My new toy

"The best camera you can buy is the camera you
carry with you." — Per Nilsson.

Readers of my blog might have noticed that I've had a few more original photos and a video (gasp! The technology these days) on here lately.

That's because I  bought a new camera with Viktorija to replace the old one, which was packing it in after five years of good service.

After a bit of research and a bit more of bothering people I know who should know about cameras and such, I decided that this or its slightly better upgrade would be the best options.

This camera is cheap, light, small and has 12 megapixels (ignore the lying photo) and 5x optical zoom. For almost all intents and purposes, this camera is good enough. Sure it doesn't have a detachable lens or special features or an excellent processor, but for 750 kr (€85 or AU$115) it is the best buy I could have hoped for. It was actually the cheapest camera with a Lithium-Ion battery, but it received better reviews that more expensive cameras with similar features on various websites that I scoured.

After around a decade of digital cameras, more or less all of them are all right for facebook photos and making short videos of strange things you see while travelling. I had been considering buying a Canon G12 (around 6-7 more expensive), which is the bridge between point-and-shoots and DSLRs, but I knew that I would always be afraid to take it out of the house lest it get stolen or broken or scratched or whatnot.

As my friend Per Nilsson said, "The best camera you can buy is the camera you carry with you." If you are too afraid to carry the damned thing, why have it at all? It also conveniently follows the advice of my French lecturer in my Journalism bachelor (who used to be a war correspondent, if you're interested) who said the best advice he could ever give is to always carry a camera with you. As a freelancer, you never know when you are going to see a car crash involving a drunk politician and some school children crossing the street or something like that. You always want to be able to take a photo and sell it. On a less sinister note you could also take photos of your friends at parties and not worry about the camera being stepped on.