The Angst of Choosing A Good Point and Shoot

I didn’t know it was this hard to look for a point and shoot camera.  It’s been three days since I first decided that I couldn’t do without it, and now I’m stuck; there are so many models to choose from, I am beginning to think that somebody could start a reality show based on the whole thing. 
 Soon as I decided that I finally made my choice, there’s this annoying little voice inside my head that says, “Wait. Are YOU sure the Canon A3000 is what you need? Check out first this Panasonic Lumix, they’re in the same price range, and it has Leica lens! Or what about the Pentax Optio…and you’re forgetting the Nikon Coolpix series!”  and so on.

Thing is, I only want a camera because I want to take better pictures of my dogs, and maybe a few other things. I don’t intend to take “art” pictures with it (what a ridiculous thought) and I don't need a pricier point and shoot.
 So I probably need just the most basic point and shoot, just a step higher from my crappy phone camera (that reminds me; my phone finally conked out).
At least that was the plan, before I Googled (this is helpful, btw) and got bombarded with megapixels, image stabilization, ISO, purple fringing, optical and digital zoom, and somehow I no longer need just a basic point and shoot; I wanted something higher, faster, and prettier! Before I knew it, I succeeded in introducing into my life a whole new field to bitch about.  
 It’s uncanny how in these modern times a man easily finds something to be frustrated about. Especially the ones you can't afford.
It occurred to me that there are a slew of yet undiscovered disappointments out there; they are virtually at the tip of one’s fingers, just waiting for the unwary!  What a scary thought.
I guess Buddha and other wise men were right after all.
And I still don’t know yet which camera to get.
Or maybe I should get a new phone instead.
Sigh.

Comments

Post a Comment

So, what do you think? Post it here:

Popular posts from this blog

The Square Cube Law and How It Killed Giants

Image
We are so used to the idea of giants that we take it for granted that they exist, or must have existed at one point in our history.  You know, those very large and very tall human-like creatures, carrying a humongous club, and being very nasty. Like this: And if you are a typical, god-fearing Catholic Pinoy, you would swear that not only are they true, you even saw one beside that big-ass, scary-looking tree not far from your home, one night when you were going home after an evening of binge-drinking with your buddies. And the bastard’s smoking a cigar as long and as big as your leg! Or you know someone who saw one of those cigar-smoking monsters. This creature is called a kapre —a cigar-smoking giant wearing a loincloth. Or maybe a tikbalang —a half-man, half-horse creature about as tall as a kapre. Unlike a centaur, however, a tikbalang is a giant with the torso and arms of a man, and the head and legs of a horse.  Scary creatures, these—and, if I may add
Read more

Vincent

Image
Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings are valued today at hundreds of millions of dollars. One of the world’s greatest painters, he is also one of the most influential figures in Post-Impressionism art. Ironic, because nobody wanted his paintings when he was alive.  He was a “weirdo” and nobody really understood him. Except for the few friends he had with other struggling, unsuccessful painters, one of whom he quarreled with, a quarrel that resulted in Van Gogh cutting off his ear with  a razor.  He also suffered from delusions and had psychotic breaks. He seldom ate and drank heavily. He was one of those tortured souls who had so much to give but was largely ignored. His genius and artistry nobody really got while he was alive. He was an idealist, a sensitive soul who had too much empathy. Imagine somebody like that living today.  At age 37, Vincent Van Gogh - struggling with depression, mental illness, and thinking that he was a failure - killed himself.  You know, maybe Don McLean
Read more

Typhoons and Earthquakes in the Philippines

Image
The Philippines has more than its fair share of disasters, and not because the country is particularly cursed or anything, but because the entire archipelago—purportedly composed of 7,100 islands—lies on a region in the Pacific Ocean called the “Ring of Fire” (actually, the area is shaped more like a horseshoe, although to be fair, “The Horseshoe of Fire” doesn’t have the same impact as the “Ring of Fire”). About 40,000 kilometers long, the “ring” runs from the southern tip of South America, up along the coast of North America, across the Bering Strait, down through Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia (the Ring of Fire’s western edge extends into the Indian Ocean), and to New Zealand.  The “Fire” part of the Ring of Fire is because a string of 452 volcanoes dot this line, like a malevolent game of connect-the-dots. The regions along this line experience volcanic eruptions and periodic earthquakes—majority of them small, hardly-felt tremors, and the few devastating ones that kil
Read more

The Queen of Heaven

Image
Inanna, “The Queen of Heaven,” is a goddess of Sumerian origin: goddess of warfare, fertility, and sexual love. The Akkadians called her Ishtar , a name from which Easter was derived. Yes, the Christian holiday. Inanna is the most popular and important female deity in ancient Mesopotamia. She is also known as a healer, life giver, composer of songs, and possessing a wide range of emotions—passionate, ambitious, jealous, grieving, joyful, timid, and generous. In later cultures, she went by different names: Astarte, Isis, Aphrodite—she was the Goddess. She is the original femme fatale , the embodiment of the woman every man dreams about; the female that devours men, the female that attracts/scares men; the virgin harlot. Every man knows at least one. The goddess makes an appearance in Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods.”  Throughout Sumer’s existence, her powers and deeds were glorified and extolled in myth, epic, and hymn. No one dared oppose her, neither god nor man. She was
Read more