new camera

so our 6-year old point-and-shoot camera finally died.  i think it actually died on our chicago trip last september, but i haven't used it since then and finally got around to troubleshooting it last week.  it had been turning itself off when you would try to take a picture, even with brand new batteries.

i discharged and fully recharged my batteries last weekend, and was able to take a few pictures when i put them back in.  i turned it off and let it sit for a week, though, and it now powers down as soon as you turn it on - with the lens out!  very sad.  i do have my lovely dslr, but it's nice to have a smaller camera on hand for easier portability for traveling and long hikes.  in particular, though, with matson coming soon and scott being designated photographer of freshly-newborn matson, i think it's a good idea to have an easy to use camera alternative.

thus, i spent the last two days scouring camera reviews on amazon, consumer reports, and cnet.com (my favorite go-to spot for tech product reviews) ... and we bought a camera last night!  if you know me at all, that is pretty much record-breaking turnaround time on a buying decision.

i was debating between the canon sd1400 is, which consumer reports picked as one of their "best buys", and the canon sd1300 is.  they are essentially the same camera, both rated "very good" by cnet.com and with glowing customer reviews on amazon, with the slight difference that the 1400 has 14.1 megapixels where the 1300 has 12.1 (not a huge deal with the size of the pictures that they take), and the 1400 has slightly better video - a feature we're unlikely to use a great deal.

i vacillated between the two (and approximately 45 other cameras) and finally decided on the 1300 on sale for $110.  yesterday afternoon, armed with my $30 office depot rewards card and $20 off coupon and excited to get a nice camera for $60+tax, i went to officedepot.com and clicked "add to cart" ... and got a pop up saying that it wasn't available at that price any longer!  grrr.  i spent the rest of the day re-researching cameras, finally deciding to go ahead and do the 1400, which would be $130+tax after my discounts.  i decided to sleep on it, though, and talk it over with scott.  we had to return a dvd last night, though, so while we were out, we decided to drop by the office depot down the street from us to look at their cameras in person ... and lo and behold, they had the 1300 in store for $110!  hooray!  final price was $66 after discounts and tax.

today i'm going to utilize my amazon prime membership and get a case and a good memory card for it (memory cards are atrociously expensive at office depot), bringing our total cost for the whole camera package to ... $86!  great bargain shopping if i do say so myself.