Canon SX1 IS – A Tentative Love Affair

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Hubby and I decided to buy a new camera. Which means that I decided we should buy a new camera and hubby happily went along with it. After having spent a week researching cameras on the net, pondering over whether we should have a compact or a DSLR camera I stumbled upon megazoom, and a new world opened up before me. Not to mention even more sleepless nights weighing up pros and cons of the different types of cameras. But, in the end we (I) finally decided on a Canon SX1 IS, and the finding-the-cheapest-price-process began. Another week passed by, more sleepless nights. The search for the perfect combo in a shop/internetshop took forever. The price on the camera could be good, but then the memory cards would be more pricey, or the charger, and who would offer extra insurance, and shipment costs... The list went on and on and on. But, in the end we were able to decide on the shop as well, and an order was made.

But, by this time, so much effort and emotions had gone into this process (not to mention that the camera wasn't super cheap in the first place) so it had to supergreat! It HAD to be!! I was tripping around for five days before, at last, the much-longed-for-camera finally arrived at the post office.

The first day was spent running around taking pictures of tables, windows, pencils... you name it, I shot it. And of course telling everyone who would care to listen about how great it was. But, deep inside was this tiny nasty voice telling me that was it really? Was it really that great? And weren't those pics of the pencils quite blurred and unfocused? But it couldn't be so. I had so much emotions invested in this. IT HAD TO BE SUPERGREAT!! But it wasn't, the pictures were blurred, and unfocused, and not good. Even hubby rather disapointed pointed out that he couldn't get the pics to be any good. Tears all around. Well, not really, but in my heart I cried. Because i had wanted this camera to be God's Gift to Wandering Lady. And I would suddenly take great proffesional looking pictures that people would admire. And so the camera was banished to the back corner of the workdesk, behind the laptop and the printer.

But, this weekend I decided that I had to figure it out. There were lots of raving reviews of it on the net, so obviously it was not the camera who was faulty but rather my knowledge of it.

I have downloaded all available manuals for it, been on several forums, blogs, and photography websites. I have read about exposure, shuttertime, and lots I can't even pronounce. And slowly the pics are getting better. I am in love with the macro-mode, although to get great pics I do need lots of light. After having discovered shutterspeed, I suddenly found out that I can take great pics of the Munchkin running around in the living room. Taking pics in continious mode (which was one of the things I were really really really looking forward to use) is still rather disapointing, but on the other hand, I am not even halfway through the manual.

The point to this post? Maybe there isn’t a point. Well, I started out wanting to write about how you can hype yourself up so much about something so when you finally got it you are bound to be dissapointed. After having re-read what I have written I do feel I got lost somewhere in the middle and ended up towards don't blame the thing if it's because you don't know enough about it.

Anyway. I do love the camera. I really do. But I do see that I have to do a bit of work before it will produce the award-winning pictures I thought it would.