My Yellow Taxi

As the song goes "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone".  And that bell has rung true for me on more than one occasion.  But I never thought it would hit home so much when it came to my camera.   I mean, really, who is that attached to their camera?  I guess the answer is...Me.   I posted a while back about its slow demise and why I think photographs are so important to me, especially now that we live 6000 miles from home.  And I needed to find a replacement...Now.  I could keep mine on life support for only so long and I get a bit anxious when I go too many days without taking a few snaps.  And my cell phone camera really just doesn't make the grade.  So I had to make a decision and fast.   It was imperative that I could get it shipped to B's hotel and time the arrival for the 5 days he would be in the U.S. (and the Gymboree, Children's Place and halloween costume orders too).  You really don't want to buy an imported anything in Chile, but a camera will run you at least twice what it retails for in the states.  

It really wasn't that hard for me to make a decision, just much harder to spend the money.   I already knew what I wanted as I have been hinting about wanting a new camera body for about a year.  I have spent a considerable amount of my free time online looking up comparisons and pricing them, just wishing that someday I could get a new one.  I have ogled them in stores when we passed by the window.  I have told B countless times - "this shot would have been so much better if I just had the right camera".  But I also knew that I had a perfectly good camera.  Actually, a better one than most probably have.  Unless I was going to become a professional photographer (not on my radar) or somehow started making my own spending money (again not on the radar here in Chile, I can get by at the grocery store, but work is another story) I was not in any position to ask for a new camera body.   And in this instance, the body is all I need.  It's like the rest of us - the body wore out after a lot of use.  My lenses all work just fine and since I was staying with the Canon brand, they would all transfer to the new body.  It made the pill a little less difficult for B to swallow when I told him that I really did need to pull the plug and make the purchase.  It was still a pretty big pill.  

As for me, I did a happy dance just a bit.  I would never have wished my camera to start pushing up daisies, but it did and I couldn't pretend that I wasn't just slightly happy.  I now had the chance to upgrade.  And upgrade I did.  I moved up and out of the entry level and into a serious enthusiast/semi-pro level.  I was so excited when I added the camera to my cart.  I was giddy just thinking about holding it in my hands and snapping that first shot. I couldn't wait to test it out.  And I couldn't wait to try out my new lens too.  Yes, I know, just a paragraph above I said that my current lenses would work just fine.  And they do.  But with the money I saved on the camera body (I am a great shopper), I purchased the one lens I had been coveting for a long time - a 50mm 1:1.8.  For those that know photography, you know you just can't live without one.    

When B returned home from the states on Saturday, I don't think I even said hello.  Well, I said hello but I was just being polite...I missed him, sure.  He had been gone all week.  But my camera had been gone a month.  Priorities, people, priorities!  I went to his bag, dug around through his dirty clothes for my goodies and started checking everything out.  I plugged in the battery to charge and while I was waiting for it to be ready, I started reading the manual.  Yes, I always read the manual.  It's a necessity for a camera.  Heck, I even re-read the manual sometimes when I think I am in a rut.  Inevitably there is something in there you forgot and it starts you thinking about new ways to shoot things.  I was antsy to get started but batteries need to be fully charged so I tried to be patient.  And I am about as patient as my 2 year old...not very.  I kept running into the bathroom to check and see if the light had switched from red to green.  It hadn't but it was blinking faster and that meant it was getting closer.

And then all of a sudden, there it was!  Green light!  I was ready to go - and I was raring to go.  I didn't have a lot of time to play that day, or really in the couple of days since but I know that it is here and ready for me to play with at any time.  And that makes me a little less anxious.  I have taken enough pictures with it to know that the difference between my old body and the new one is considerable.  The new camera has better image quality, shoots faster (needed with kids), has lower noise, but most of all it has a much much much higher resolution.  80% higher.  This translates to 80% more detail in every shot.  In short, what I see through the viewfinder is what I am going to see on screen when I upload my shots.  Something that was always a bit of a let down with my trusty old sidekick.   

I am now going out to play.  With my kids and the camera.  I leave you with a few of the shots I have taken.  You tell me if it was worth the upgrade.