Here’s one of our regular features we haven’t done for a while – a special type of equipment review of my writing and photography gear. (For a laugh Google “Olympus Camedia Product Review” and see what comes up first. You’ll see what I mean.)
I’m loyal to my gear if it performs. If it serves me well, I’m only too proud to tell people how great it is. And if it fails to perform? Well that’s where my Brian Symonds over-sized, mega-sole wedge comes in. Besides, to paraphrase famous rock manager Ian Faith, in the topsy-turvy worlds of rock’n’roll and sports writing, it often it comes in handy to have a solid hunk of iron in your hand.
So with that by way of introduction, the aforementioned O-lame-pus let me down time and again, finally failing late the night before a round at a rare and wonderful private club. I raced to Best Buy and on recommendation a friend grabbed the Coolpix over my own misgivings that it didn’t have a viewfinder and was too small.
Unfortunately for me, (and two years worth of pictures), my hunches were right. While the lack of a view finder was just an inconvenience, I noticed a drop in performance right away. It was terrible for golf photos. The zoom made every picture blurrier than the Old Hubble Telescope photos, which was a huge drawback, (before they fixed that thing. Now it works great!) As I feared, it was cumbersome to use, (you try taking pictures with a camera the size of a watch!). There was nothing ergonomic about it at all. It was clumsy when uploading, erasing, and organizing photos, wasting my most valuable asset, my time.
It was also made of plastic or some space age plastic polymer, same difference. Which meant it could, and did break in an infuriating way. The snap of the battery case broke one day, which meant I also had to hold the batteries in manually with the same hand operating the shutter.
Screw that, Jack. Coolpix, meet my friend Brian Symonds.
Looking at the devastation, you’d never know I really didn’t get all of it! I thought I only caught it a glancing blow. (I was wearing a winter parka at the time, so it wasn’t easy to swing, even with a sweet spot the size of the football on that club. At least the O-lame-pus Comedian I had two jumps back could take a shot in the chops. I had to hit it three times to bash its brains in. KIDDING! KIDDING! It was only when the club faced carved through the front of the camera like a hot knife through butter that I realized what a cheap piece of plastic it was.
We’re going to try the 8 MP camera on my new Droid MAXX Smartphone for a while and see if that works. Short of that, I got a recommendation for the Canon EOS or Rebel from both my old girlfriend Britt and her old boyfriend Mumbley, (we called him that because he talked liked Mushmouth from the old Fat Albert cartoons. Remember that guy? “Iba don’tba speakba English goodba?” Well Mumbley was worse. You had to ask him to repeat himself three times before you heard what he said. Then he’d get angry like it was YOUR fault and shout it at you.
Anyway, we hope to take the Droid out for a test drive this weekend. As you can see, the Brian Symonds wedge still works quite well:)
