More than three full years later in December 2003, I bought an upgrade, a Sony DSC-V1<\/a>, in preparation for a trip to Germany and to document my expected last six months of living in London. Again, a hefty investment – these things usually are – but well worth it. A brick as it might be, being an all-metal body (one of its selling points at a time when many cameras were being pressed out with plastic bodies), I’ve carried it with me nearly everyday everywhere I went. My Picasa<\/a> program now manages over 15,000 images, or over a dozen images a day, something unachievable with 35mm film.<\/p>\n People who know me know my camera has gone through some damage – what you see up above I refer to as ‘battle scars’. Not so much abuse but rather constant use and travel have meant my camera is on its last leg. I don’t carry my camera in a bag or pouch else that’s another thing to keep track of and slows me down when most of my shots are spontaneous, so the constant in-out of the pocket and rubbing up to whatever else I’m carrying means scratches are inevitable. Recently, the camera, only under certain conditions, started to develop a spot.<\/p>\n At first I thought it was just the lighting conditions of a specific day, then I started to notice the spot in the same location on completely different shots (i.e. one outside, one in studio, etc.).<\/p>\n The timing is right, same three years and several months later. Time to upgrade.<\/p>\n My first two digital cameras were Sony, but don’t get me wrong I’m no Sony enthusiast. At the time however they made the best hardware for the market, so that’s what I went with. This time around I still thought I would see what they have to offer. The W90<\/a> seemed an obvious upgrade, with most of the same features, still in the Cyber-shot family, and an increase from 5 to 8 megapixels. ISO 3200 could prove useful, and a burst function of 100 images would be fun to mess with. But what’s this? No Manual control, and I would still be stuck with the highly proprietary Memory Stick format (the only thing off-putting about the V1). Shopping in the same megapixel range and higher consumer end of options, I’m now looking at the Canon PowerShot G7<\/a>. The ISO only goes to 1600 but the chassis is much-more in tune with my sensibilities and would grip better with my hands, plus I don’t need my cameras to be as small as my credit cards! And Canon are another company whose products I’ve always admired (my current inkjet printer is a Canon, well-pleased with that piece of hardware).<\/p>\n![\"bollocks](\"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/mavica-fd91.jpg\")
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