So it’s the day after Thanksgiving. Your body has stored 14 pounds of turkey meat it hasn’t had time to digest over by your spleen, the refrigerator is leaning 22 degrees thanks to everything stuffed in it and if you see anything resembling stuffing in the next year, you will need psychiatric counseling.
But if you’re like millions of Americans today, the only thing on your mind is this: Just how in the heck do I go out and buy myself a digital camera?
Well, folks, I’m here to help. I hear this is the first year that digital cameras will outsell film cameras, and that’s no surprise. The future is going digital, and I’m sure our clothing and food will follow suit. But for now it’s all about digital cameras. Instead of taking a roll of film and never developing it, now you can take a bunch of photos, load them on to your computer, and, voila, never look at them. The comfort and convenience of losing those photos, usually of you and Aunt Martha, has never been easier thanks to digital technology, and I for one am thrilled. Think of the time it will save.
I recently became a digital camera owner after years of sticking to film. I own a Nikon film camera, but with a baby coming, I thought I needed to be hipper and join the technology revolution. This way I can talk about sending photos of the baby to family all across the country, even though I’ll never get around to it. But I could do it … if I wasn’t so lazy.
I found, however, that buying a digital camera can be harder than buying a car. Shoot, it can be more difficult than buying a house or a rocket or plutonium. There are so many brands and so many styles. There is so much terminology that will boggle the mind — doesn’t “megapixel” sound like a monster from a Godzilla flick? There are so many things to know and consider. And add-ons, and features, and tools, and …
Talk to a salesman about digital cameras and they go into long winding tales about this one which has a state-of-the-art 2-to-1 video screen, an alert to let you know if cars are coming, an electrode that will check your pulse and cholesterol, a lovely leather camera strap made of woolly mammoth hide found preserved in a glacier in Alaska or will actually cut down on the amount of ozone-depleting gases being released into the atmosphere.
“Wow!” you say to all of this. “And how do the pictures look?”
“Pictures? Well, um, you see. With all these added features, there wasn’t room for a camera in there. You have to buy that separately.”
Huh? Ain’t that something. A lot to learn.
So I spent days researching cameras, looking at dozens of brands and models. I schooled myself on the various options, and of course, terminology and functions. I spoke with comrades and photo buffs. I read articles, and searched out special Web sites dedicated to digital cameras and the most detailed of information, like how well it might work after being dropped from a speeding car into a vat of Jell-O when the temperature is below 50 degrees.
I compiled a list of a handful that I felt were the most impressive, and then, taking everything I had learned and all of my notes, I sat down one night and picked the one I thought looked most like a futuristic space ship.
Because that’s what you want most in a digital camera, right? You want it to look cool. You want people to think YOU’RE cool. “Hey, look at me. I just flew in from the future … on Mars. Can I take your picture?”
My new digital camera just arrived in the mail — I’m so cool I bought it on the Internet — and it’s a beauty. I feel like I’ve entered the 21st, and maybe even the 22nd, century. We still refuse to buy a microwave in my house, but baby steps. I’m too busy taking photos I’ll never look at. And I look cool!