Canon SX40 HS - New Used!
Scored a super-sweet deal on eBay:) I have been eyeing the SLR market, but they are a bit out of my price range and the guilt of spending all that money right now would make me never want to take the camera out of its case to actually learn how to use it. And then the whole learning curve thing... Maybe in a year or so when I get residency I'll look into a beginner DSLR, but until then, this bridge camera will do the trick. It has an amazing zoom - 35mm!!!! To save some money, I didn't get the latest model - that would have cost me a little over 400 for the SX50 model. Even the used ones right now are running for $350 - not a huge savings considering this is about 2 years old. The SX60 is rumored to be coming out in the fall of 2014.
So I did the next best thing: a little bit of an older model with virtually the same specs as the latest. The main difference is the zoom (30mm vs 50mm). But what kills me? There is no remote shutter on my camera. Gah. I did get it for about $100 (a steal! On Amazon they are $350 and used ones are around $180!) and the seller included a nice LowPro bag and a mini tripod:) A vast improvement from my tiny pink pocket Canon P&S with only 8 mp and a 3mm zoom - an almost 10 year old camera is on it's last leg:(
You can only imagine how excited I was waiting for this to arrive in the mail! And when it did, It felt like such a special day - my brand new used camera - the only thing that can ever bring you back in time - a photograph. The girl who owned it previously had only used it on special occasions and owned it for only 1.5 years. So it was a true bargain, indeed.
Now, like I mentioned before , it didn't have a remote shutter release like the latest model. That's important when you want to be in the pictures too - without having to ask strangers to take a photo of you, or having to set the timer and hope you can run fast enough to be in the frame with everyone else. I was contemplating selling this one and upgrading. But that's an extra couple hundred I just don't have right now (I wonder what it's like to be rich that a couple hundred is like a nickel or dime to them... sigh... to not have a budget... my fantasy world!)
Fortunately, I was able to find a forum called CHDK. They give you all sorts of tricks to, well, trick your Canon out. And one of those is installing a remote wireless shutter. Wish me luck as I try to get that figured out! At least there is an THAT option. It looks complicated because you have to make (like in legit soldering and wire cutting!) the remote control. I will keep researching to see if there is a way around it.
Besides that, it's an amazing camera. Tons of features. I don't even know what all these buttons mean yet! It will take me awhile to learn them, but I'm excited about it:) I think I will be having quite a long love affair with my new hobby:).
Speaking of learning...I accidentally had it on manual the first time I used it and I didn't know what I was doing. The test shots came out blurry. I started freaking out and thought the camera was defective. I played around with it and figured out the auto mode - voila! Problem solved. Crystal clear. After that happened, I'm super glad I didn't jump into a SLR - I would have been super frustrated. In fact, some pro photogs like this camera to take along when they travel and don't feel like lugging around expensive and heavy SLR equipment and having to worry about multiple lenses. So they are just like you and me, they just want to take good photos with a click sometimes too. Life happens so quick that you don't have time to worry about aperture and shutter speed and ISO. I guess I'll leave that up to the pros for now:) Sometimes you just want to capture that moment already (think impatient human subject - not naming anyone's fiancé...) And you know what? This camera does that just fine:).
Xo
