I may have mentioned it before, but I am a hockey mom. Two of my three children play hockey and we are constantly on the go – practice, game, practice, tournament. The only respite is the month of July when not much happens in the youth hockey world.
Since we are so active, there are many, many photo opportunities to capture and scrapbook. Some people love to shoot photos and video of the games, start to finish. I love getting shots of the kids and their teammates before a game, after a game, running around the hotels, jumping in the pool, carrying their bags and sticks to the car, mom and dad giving them a high-five and “good game” when they come out of the locker room. You get it. The candid, everyday moments. I guarantee that when the kids are no longer kids and they look back on their days of sports, they will remember very few games. They will remember these moments. For a very long time I used a 35mm camera to take these shots. I loved that camera. It was never very far out of reach.
Then the unthinkable happened – I lost it!!! Days and days I searched for it. Finally I gave up. I was so heartsick that I did not immediately go out and buy another. I merely purchased single use, disposable cameras “just until I found the other one”. Well, that time never came and technology was rapidly catching up to me. I watched the other parents with green-eyed envy as they took picture after picture, turning their digital cameras to me and showing me the photo they took just two second before. It was then I began to whine. I wanted a digital camera and bad. I showed my husband ads in the Sunday paper of digital cameras. I pointed out Best Buy and Circuit City ads on TV. And just in case he didn’t get the hint I told the kids “if dad asks you what I want for Christmas tell him a digital camera.”
I guess it worked, or everyone was so annoyed they just bought me off. I received my beautiful Olympus digital camera on Christmas Day. I have never been so happy with a gift. Finally, no more disposable cameras! Finally, a zoom lens!! I used that darn thing every day. No kidding. My kids loved it, too. They took pictures of each other, the tv, dinner, the hamster, the cat and themselves. It was great. But sadly, the honeymoon had to end.
In January, my sons hockey team was using a practice as a fun, skills competition between themselves. It was just a teambonding, fun time; meant to blow off some steam and keep the kids having fun. They were going to do some relay races, puck shooting contests, etc. Just before we had to leave for the rink I started to go through the pictures on my memory card to see if there were any I could delete to make room for more. I turned the camera on and starting flipping though the memory – blurry picture of Queen Bee posing for herself, delete; picture of Queen Bee’s feet in her new shoes, delete; picture of Moxie’s nose and left eye (her attempt to take a close up I guess); delete. It went on like this for about five minutes. When I was done I hit the power button and nothing happened but this terrible little *whirrr*. The lens did not close but the power went off. It was stuck. I hit the power button again. Another *whirrrr*. Then nothing. It wouldn’t turn on and the lens was extended like a telescope. I couldn’t believe it! Then I did the mental math…got it for Christmas last year, now it’s January, one year warranty. ARRRGGGHH. Not covered.
I took it to the camera store. Bad news – happens a lot to digital cameras, it’ll cost you $180 flat fee for us to send it the manufacturer. Went to another camera store. Bad news – happens a lot to digital cameras. If you would have bought it from us and purchased the extended warranty for $30 it would have been covered. Went to the manufacturer (well, I went to their website) = sortof bad news – $80 flat fee to send it in for repair. Now here is my dilema; spend the $80 to send it in and hope for the best while waiting for I don’t know how many weeks. Or pony up the $100 to $300 for a new one. This happened five months ago and I’m still so heartsick I can’t decide… For now, I guess I’ll buy a disposable camera.
Well, well, well…been thre and done that, sort of. For years I used disposable cameras. I figured if they were good enough when I worked as an investigator that they were good enough for every day shots of every day stuff, but like you I got to the point where I had to have a digital one. After years of no batteries, no film, no memory cards, no on the spot views and delete I bought a Kodak Easy Share Z710. I loved it at first and now a little more than a year and I have issues which cause me to take a shot of a lo 20 times before it will even show on the #%$^^&@@ computer for me to see. ERRR! There goes entering ym favorite photo contest once a month…too unreliable. So, I’m with ya sorta. Good luck making a decision but don’t buy Kodak! I won’t next time.
[...] I love it!! My last digital camera bit the big one about a year ago (see my woeful blog post http://birdsofafeather19.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/digital-camera-diaries/). What is a scrapbooker and parent of rapidly growing children supposed to do without a [...]