind at the last minute. You can find quite a number of really affordable digital cameras at Low Yat Plaza nowadays. The Sony CyberShot I've been looking at is under 500 ringgit but the memory stick is sold separately so I had to fork out another hundred bucks for it.

Nikon Coolpix L100 for RM520

That's why I settled for a Nikon Coolpix L10 camera in the end. It's 5.0 mega pixel with 3x Nikkor-zoom lens with a focal range of 37.5-112.5mm (35mm equivalent). This camera offers high light sensitivity up to ISO 800, meaning you can take great-looking pictures at night or in low light conditions. Such sensitivity also makes it possible to capture fast-moving subjects with greater sharpness. Oh and the photos are up to 2560x1920 in size.



Additionally this lightweight camera boasts a huge 2.0 inches LCD screen and several useful features like Face-priority AF that automatically detects and achieves sharp focus on people's faces wherever they are in the frame, In-Camera Red-Eye Fix that can automatically overcome the red-eye effect sometimes caused by flash, and Nikon's D-Lighting that can rescue underexposed images or shots taken with too much backlight.

Finally I can take pictures at night, yay!

It also got a choice of 16 scenes modes such as night portrait, landscape sunset/dawn, fireworks show and close up. Finally I got a camera with a macro mode that works up to 15 cm length.



The video capture is great too (640 at 30 frame per second with sound) and the movie clip is continuous, limited only by the size of the SD card (which I got 1GB free). Ooh I can't wait to create one of those music videos again.

But as for now the only picture I could take of Adam is when he asleep cause he'll be kicking and screaming to play with this camera whenever he sees it. Don't get me wrong but when Adam plays with my stuff he likes to toss them around and I still love my kid you know so I'd rather play it safe before I strangle him or something ha ha!



After taking approximately 2168 photos for me it's about time you go into retirement. So goodbye CX4200, you've been a great service to the family and for that I'm gonna reward you with Order of Merlin 3rd Class. Maybe I'll let Adam play with you instead after this.

2 comments:

  1. No lah, I bet yours is much better kan? 7 mega pixel and all.

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