For Christmas, I told Lance that I wanted a pocket sized camera so that I could keep it in my purse for those Kodak moments that can not be properly caputured with a camera phone. I did tons of research on cameras to find the perfect one. And at long last, I determined that I wanted a Casio Exilim 10 mp camera. When I finally opened it, I was thrilled with how nicely it fit into my purse pocket, and I have found it to be very handy for those occasions where I don't feel like lugging my SLR around, or when I rush out of my house and forget to bring it with me (which is most of the time).
Anyway, I have been reasonably pleased with the photos but it is hard to get pictures you love from a camera like that, once you get used to using an SLR (and when you are too lazy to read the instruction manual). Then, a few weeks ago, it fell into the hands of one of my children. How do I know this? When Lance came home from a trip, he reported that it was sitting in the cat food bowl. I am quite certain that is not where I keep it so I figured I was safe in assuming that one of the boys got it. Of course, that meant it had to be Jared so I gave him a warning to never touch my camera again without asking, and I tucked it back into my purse.
A week passed before I went on a field trip with Joe's class to the park. While I was there, I took several pictures of the kids and I was extremely disturbed by the quality of the photographs. They were such cute photos but they were super cloudy. I downloaded them to my computer and I found that they were not any better. Of course, I was upset because that meant that Jared probably dropped my camera and broke it. So, yesterday, I decided to send it back to Casio for repair along with a letter telling them how unhappy I was with this camera (of course not mentioning the part where Jared had manhandled it). After I finished typing my scathing letter and sending it on through the e-mail link provided, I started to pack the camera up for shipping. Suddenly, the thought crossed my mind that I had not checked the lens to see if it was clean. So, I turn the camera back on and would you believe, there wasn't an inch of that lens that was not smudged by some dirty little fingers. It didn't occur to me that this could be the problem because the lens is so small that it didn't seem like something that would be fooled with. But, once again, I underestimated the powers of Jared. So, of course, I cleaned off the lens, took a few more pictures and decided that I might should have a lovely bowl of crow for lunch. Of course, I won't be telling Casio about this.
In any case, the other thing I found when I downloaded the field trip photos was about 25 photos that Jared had taken prior to dumping the camera in the cat bowl. These are a few of them. Of course, my favorite had to be the picture of his face, which was the proverbial nail in the coffin. And the picture of Kitty. She is so fat that I'm not sure that her whole body would have fit into the frame if he had tried. ha ha!
I have to admit that I am relieved that my camera is back in working order. Although, I am a bit disappointed that I can't parlay this into one of the cute pink fuji pocket cameras I saw at Best Buy yesterday. Oh well.