A Brief Pause For A Geek Dance Of Happiness
I finally stepped into the digital age and bought myself a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W100 from Kalahari.net, along with a 1 GB SanDisk Memory Stick Pro Duo, since the camera only has 64 MB of built-in memory.
The package arrived yesterday morning just as I was leaving for work, so I spent the day daydreaming about it (and hoping that the correct camera had been packed in the box since, well, you never know in this country).
What an excruciating wait that was!
Upon arriving home I attacked the box and the packaging paraphernalia with great enthusiasm (and a knife). There really is no other way to do it because that white, plastic, packaging cord-like stuff that they use is ridiculously difficult to bite through*.
Then, another layer of anti-Mandy devices: this time green shrink-wrapped plastic around the box housing the camera. And an elastic band, for some reason. I really don't know what it was for, but at least now I have a spare one. I don't really know what I'll use it for, either, but they're always good to have around.
I finally got everything off and open and there was my shiny new camera - under a mound of manuals, I mean, most of which are in Japanese (and very informative). Resisting the urge to fiddle (with the camera) I found one of the few bits of paper with English printed on it and set about finding out what it was important for me to know in order that I do not immediately destroy my brand-new gadget in some fit of geek euphoria and random button pushing.
The first thing I learnt was that I had to charge my brand-new battery (thoughtfully included**) and that it would take approximately 330 minutes, and then I should leave it for an extra hour for some reason that I've already forgotten, and then finally unplug, unclip, remove, and so on immediately! There were also some maths and physics calculations involved concerning charging times versus temperature but by that point I had stopped paying attention and instead just plugged it in.
This moment was rather deflating, actually, because I estimated it would be about six hours before I could actually see if the camera works, and six hours later means the early hours of the morning.
The battery actually charged about two hours faster than it was supposed to, making me instantly suspicious, so I broke the rules and left everything plugged in as long as the instructions said I should, even though the other instructions said I shoudn't (confusing, I know). Finally, in the early hours of the morning I, still awake, unplugged everything and then set about inserting battery and Memory Stick into camera.
What a moment! Even my cat was thrilled!***
Long story short (...well, you know what I mean...) the camera is fantastic: 8.1 megapixels (equates to prints up to A3 in size), Carl Zeiss lens, high-res video, excellent macro shots, and a massive LCD at the back. Whoo! The menu and physical interfaces are also great. I didn't need to consult the instructions much in order to know how to do everything. What a rush!
Ok, I'm done. Happy Dance over. Thanks for indulging.
*That was a joke.
**Whereas a carrying case is not.
***Not really, especially when I started taking photos of him with the Borg-light function shining a red light into his face and the flash setting on "fffffuhchaaaaah!!!!".
The package arrived yesterday morning just as I was leaving for work, so I spent the day daydreaming about it (and hoping that the correct camera had been packed in the box since, well, you never know in this country).
What an excruciating wait that was!
Upon arriving home I attacked the box and the packaging paraphernalia with great enthusiasm (and a knife). There really is no other way to do it because that white, plastic, packaging cord-like stuff that they use is ridiculously difficult to bite through*.
Then, another layer of anti-Mandy devices: this time green shrink-wrapped plastic around the box housing the camera. And an elastic band, for some reason. I really don't know what it was for, but at least now I have a spare one. I don't really know what I'll use it for, either, but they're always good to have around.
I finally got everything off and open and there was my shiny new camera - under a mound of manuals, I mean, most of which are in Japanese (and very informative). Resisting the urge to fiddle (with the camera) I found one of the few bits of paper with English printed on it and set about finding out what it was important for me to know in order that I do not immediately destroy my brand-new gadget in some fit of geek euphoria and random button pushing.
The first thing I learnt was that I had to charge my brand-new battery (thoughtfully included**) and that it would take approximately 330 minutes, and then I should leave it for an extra hour for some reason that I've already forgotten, and then finally unplug, unclip, remove, and so on immediately! There were also some maths and physics calculations involved concerning charging times versus temperature but by that point I had stopped paying attention and instead just plugged it in.
This moment was rather deflating, actually, because I estimated it would be about six hours before I could actually see if the camera works, and six hours later means the early hours of the morning.
The battery actually charged about two hours faster than it was supposed to, making me instantly suspicious, so I broke the rules and left everything plugged in as long as the instructions said I should, even though the other instructions said I shoudn't (confusing, I know). Finally, in the early hours of the morning I, still awake, unplugged everything and then set about inserting battery and Memory Stick into camera.
What a moment! Even my cat was thrilled!***
Long story short (...well, you know what I mean...) the camera is fantastic: 8.1 megapixels (equates to prints up to A3 in size), Carl Zeiss lens, high-res video, excellent macro shots, and a massive LCD at the back. Whoo! The menu and physical interfaces are also great. I didn't need to consult the instructions much in order to know how to do everything. What a rush!
Ok, I'm done. Happy Dance over. Thanks for indulging.
*That was a joke.
**Whereas a carrying case is not.
***Not really, especially when I started taking photos of him with the Borg-light function shining a red light into his face and the flash setting on "fffffuhchaaaaah!!!!".
posted by Mandy J Watson at 1:10 PM
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4 Comments:
So are you planning to share the results of the feline photo-shoot?
No. The cat does not give me permission to invade his privacy (publicly, I mean), besides mentioning that he exists.
I have one of those sony camera's and I am still camera happy with it. I pictures I have taken with it on my blog. Though I can say that mine is only a 5 mega pixel and it still rocks.
I noticed yesterday. I saw all the black and white and sepia and colour versions on your blog and thought "I have those settings!"
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