New Toy

I pulled the trigger on this today. It should be arriving in a few days. Hopefully, before next Friday when I'm going to a Christmas party at my old friend Scott and his boyfriend's place in Chelsea. Alan, Scott's boyfriend is like Martha Stewart on entertaining. He always has the best food and the campiest displays and we sing Christmas carols in their living room with a bunch of people while he plays the piano next to a blue-lit Christmas tree.

Anyway, this is my, probably, 10th digital camera over the past 10 yrs. I currently have one, a Leica Digi-Lux3 with a fantastic tan carrying case (Camera $500; Case $400 from eBay) that I got a couple of yrs. ago. But I've found out that I hardly take it anywhere with me because it's too big to be pocketable. It's not an SLR nor SLR size. But still, I have to strap it around me vs. putting it in my pocket.

Incidentally, I wasn't really looking for a new camera eventhough I don't carry my Leica around as much as I should. I was actually looking into the Flip Mino HD. It's a camcorder the size of a cellphone. I liked the idea of making short clips with it. Afterall, I have a camera, why not try a different medium? It's $220; records and plays 720p HD, small, and auto-loads to YouTube with it's internal, pop out USB port. The Flip is simple. Only has a record, play, stop, ff&rw buttons and no moving parts. The video is stored in it's 4GB internal SD flash memory for 1 hr. of recording. It's the kind of toy and a tool that Andy Warhol would have loved to carry around everywhere.

So, I researched and the research lead me to other similar camcorders. All pocketable with flash memory based recording. I looked at the Kodak Zi6, RCA EZ300, and the Creative Zen Vod. They were pretty much all comparable. Then I saw all of their sample videos and reviews on YouTube and I wasn't impressed. Technically, they could all do HD video but the videos didn't look HD at all. They were all very average. So, the technology has a couple of more years to go I think before it can rival the larger, non-pocketable camcorders. I was disappointed.

But then I thought, well, I still have Christmas parties and places that I'll be going to where I would like to capture the images and especially, when I go home for Christmas. My grandmother is 82 and my parents are 67 and I don't have a single picture or video of them over the past 5 yrs. (for shame!). I don't know how long they will be around for and if someday they expire and I don't have a picture or video of them from recent times, I think that I would be very very sad. So, I resolved to get something.

The best option, based on continued research, was this camera. I happened to stumble upon it at Hammacher Schlemmer site. It showed this picture and proclaimed it to be the world's smallest and thinnest 10 megapixel camera. It raised my curiosity and I read on. Smallest, thinnest, credit card sized, takes pictures...and video. Well, most digital cameras over the past 2 yrs. do take both pictures and video and the 10 megapixel count did not impressive me either. I know that more megapixels does not necessarily (and in most cases) make the picture quality better. But what I did like was the size, confirmed by it's 4 ounce weight (that's lighter than many cellphones and pocket cameras) and the rave and consistently great reviews on Amazon and camera review sites such as DPreview and Stevesreviews.

To make the long story short. After 2 days of online research, there were a few other things I liked about this camera that made me pull the trigger. 1) It has a standalone RECORD button on the back. So if I want to go from taking pics to taking video, I simply have to press that button to start and press again to stop to record VIDEO instead of having to dig into the on-screen menu and go through options to pick video recording in order to switch from picture taking to video making. So, in fact, with this 'camera' pictures and videos are both a one button process. Snap!; 2)the quality of the videos and sound seemed just as good or slightly better than the Flip and it's rivals; 3) It has the auto-YouTube load function as well; 4) it has a SD slot unlike the Flip. So, 4GB of SD flash memory will give me nearly 1.5 hrs. of video recording capabilities and 5) finally, it's both a camera for pictures and a video recorder!

Done. I can't wait until it arrives.

Now, there were 4 color choices: Black, Red, Blue, and Stainless Steel. I decided to get the stainless steel one. It looks great in the picture above. Looks very modern and retro. It kindda has the same exterior look as the Chrysler Building. My favorite building in Manhattan and I've had so many cameras in different colors that I want to go back to the non-colored version again. Btw, Hammacher is selling it for $250 on it's website. Fck that! I always use 'pricegrabber' Asia boy here saw the Exilim logo (which I knew was Casio) on the picture and found the exact model somewhere else. It's the Casio Exilim EX-S10... 'S' for slim (not all Casio Exilims are slim). I'm getting it for $189 a (i.e. net, $80 savings, with free shipping and no tax)! It's a steal.

[Lastly, I did also consider another option. The new Samsung Omni phone. It's a cellphone, a 5 megapixel camera, and it also does video recording. $199 phone upgrade after Verizon contract extension. I would have gotten it. But the video and sound quality was so bad that I decided to wait on the next version which will probably come out in six months or so. Asia boy, quite comprehensive with research :]

Gosh. I sure do get excited about new toys. Only if I can get excited about everything else in my life to this degree... life would be perfect.