As you may remember, our camera went into Mouse Creek (courtesy of the 14 year old). At least she was trying to get a good shot, and just slipped on a rock. She never got the shot, though all the pics on the card survived. I took the camera apart and dried it out, put it back together, and it turned on! 
But when I went to take a picture, the lens jammed and it’s hopeless. Either the gears got knocked out of whack, or there’s a bit of grit in there jamming them. I tried to free them manually, but the lens motor is inaccessible in this model, so I couldn’t free it.
So now we’re in the market for a new point and shoot! We don’t want to lug the big camera on vacation, so we thought we’d go look around. We’ve done a lot of research online, looking at sites like snapsort.com so we had an idea what we wanted:
- small but not too small
- good quality lens
- the special settings we use: macro, sports, self-timer
- good optical zoom
- decent sensor
- view finder
We’ve had good luck with Canons before, so that was where we started looking. We learned 2 very interesting things:
- you can’t buy a point and shoot camera with a view finder. Period. Which is too bad. I know that was sacrificed for space and cost, but it’s really very useful. Using the viewfinder when you have it helps stabilize the camera for better photos, and often the screens are hard to see in the sun. Not to mention using the screen sucks battery life.
- they don’t include a camera card! Not even a 512MB card! Used to be you got a small card with it, but no longer. So we shelled out $14 for a 4 Gig card, which ought to hold us.
We ended up getting a Canon A495 point and shoot camera. And it’s BLUE 
It has a 10 megapixel sensor which is a little better than trying to cram 12MP onto a sensor, but I’d have been happier with an 8MP one. But I think this will do.
We’ve taken a few photos with it so far, and I’m pretty pleased with the results!
Just look how happy everyone is with their cannoli!
So now we’re all set for vacation, and won’t miss a moment of our adventures!
What camera do you use to take the casual, fun pictures?
Jenn
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July 17, 2010
Vickie
I like my Canon SD1100. It does have a viewfinder but I just realized that I never use it. Your little blue Canon is very cute. Enjoy!