toys! new canon sd450 compact digital camera

[darxus]

It is the height and width of a credit card, 2.2cm thick, and takes 2592x1944 (5mp) pictures. Very sexy.

As a result, I should probably sell my Xacti C5 compact video camera, and find a way to trade my Sony Ericsson S710a cellphone for a black Motorola Razr.

Canon s200 (still)
Maybe 4 years ago I bought a Canon s200. I loved it, wore it every day (in a belt pouch). Someone was interested in buying a used one since they were impressed with how mine worked. I took the opportunity to upgrade.

Canon s45 (still)
I was initially thinking about staying in the same series, but decided to go with the larger s45 model instead to get more features. I never used the extra features, and I never carried it because it was too big, so it never got used. It got dropped the last time I moved and broke.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-C5 (video)
The lines between still and video cameras are blurring, and I felt a need to participate. The Xacti C5 is an incredible compact video camera - 640x480 @30fps for an hour on a 1gb sd card using MPEG4 (nice). It is also a good resolution still camera, but the quality of the stills has always bugged me, and I have done very little actual video recording.

To this day Canon's cameras use audio/video codecs that are agravatingly lame - "Movie: AVI (Image: Motion JPEG; Audio: WAVE (Monaural))". So they're just sticking a bunch of jpegs together and calling it a movie, and using an ancient bloated method of storing audio.

Sony Ericsson S710a (phone)
In september 2005 I noticed the existence of the new tinier camera size Canon put out, starting with the SD200. Very cute. But the resolution wasn't exciting. My 2 year Verizon contract ended and I wanted something more fun. I was torn between the Sony Ericsson S710a with the best camera in a phone, or getting a black Motorola Razr and the SD200. I got the S710a. 1280x960 is a respectable resolution, and the image quality is good - for a phone. But, it turns out, not enough to keep me happy as the only camera I regularly carry.

s450 (still)
I was in a Best Buy yesterday, and as always, I glanced at the still cameras on my way through. I saw the sd450. I noticed it was the same size as the teensy sd200. I looked it up, and got excited. Did a little research, and ordered it (I paid for fedex ground, I don't know why I got it the next day).

Comments

[feng-huang.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming that you meant that as, "I think your recommendation is suboptimal." In which case, you could very well be correct. I have a fondness for CF over SD for what is probably no rational reason. I immediately liked CF as a format when I heard that it had the same pin-out as IDE. It's physically a bit bigger, so it tends to be cheaper for the same capacity. The physical packaging also seems to be more durable -- it almost feels like I could crinkle an SD card with a strong sneeze. On the downside, the socket it plugs into needs to have delicate exposed pins (although design tends to dictate that they don't get damaged), and everything seems to be moving to SD. Try to short out a CF card on a spiral notebook, though. :-P

The battery life is probably due to it taking four batteries rather than two. I tend to carry around extra batteries with the camera anyway, so the difference wouldn't be that big of a deal to me. Even if it eats new sets of batteries at a quicker rate, it's only munching half as many at a time.

As a side note, your allowance that different people have different priorities is probably one of the more reasonable things I've witnessed you say. :-P

[darxus.livejournal.com]

I have no similar fondness for CF, I like the smallness that comes with SD. And I tend to never pull the card out of its device, so it's not exposed to physical damage. Cheapest 1gb CF on newegg is $49.50, cheapest 1gb SD is $44.95, so I would say the price difference is nolonger an issue.

It was a CF card that I shorted on a spiral notebook. In a socket in a live computer with no case, and I shorted it through the back side of the PCB. Same thing would have happend to SD. Not relevant. :P

I agree battery life isn't a significant issue.

I've noticed myself being more reasonable lately, and it has been distressing. nchanter recently consoled me with the sugggestion that this is due to the currently exceptional state of my sex life.

But since I think we're pretty much agreeing that there are no significant differences (with your preference for CF being irrational), then I still think the currently cheaper A520 (with more powerful zoom) is the better choice for pretty much anybody (within the constraint of $200).

[feng-huang.livejournal.com]

At this point, we own two items that take CF and two CF cards (256MB and 512MB). (I do have a Palm and a 16MB SD card.) It would be inconvenient to get something requiring new media, although I suppose it's almost inevitable, assuming that we replace/upgrade our current camera. (It's a Powershot A40, 2 megapixel.)